t first, of five hundred
men each. These troops were to form a distinct command, to which
he gave the name of the Corps d'Afrique, and in it he incorporated
Ullmann's brigade. By the end of May Ullmann had enrolled about
1,400 men for five regiments, the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th.
These recruits, as yet unarmed and undrilled, were now brought to
Port Hudson, organized, and set to work in the trenches and upon
the various siege operations.

About the same time the formation of a regiment of engineer troops
was undertaken, composed of picked men of color, formed in three
battalions of four companies each, under white officers carefully
chosen from among the veterans. The ranks of this regiment, known
as the 1st Louisiana engineers, were soon recruited to above a
thousand; the strength for duty was about eight hundred. Under
the skilful handling of Colonel Justin Hodge it rendered valuable
service throughout the siege.

Company K of the 42d Massachusetts, commanded by Lieutenant Henry
A. Harding, had for some months been serving as pontoniers, in
charge of the bridge train. During the siege it did good and hard
work in all branches of field engineering under the immediate
direction of the Chief Engineer.

While at Opelousas, Banks had applied to Halleck to order
Brigadier-General Charles P. Stone to duty in the Department of the
Gulf. Stone had been without assignment since his release, in the
preceding August, from his long and lonely imprisonment in the
casemates of the harbor forts of New York, and, up to this moment,
every suggestion looking to his employment had met the stern
disapproval of the Secretary of War. Even when in the first flush
of finding himself at last at the top notch of his career, Hooker, in
firm possession, as he believed, of the post he had long coveted, as
commander of the Army of the Potomac, had asked for Stone as his Chief
of Staff, the request had been met by a flat refusal. A different fate
awaited Banks's application. On the 7th of May Halleck issued the
orders asked for, and in the last days of the month Stone reported
for duty before Port Hudson. At first Banks was rather embarrassed
by the gift he had solicited, for he saw that he himself was falling
into disfavor at Washington; the moment was critical; and it was
easy to perceive how disaster, or even the slightest check, might
be magnified in the shadows of Ball's Bluff and Fort Lafayette.
Moreover, Stone was equally un