This gave Stickney about
1,100 men, with four guns in position and six field-pieces. Cahill's
arrival was seen by Major, who, after waiting all day in a drenching
rain, began to think his condition rather critical; accordingly,
at nine o'clock in the evening he set out to force his way to
Brashear, where he was expecting to find Green. Riding hard, he
arrived at the east bank of Bayou Boeuf late the next afternoon,
and, crossing by night, at daylight on the 24th he had completely
surrounded the post of Bayou Boeuf, and was just about to attack,
when he saw the white flag that announced the surrender of the
garrison to Mouton. Before this, Captain Julius Sanford, of the
23d Connecticut, set fire to the sugar-house filled with the baggage
and clothing of the troops engaged at Port Hudson.

Meanwhile, for the surprise of Brashear, Mouton had collected
thirty-seven skiffs and boats of all sorts near the mouth of the Teche,
and manned them with 325 volunteers, under the lead of Major Sherod
Hunter. At nightfall on the 22d of June Hunter set out, and by
daylight the next morning his whole party had safely landed in the
rear of the defences of Brashear, while Green, with three battalions
and two batteries of his command, stood on the western bank of
Berwick Bay, ostentatiously attracting the attention of the
unsuspicious garrison, and three more regiments were in waiting on
Gibbon's Island, ready to make use of Hunter's boats in support of
his movement.

Banks meant to have broken up the great depot of military stores
at Brashear, and to have removed to Algiers or New Orleans all
regimental baggage and other property that had gone into store at
Brashear and the Boeuf before and after the Teche campaign; such
were his orders, but for some reason not easy to explain they had
not been carried out. Besides the Indianians, who numbered about
30 all told, there were at Brashear four companies--D, G, I, K--of
the 23d Connecticut, two companies of the 176th New York, about
150 strong, and one company, or the equivalent of a company, of
the 42d Massachusetts, making in all rather less than 400 effectives;
there were also about 300 convalescents, left behind by nearly
thirty regiments. Notwithstanding the vast quantity of stores
committed to their care, including the effects of their comrades,
and in spite of all warnings, so slack and indifferent was the
performance of duty on the part of the garrison of Brashear that,
on t