Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Massachusetts in the Army and Navy during the war of 1861-1865, vol. 1: prelminary narrative

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[59] been reduced almost one-half by disease and other losses since he first entered New Orleans. He was promised recruits in the autumn, but knew nothing farther; and it was not until he and General Banks met in New Orleans on December 15 that Butler knew himself superseded.¹

President Lincoln had been strongly impressed with the remarkable energy shown by Banks when appointed in command of the defences of Washington, under McClellan, at the close of Pope's campaign. ‘Within forty-eight hours a mob of thirty thousand wounded men and convalescents, who knew not where to go, and of stragglers, who meant not to go where they were wanted, was cleared out of the streets of Washington and pandemonium was at an end. Order was rather created than restored, since none had existed in any direction. . . . Less than two months later, in the closing days of the month of October, President Lincoln sent for Banks and said, “You have let me sleep in peace for the first time since I came here. I want you to go to Louisiana and do the same thing there.” ’² With thirty-nine regiments of infantry, six batteries of artillery and one battalion of cavalry, Banks sailed from New York, under sealed orders, on December 4, and reached Ship Island on Dec. 13, 1862. Unfortunately, twenty-one of his regiments were enlisted for only nine months, of which time many weeks had in some cases expired. Of these regiments many were from Massachusetts, and of the general officers now ordered to report to him, two, Brig.-Gens. George L. Andrews and William Dwight, Jr., were Massachusetts men, the first of these becoming ultimately chief of staff to General Banks.

General Banks's career in Louisiana began with a success and a failure,— the evacuation of Baton Rouge by the Confederates and their recapture of Galveston, which had been occupied and then retaken under peculiar circumstances. The 42d Infantry (Colonel Burrell) had the curious experience, just after it had reached the front, of having three of its companies besieged and captured on a wharf at Galveston—a point then deserted— by a greatly superior force of Confederates, and of having, for a body of wholly raw soldiers, come out of the affair with honor. They were ordered by General Banks, Dec. 19, 1862, to proceed from New Orleans to Galveston