he inevitable and
surrender, but he had not surrendered and would not surrender, and that
meant a fierce engagement for us. As soon as darkness had set in,
General Grover sent up rockets to apprise General Banks of our
position. Sleep was impossible. Colonel Bissell and I sat on a bread
box, back to back, our feet in the soft mud and our clothing gradually
absorbing the rain that fell steadily upon us. The hours dragged slowly
along, and before daybreak our men were aroused, made a hasty
breakfast, and in the grey of the morning we set out in advance of our
brigade that consisted of the Thirteenth and Twenty-fifth Connecticut,
Twenty-sixth Maine and One Hundred and Fifty-ninth New York, Colonel
Birge in command. We were all on foot, officers and men alike. Our
horses, baggage, and impediments had been left at Brashear to follow
the column of General Emory.

For a mile below Madame Porter's plantation the Bayou Teche runs to the
southeast and then turns sharply to the southwest towards Franklin, a
very pretty village, some five miles below. The road following the
sinuosities of the stream runs parallel to it, with a strip of a few
rods in width between. We enter an immense cane field, its furrows in
line with the road. On the west the field was bounded by a rail fence,
beyond which arose a dense wood of magnolias, cotton wood and
semi-tropical trees looking like a long green wall. Far in front arose
a transverse wall like to the first, and making at its intersection a
right angle. At this angle, the road entered the wood, near to the
ground this forest was absolutely impenetrable to the sight, by reason
of the suffocating growth of briars, vines, palmettos and underbrush.
We ought to have occupied these woods the night before, and have hemmed
the enemy in the open beyond. We now knew that the foe was in our
immediate front. We marched down the field, the right wing deployed as
skirmishers, the left wing in close battalion front following a few
rods in its rear. By and by a puff of smoke from the green wall in
front of us and a second or two afterwards the crack of a rifle. The
fight had begun; another puff, another crack then more and more,
multiplying as we approached. The bend in the road is now disclosed,
the enemy's skirmishers disappeared from our front to reappear in
greater numbers on our right. Our skirmishers were called in and we
changed front forward on first company, moved down towards the wood on
the right,