at long range, and
bivouacked; and our scouts reported the movement on the lake. My
dispositions were as follows: Mouton, with six hundred men and six guns,
held the left from the lake to the Teche. The Diana in the bayou and two
twenty-fours on the right bank guarded the stream and the main road; and
sixteen hundred men, with twelve guns, prolonged the line to the
railway embankment on our extreme right, held by Green with his
dismounted horsemen. One of Green's regiments, Colonel Reilly, the 2d
Louisiana cavalry, Colonel Vincent, recently embodied, and a section of
guns, were at Hutchin's Point on Grand Lake.

The cannonading ceased at dark, and when all was quiet I rode up to
Franklin, thirteen miles, to look after my rear. A staff officer had
been previously sent to direct the removal of stores from New Iberia,
order down Clack's battalion, some ninety men, from the salt mines, and
communicate with Fuller at Butte a la Rose; but the country around the
Butte was flooded, and he was unable to reach it.

Above Franklin the Teche makes a great bend to the east and approaches
Grand Lake at Hutchin's Point, where there was a shell bank, and a good
road leading to the high ground along the bayou. The road to New Iberia
leaves the Teche at Franklin to avoid this bend, and runs due north
across the prairie. Just clear of the village it enters a small wood,
through which flows a sluggish stream, the Bayou Yokely, crossed by a
bridge. In the wood and near the stream the ground was low and boggy,
impassable for wagons except on a causeway. The distance from Hutchin's
Point to Yokely Bridge was less than that from Bisland; and this bridge,
held by the enemy, made escape from the latter place impossible; yet to
retreat without fighting was, in the existing condition of public
sentiment, to abandon Louisiana.

I remained at Franklin until after midnight, when, learning from Reilly
that no landing had been made at Hutchin's, I returned to Bisland. The
enemy was slow in moving on the 13th, apparently waiting for the effect
of his turning movement to be felt. As the day wore on he opened his
guns, and gradually increased his fire until it became very heavy. Many
of his field pieces were twenty-pounder Parrotts, to which we had
nothing to reply except the Parrott on the Diana and the twenty-fours;
and, as our supply of ammunition was small, Major Brent desired to
reserve it for an emergency.

With the exception of Green's command,