facing toward the east, and waited for
the coming of Grover. South of the bayou road stood Clack; on his
left, two pieces of Cornay's battery, next Reily, then Vincent with
a second section of Cornay's guns. The task before them was simple
but desperate. They were to hold off Grover until all but they
had safely passed behind the living barrier. Then they were to
extricate themselves as best they could, and falling in the rear
of the main column of the Confederate army try to make good their
own escape. Before this could happen, Grover might overwhelm them
or Banks might overtake them; yet there was no other way.

As early on the morning of Tuesday the 14th of April as it was
light enough to see, Grover marched on Franklin by the winding
bayou road. Preceded by Barrett and a strong line of skirmishers,
Birge with Rodgers's battery led the column; Dwight with Closson's
battery, followed; while Kimball with Nims's battery brought up
the rear.

The head of Grover's column had gone about two miles, and in a few
moments more would have turned the sharp corner of the bayou and
faced toward Franklin, when, on the right, near the sugar-house,
Birge's skirmishers ran into those of Clack's battalion, and the
battle of Irish Bend began.

Between Birge and the concealed Confederate ranks, past which he
was in fact marching, while his line of direction gave his right
flank squarely to the hostile front, lay the broad and open fields
of McKerrall's plantation, where the young sugar-cane stood a foot
high above the deep and wide furrows. From recent ploughing and
still more recent rains the fat soil was soft and heavy under foot,
and here and there the cross-furrows, widening and deepening into
a ditch, added to the toil and difficulty of movement, both for
men and guns. On the left flowed the dark and sluggish Teche. On
the right lay the swamp, thickly overgrown and nearly impassable,
whence the waters of the Choupique begin to ooze toward the Gulf.
Along the southern border of this morass ran a great transverse
ditch that carried off the gathered seepage of the lesser drains.
In front, on the western edge of the cane-field, stood Nerson's
woods, where, as yet unseen, the Confederates lay in wait; while
before them, like a screen, stretched a low fringe of brake and
undergrowth.

Birge's order of march placed the 25th Connecticut in the advance,
one wing deployed as skirmishers across the road, the other wing
in reser