... corps, except one brigade kept, by turns, in observation on the Atchafalaya, spread over Western Louisiana, halting wherever supplies and grass could be found. Debray's brigade visited alternately Opelousas , Alexandria and Natchitoches, until October, when its turn came to do duty in the Atchafalaya swamps. There, bad rations, scanty forage, malarial fevers and camp diseases, the absence of medical st...