William Schouler, A history of Massachusetts in the Civil War: Volume 1

[466] men killed and wounded. During the entire investment of Port Hudson, the regiment was in the front supporting batteries, and engaged in other duties of the siege until the surrender, July 9, 1863. Immediately thereafter, the regiment was sent to Donaldsville, with two brigades, under command of Colonel Dudley. On the 13th of July, they marched up the Bayou Lafourche. While preparing to encamp, the Union forces were attacked by a large force of rebels. The Forty-ninth was sent forward to support a battery, and, owing to the falling-back of the rest of the forces, was nearly surrounded. By making a circuit of three miles through cornfields, it succeeded in joining the rest of Colonel Dudley's command, with a loss of twenty-two killed, wounded, and missing. Except participating in several short expeditions, the regiment had no further active service until its return home. It reached Pittsfield, Mass., Aug. 21, having returned via the Mississippi River, where it was publicly received with much enthusiasm by the citizens of Berkshire County.

By special permission of the Governor of the Commonwealth, the colors of the regiment are retained in the county in the keeping of the clerk of the courts.

The record of the regiment is an honorable one, and worthy of the revolutionary fame of Berkshire men.

The Fiftieth Regiment was in the Department of the Gulf. After various attempts to reach its destination upon unseaworthy transports, it succeeded in arriving at New Orleans in the ‘Jenny Lind’ and ‘Montebello,’ Jan. 27, 1863, when the small-pox broke out among a portion of the troops on board not belonging to the Fiftieth; for which reason they were ordered to the quarantine-station, twenty miles below New Orleans. A portion of the regiment suffered somewhat from the epidemic, but no deaths occurred from that cause.

Having arrived at Baton Rouge on the 14th instant, the regiment was assigned to the command of acting Brigadier-General Dudley, of the First Division, Third Brigade, Nineteenth Army Corps. Preparations were immediately made for increasing the efficiency of the regiment by constant drills and strict attention to all the duties of a soldier's life.