hours wrought that the same sun
rose upon an army marching full of confidence that within two days
Shreveport would be in its grasp, and set up the same army defeated,
brought to bay, its campaign ruined, saved only by a triumph of
valor and discipline on the part of a single division and of skill
on the part of its intrepid commander from complete destruction at
the hands of an enemy inferior in everything and outnumbered almost
as two to one. The passage of a wood is the passage of a defile;
there, then, was a blind defile, where of six divisions four were
suffered to be taken in detail and attacked in fractions on ground
of the enemy's choosing. Hardly any tactical error was wanting to
complete the discomfiture. Ransom was overwhelmed and double
outflanked by two or three times his numbers; even Emory had but
five thousand against a force reduced by casualties and straggling,
yet still half as large again as his and flushed with victory;
moreover, his position was, whether for offence or defence, worthless
beyond the passing hour.

Banks's losses in the battle of Sabine Cross-Roads were as follows:

Killed. Wounded. Missing. Total.
Cavalry Division . . . . 39 250 144 433
Cameron's " . . . . . 24 99 195 318
Landram's " . . . . . 28 148 909 1,085
Emory's " . . . . . 24 148 175 347
Staff of Nineteenth Corps 0 3 0 3
____ ____ _____ ______
In all . . . 115 648 1,423 2,186

By Taylor the action is called the battle of Mansfield. He puts
his losses at 1,000, all told. Foremost among the slain, while
leading the fierce onset against Ransom's right, Mouton fell, a
regimental color in his hand, and with him perished many of his
brave Louisianians.

Clearly the next thing, whatever might be the next after, was to
concentrate and reform on the first fair ground in the rear. Such
were Banks's orders. Accordingly at midnight Emory marched in
orderly retreat, with all his material intact, and at eight o'clock
the next morning, the 9th of April, went into bivouac at Pleasant
Hill, where A. J. Smith was found near his resting-place of the
night before, and with him Gooding. Thither Lee and the shattered
remnants of Ransom's Corps, now under Cameron, had already retired,
and there they