[58] she being of superior speed, made her escape. The same night we took the Rebel steamer A. B. Segur, a little steamboat having about the dimensions of the fancy Natchez; she is of great service to us. On the 3d of November all the gunboats went up the Bayou Teche and passed the obstructions that the Rebels had made to stop the passage. Fourteen miles from its mouth we met the Rebels. The engagement lasted two hours; the Rebels dispersed, and the Cotton disappeared. The Kinsman received the brunt of the engagement. She received fifty-four shots in her wood and upperworks, and had one man killed and five wounded. Little John Bellins had his leg fractured, and died to-day from the effects of amputation. The Estrella received three shots; had two soldiers killed, and one man mortally wounded. The Diana received three shots; as her rudder was badly shattered, she had to be towed back to the bay. The Calhoun was struck eight times without serious damage. Captain Wiggins behaved nobly; the position of his vessel exposed him at once to the fire of the artillery on shore and the guns of the Cotton. He silenced one and answered the other. All the Rebel army was there, amounting, it is said, to from three to four thousand men, and, we are assured, seventy pieces of light artillery. We are advised to-day that they suffered greatly, and the steamer Cotton careened. They had made, on the right side of the bayou, a mud fort, but evacuated it before our arrival. We tried to remove the obstructions-without success. We will succeed when General Weitzel arrives, and will protect the banks from the sharpshooters of the enemy. The enemy destroyed a thousand hogsheads of sugar, a lot of molasses, and burnt ninety cars and some locomotives. The Cotton is an iron-clad, and her guns work perfectly. She has a long 32-pounder, four 24's, and ten 6-pounder long-range guns.1 The iron covering of the Diana and Kinsman resisted perfectly their fire. Captain McLoefflin was——on the Calhoun with his company. He came on shore with his men and tried to get opposite the Cotton,
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1 The mud fort referred to—‘Battery Fuselier’—was several mites above the obstructions. Four pieces of field artillery, rifled 10 and 12-pounders, and thefour guns of the Cotton, unsupported by cavalry or infantry, composed the entire force on the Confederate side. Such exaggerated accounts of engagements during the late war has had its influence on Northern historians; and it is not surprising when a writer magnifies four pieces of artillery into seventy. They tried to remove the obstructions, without success, after they had passed them.
Richmond, VA. 1884.
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