and thus gain control of Taylor's line of retreat. In thus
refraining from any attempt to avenge promptly what must be regarded
as a military affront, the depleted ranks and the wearied condition
of the troops were perhaps taken into account, and, moreover, it
must have been considered to the last degree inadvisable to entangle
the command in the dense swamps that would have to be crossed,
after pushing Taylor prematurely back from the fertile and
comparatively high lands that border the Bayou La Fourche. Then
Banks continued on to New Orleans, where he arrived on the 18th,
and renewed his pressure on the admiral for the gunboats; but,
unfortunately, the gunboats were not to be had. Of those that had
accompanied the army in the campaign of the Teche, only one, the
feeble _Hollyhock_, had remained in Berwick Bay after the army
descended the Red River, crossed the Atchafalaya, and moved on Port
Hudson. The others, with the transports, had followed the movements
of the troops and had been caught above the head of the Atchafalaya
when the waters fell. Thus they had long been without repairs and
not one of them was now in condition for immediate service. The
water on the bar at the mouth of the Atchafalaya was now nearly at
its lowest point, so that even of the light-draught gunboats only
the lightest could cross. Accordingly it was not until the 22d of
July that the _Estrella_ and _Clifton_ made their appearance in
Berwick Bay and put an end to Taylor's operations.

On the afternoon of the 21st of July, knowing that the gunboats
were coming, Taylor set the finishing touch to his incursion by
burning the rolling-stock of the railway and running the engines
into the bay. He had already destroyed the bridges as far back as
Tigerville, thus rendering the road quite useless to the Union forces
for the next five weeks.

On the morning of the 25th the advance of Weitzel's brigade, under
Lieutenant-Colonel Peck, consisting of his own 12th Connecticut
and the 13th Connecticut, commanded by Captain Comstock, arrived
at Brashear by steamer from Donaldsonville, and, landing, once more
took possession of the place; but in the meantime Taylor had safely
withdrawn to the west bank, and gone into camp on the Teche with
all of his army intact and all his materials and supplies and most
of his captures safe.

(1) The history of the 23d Connecticut says: "We delivered to them
108 dead. We captured 40 prisoners."--"Connecticut i