s. Among
those that volunteered for the forlorn hope but were not accepted
were 54 non-commissioned officers and privates of the 1st Louisiana
Native Guards, and 37 of the 3d. From among the officers of the
general staff and staff departments that were eager to go, two were
selected to accompany the column and keep up the communication with
headquarters and with the other troops; these were Captain Duncan
S. Walker, assistant adjutant-general, and Lieutenant Edmund H.
Russell, of the 9th Pennsylvania Reserves, acting signal officer.

Then the officers and men quietly prepared themselves for the
serious work expected of them. Those that had any thing to leave
made their wills in the manner sanctioned by the custom of armies,
and all confided to the hands of comrades the last words for their
families or their friends.

Meanwhile an event took place, trifling in itself, yet accenting
sharply some of the more serious reasons that had, in the first
instance, led Banks to resist the repeated urging to join Grant
with his whole force, and afterward had formed powerful factors in
determining him to deliver and to renew the assault. Early on the
morning of the 18th of June a detachment of Confederate cavalry
rode into the village of Plaquemine, surprised the provost guard,
captured Lieutenant C. H. Witham and twenty-two men of the 28th
Maine, and burned the three steamers lying the bayou, the _Sykes,
Anglo-American_, and _Belfast_. Captain Albert Stearns, of the
131st New York, who was stationed at Plaquemine as provost marshal
of the parish, made his escape with thirteen men of his guard.
The Confederates were fired upon by the guard and lost one man
killed and two wounded. In their turn they fired upon the steamboats,
and wounded two of the crew. Three hours later the gunboat _Winona_,
Captain Weaver, came down from Baton Rouge, and, shelling the enemy,
hastened their departure. In the tension of greater events, little
notice was taken at the moment of this incident; yet it was not
long before it was discovered that the raiders were the advance
guard of the little army with which Taylor was about to invade La
Fourche, intent upon the bold design of raising the siege of Port
Hudson by blockading the river and threatening New Orleans.

Thus Banks was brought face to face with the condition described
in his letter of the 4th of June to Halleck:

"The course to be pursued here gives me great anxiety. If I abandon
Po