esson so often taught in all wars, that
discipline, care, and efficiency go hand in hand, when the army
moved out from Opelousas, though but a fortnight later, a different
state of things was seen. This must be ascribed to the fact that
immediately after entering Opelousas the most stringent and careful
orders were given for the regulation of future marches, and the
punishment of stragglers and marauders. By these orders was provided
for the first time a system adequate to their enforcement, and
sufficiently elastic to meet without annoyance and difficulty all
those cases, of hourly and even momentary occurrence in the movement
of an army, that require officers or men to quit the column. In
the rear of each regiment was posted a surgeon, without whose
permission no sick man was allowed to fall out. In the rear of
each brigade and division marched a detachment of cavalry, under
the orders of the provost marshal of the brigade or division,
charged with the duty of picking up as stragglers all men found
out of the ranks without a written permit from the surgeon or the
company commander. The vital importance of a strict enforcement
of these arrangements was personally impressed upon the division
and brigade commanders; yet this was not now necessary, for there
were but few persons in the column of any rank that did not realize,
in part at least, the evil consequences resulting from the irregular
practices that had hitherto prevailed. Thus the march to the Red
River was made rapidly and in order, and now for the first time
the soldiers of the Nineteenth Army Corps marched with that swift
and regulated movement of the column as a unit that was to be ever
afterwards a source of comfort to the men, of satisfaction to their
officers, and of just pride to every one belonging to the corps.

Unhappily, on the 25th of April, before the result of these
arrangements had had a chance to show themselves, Dwight, while on
detached service in the advance, caught an unfortunate man of the
131st New York, Henry Hamill by name, absent from his regiment
under circumstances that pointed him out as a plunderer. Then,
without pausing to communicate with the general commanding, Dwight
took upon himself the task of trial and judgment on the spot, and
becoming satisfied of the man's guilt, caused him to be shot to
death at sunset in front of the brigade. This action Banks, who
was just setting out for New Orleans, sustained in special orde