John Dimitry , A. M., Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 10.1, Louisiana
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

[148] we see the strange inconsistencies arising from the mercurial disposition of Banks and his inward appreciation that the army had met a disaster, leaving unwhispered the word ‘rout.’ ‘About 12 o'clock on the night of the 9th I received orders from General Banks to have my command in readiness to move at 2 o'clock in the morning, and at that hour to withdraw them silently from the field and follow the Nineteenth army corps back to Grand Ecore. ... I represented to him that the dead of my command were not buried, and that I had not the means of transporting my wounded, . . . and asked of him permission to remain until noon the next day to give me an opportunity to bury my dead .... The permission to remain, however, was refused, and the order to move made peremptory. We reached Grand Ecore on the night of the 11th.’

Still another testimony is from President Davis in his ‘History of the Confederate States:’ ‘Our losses in the two actions of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill were 2,200. At Pleasant Hill, the loss was 426 prisoners. The loss of the enemy in killed and wounded was larger than ours. We captured, not including stragglers, 2,800 prisoners and 20 guns. Their campaign was defeated.’

Pleasant Hill road on the 9th had rapidly supplemented Mansfield on the 8th. I quote Taylor's report, written April 18th, but thought out ten days before, on the night of Pleasant Hill. ‘With 12,000 men, we had attacked twenty odd thousand, many of them fresh troops, posted strongly on ground unknown to us. We had driven them at every point, and, but for the mistake and consequent confusion on our right, we would have captured most of his army. This was accomplished by hard, stern, stubborn fighting .... The noise of the wagons moving in the rear of the enemy's position, confirmed me in my opinion that he would retreat in the night. The morning of the 10th found us in possession of Pleasant Hill. The enemy had retreated stealthily in ’