column was seen;
yet General Banks officially reports that his army left Pleasant Hill at
daybreak of the 10th. Homeric must have been the laughter of his troops
when this report was published.

CHAPTER XI.

ESCAPE OF BANKS AND PORTER.

From my resting-place on the ground at Pleasant Hill, after the battle
of the 9th, I was aroused about 10 P.M. by General Kirby Smith, just
arrived from Shreveport. This officer disapproved of further pursuit of
Banks, except by a part of our mounted force, and ordered the infantry
back to Mansfield. He was apprehensive that the troops on the transports
above would reach Shreveport, or disembark below me and that place. In
addition, Steele's column from Arkansas caused him much uneasiness, and
made him unwilling for my troops to increase their distance from the
capital of the "Trans-Mississippi Department." It was pointed out that
the water in Red River was falling, and navigation becoming more and
more difficult; that I had a staff officer watching the progress of the
fleet, which was not accompanied by more than three thousand men, too
few to attempt a landing, and that they would certainly hear of Banks's
defeat and seek to rejoin him at Grand Ecore. As to Steele he was more
than a hundred miles distant from Shreveport, harassed by Price's force;
he must learn of Banks's misfortune, and, leading but a subsidiary
column, would retire to Little Rock. Banks, with the remains of his
beaten army, was before us, and the fleet of Porter, with barely water
enough to float upon. We had but to strike vigorously to capture or
destroy both. But it was written that the sacrifices of my little army
should be wasted, and, on the morning of the 10th, I was ordered to take
all the infantry and much of the horse to Mansfield.

The Bayou Pierre, three hundred feet wide and too deep to ford, leaves
the Red River a few miles below Shreveport, and after a long course, in
which it frequently expands into lakes, returns to its parent stream
three miles above Grand Ecore, dividing the pine-clad hills on the west
from the alluvion of the river on the east. Several roads lead from the
interior to landings on the river, crossing Bayou Pierre by ferries. One
from Pleasant Hill to Blair's Landing, sixteen miles, has been
mentioned. Another led from Mansfield to Grand Bayou Landing, eighteen
miles. Dispatches from Captain McCloskey informed me that the enemy's
fleet had passed this last place on the mo