ty
of the horses, hastily gathered from the four quarters of the
prairie, gave to these improvised dragoons rather a ludicrous
appearance it must be confessed; yet marching afoot or standing to
horse, the 4th Wisconsin was always ready and equal to the work
cut out for it.

From his advanced camp, on Shields's plantation, twenty-three miles
beyond Washington and twenty-nine from Opelousas, Dwight fell back
on the 28th of April to his bivouac at Washington and waited for
the movement of the army to begin.

In preparation for this, on the evening of the 1st of May, Bean,
with the 4th Wisconsin, mounted, was sent forward to join the main
body of the cavalry, under Major Robinson, in front of Washington.
That night Dwight, with the cavalry, his own brigade, and a section
of Nims's battery, marched out some distance to discover the position
of the Confederate outposts. These, in the interval that elapsed,
had been advanced to the junction of the Cocodrie and the Boeuf.
After driving them in Dwight returned the next morning to
Washington.

The advance of the column from Franklin to Opelousas had been
disfigured by the twin evils of straggling and marauding. Before
the campaign opened, Banks had taken the precaution to issue
stringent orders against pillage, yet no means adequate to the
enforcement of these orders were provided, and the marches were so
long and rapid, the heat at times so intense, and the dust so
intolerable, that comparatively few of the men were able to keep
up with the head of the column. This contributed greatly to disorder
of the more serious kind. One regiment, neither the best nor the
worst, halting at the end of a particularly hard day's march, found
itself with scarcely fifty men in the ranks. Then, too, the men
were on short rations, in what they considered the enemy's country;
the whole region was sparsely populated; and the residents had,
for the most part, fled from their homes at the news of the approach
of the Union army.

With these disorders there sprang up a third, less prevalent indeed,
but to the last degree annoying and not without its share of danger,
for when the straggler chanced to find himself in easy range of
any thing, from a steer to a chicken, that he happened to fancy
for his supper, he was not always careful in his aim or accurate
in his judgment of distance; thus a number of officers and men were
wounded and the lives of many put in peril.

As if to complete the l