now reformed in comparative order.

CHAPTER XXV.
PLEASANT HILL.

The scenes and events of the 8th produced a deep effect on Banks.
At first he was disposed to look on the campaign as lost. Whatever
hope he might have had that morning of taking or even reaching
Shreveport within the time fixed for the breaking up of the
expedition, was at an end before night fell. Not only must A. J.
Smith be sent back to Vicksburg within two days, but Banks himself
must be on the Mississippi with his whole force ready to move
against Mobile by the 1st of May. Such were his orders from Grant,
peremptory and repeated. Therefore Banks at once made up his mind
to retreat to Grand Ecore, and sent messenger after messenger across
the country to tell Kilby Smith and Porter what had happened and
what he was about to do. In thus deciding he chose the second best
course, and the one that Taylor wished for; it would have been far
better to cover Blair's Landing and thus make sure of the safety
as well as the support of the gunboats and Kilby Smith.

Pleasant Hill was a village of a dozen houses dispersed about a
knoll in a clearing. Beside the main highway between Natchitoches
and Shreveport, by which Banks had come and was now going back,
fairly good roads radiate to Fort Jesup and Many on the south to
the crossings of the Sabine on the west, and on the north and east
towards the Red River. The nearest point on the river was Blair's
Landing, distant sixteen miles from Pleasant Hill by the road and
forty-five miles by water above Grand Ecore.

Though a good place to fight a battle, Pleasant Hill was not a
position that could be held for any length of time, even if there
had been an object in holding it. It was too far even from the
immediate base of supplies, and there was no water to be had save
from the cisterns in the village. These were merely sufficient,
in ordinary times, for the storage of rain water for the daily use
of the inhabitants. Now two armies had been drawing from them,
and there was not enough left in them to supply the wants of Banks's
men, to say nothing of the animals, for a single day; and for this
reason, if for no other, it was impossible for the army to stay
there an hour longer than was really necessary to cover a safe and
orderly withdrawal of the train.

Accordingly, early on the 9th of April, Banks gave orders for the
wagon train to be set in motion toward Grand Ecore, escorted by
Lee with the caval