easant Hill, where it was joined by A.J. Smith's corps.

The following day, at 5 P.M., the enemy again attacked at Pleasant
Hill, but were repulsed so decidedly that the result was considered a
victory by the Union forces, and by the Confederates themselves a
serious check; but for various reasons Banks thought best to fall back
again to Grand Ecore. The retreat was continued that night, and on the
night of the 11th the army reached Grand Ecore, where it threw up
intrenchments and remained ten days. As yet there was no intention of
retreating farther.

Meanwhile the navy and transports had pressed hopefully up the river.
The navigation was very bad, the river crooked and narrow, the water
low and beginning to fall, the bottom full of snags and stumps, and
the sides bristling with cypress logs and sharp, hard timbers. Still,
the distance, one hundred and ten miles, was made in the time
appointed, and Springfield Landing reached on the afternoon of the
10th. Here the enemy had sunk a large steamer across the channel, her
bow resting on one shore and her stern on the other, while the body
amidships was broken down by a quantity of bricks and mud loaded upon
her. Porter and Kilby Smith were consulting how to get rid of this
obstacle, when they heard of the disaster and retreat of the army.
Smith was ordered by Banks to return, and there was no reason for
Porter to do otherwise. The following day they fell back to
Coushattee Chute, and the enemy began the harassment which they kept
up throughout the descent to, and even below, Alexandria. The first
day, however, the admiral was able to keep them for the most part in
check, though from the high banks they could fire down on the decks
almost with impunity. The main body of the enemy was on the southern
bank, but on the north there was also a force under a General Liddell,
numbering, with Harrison's cavalry, perhaps 2,500 men.

On the 12th a severe and singular fight took place. At four in the
afternoon the Hastings, transport, on which Kilby Smith was, having
disabled her wheel, had run into the right bank for repairs. At the
same moment the Alice Vivian, a heavy transport, with four hundred
cavalry horses, was aground in the middle of the stream; as was the
gunboat Osage, Lieutenant-Commander Selfridge. Two other transports
were alongside the Vivian, and a third alongside the Osage, trying to
move them. Another transport, called the Rob Roy, having on her decks
four siege