been a shopkeeper or
scribbling attorney, he might have found favor with the dictator who
ruled France.

All the information received during the months of January and February,
1864, indicated a movement against me in the early spring; and in the
latter month it was ascertained that Porter's fleet and a part of
Sherman's army from Vicksburg would join Banks's forces in the movement,
while Steele would cooeperate from Little Rock, Arkansas. This
information was communicated to department headquarters, and I asked
that prompt measures should be taken to reenforce me; but it was "a far
cry" to Shreveport as to "Lochow," and the emergency seemed less
pressing in the rear than at the front.

The end of February found my forces distributed as follows: Harrison's
mounted regiment (just organized), with a four-gun battery, was in the
north, toward Monroe; Mouton's brigade near Alexandria; Polignac's at
Trinity on the Washita, fifty-five miles distant; Walker's division at
Marksville and toward Simmsport on the Atchafalaya, with two hundred men
under Colonel Byrd detached to assist the gunners at De Russy, which,
yet unfinished, contained eight heavy guns and two field pieces. Walker
had three companies of Vincent's horse on the east side of the
Atchafalaya, watching the Mississippi. The remainder of Vincent's
regiment was on the Teche.

Increased activity and concentration at Berwick's Bay, and a visit of
Sherman to New Orleans to confer with Banks, warned me of the impending
blow; and on the 7th of March Polignac was ordered to move at once to
Alexandria, and thence, with Mouton's brigade, to the Boeuf,
twenty-five miles south. Harrison was directed to get his regiment and
battery to the west bank of the Washita, gather to him several
independent local companies of horse, and report to General Liddell,
sent to command on the north bank of Red River, whence he was to harass
the enemy's advance up that stream. Vincent was ordered to leave flying
scouts on the Teche and move his regiment, with such men as Bush had
recruited, to Opelousas, whence he afterward joined me on the Burr's
Ferry road. At Alexandria steamers were loaded with stores and sent
above the falls, and everything made ready to evacuate the place. These
arrangements were not completed a moment too soon.

On March 12th Admiral Porter, with nineteen gunboats, followed by ten
thousand men of Sherman's army, entered the mouth of Red River. (These
numbers are from