s
of Green's cavalry, to the complete astonishment of both armies,
and came into battery on the right of the 46th Indiana. "The
bringing off of the section of Nims's battery, commanded by Lieutenant
Marland," says Washburn, "after the regiment sent to its support
had surrendered, extorted the admiration of every beholder."

Marland's loss in this brilliant little affair was but two men
missing. Burbridge had 25 killed, 129 wounded, and 562 captured
or missing; in all, 716. Green reports his loss as 22 killed, 103
wounded, and 53 missing. Green's report shows that he had in the
fight three regiments of infantry, seven of cavalry, and two sections
of artillery.

With frequent skirmishing, but without serious molestation, the
march was continued, and on the 17th of November, the Nineteenth
Corps went into camp at New Iberia.

By the end of December the Thirteenth Corps, except Sheldon's
brigade which was at Plaquemine, had been gradually transferred to
the Texas coast. Thus Franklin was left to hold the line of the
Teche with little more than 5,000 men of the Nineteenth Corps and
about 3,500 of Lee's cavalry. This, with the winter nights and
the winter roads, was too small a force to hold a position so
advanced and so exposed as New Iberia, even if there had been any
longer an object in doing so.

Accordingly, on the evening of the 5th of January, marching orders
were issued for the following morning; but in the night a drizzling
rain came on and, freezing as it fell, coated the deep, dense mud
with a glaze of ice. The march was therefore put off a day, and
on the morning of the 7th, through a frozen bog, a biting norther
blowing, and the weather unusually cold for this region, the
Nineteenth Corps floundered back to Franklin. The best of the
roads were bad enough, but those across the bends, used in ordinary
seasons as cut-offs, were now impassable sloughs, so the troops
had to march nearly the full length of the bayou. Here a novel
form of straggling was introduced through the ever industrious
ingenuity of the lazy, many of whom contrived to leave the ranks,
and, crossing the levee, seized canoes or made rafts, and tranquilly
floated down the bayou ahead of their plodding comrades.

On the morning of the 9th of January the corps went into winter
quarters at Franklin. Tents were not issued until a month later,
but meanwhile the men built shelters and huts for themselves of
such materials as they could fi