ge, but in spring they are full to the top and often
overflowing thus making a system of natural waterways that reach within
a mile or two of every plantation with currents strong enough to carry
the flat boats laden with sugar, cotton and corn to New Orleans,
Brashear or the ports on the coast. Here and there the yet unfilled
depressions in the soil form large but shallow lakes, that in the dry
season are mere marshes.

[Illustration: MAJOR THOMAS M'MANUS
Hartford, Conn.
Major of 25th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers.]

This was the region where it was fated that the Twenty-fifth
Connecticut regiment should make its spring campaign in 1863. Early in
December we had taken possession of Baton Rouge on the Mississippi and
had employed our time in practically learning the art of war, and we
prided ourselves on our proficiency in drill and discipline. The winter
had been, to us who were accustomed to our rigorous climate here, very
mild, but we had begun to feel as early as the end of March, a
foretaste of that terrible enervation that the coming summer was to
bring to our men habituated to our bracing air of Connecticut. We were
somewhat hardened to the little outdoor inconveniences of Louisiana. We
didn't mind the mosquitoes, although they were ten times as big--a
hundred times as hungry and a thousand times as vicious as those we
raise here. We didn't mind the wood-ticks, and although we preferred
not to have moccasin snakes in our tents, they would come sometimes. We
had made a movement on Port Hudson early in March and the Twenty-fifth
was in the lead, seven miles in advance of the main army. We had built
a bridge over the Bayou Montecino, and had lain on our arms all night
awaiting orders to attack Port Hudson, when Farragut's fleet attempted
to pass the batteries. Only two of his ships, the Hartford and
Albatross, succeeded, while the Richmond was disabled and the
Mississippi was destroyed. We had engaged in a night skirmish with the
enemy at Montecino, and had lost one man in that affair. We had retired
from Port Hudson as rear guard to the column. Ours was the post of
danger every time, and we had encountered the worst storm and waded
through the deepest mud to be found on the continent and had bivouacked
in a field almost as dry as the bottom of Lake Ontario.

With these experiences we felt like veterans, but we didn't then know
how much we had to learn. On March 31, our regiment w