Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[481] Rouge was very healthy for the troops, and I saw fit to leave them there for a few days until health was restored. Indeed, there were some regiments that could not bring into line more than two hundred men.

On the 29th of July, General Breckinridge ordered a general movement of all his troops on Baton Rouge. His own division consisted of four brigades, in addition to General Clark's division and the large portion of General Ruggles' brigade.

Orders were issued requiring all troops to concentrate for this move, stating it to be of the greatest importance.

True, Breckinridge's division had suffered somewhat from disease, but not in any degree as ours had suffered. The other troops had been quietly camped and drilled at Camp Moore and elsewhere for months.

On the 30th of July he moved from Baton Rouge with his full force. In his report, which he did not render until the 30th of September, he makes every attempt to belittle his force, although he denominates the battle a victory. The “War Records” show that he had forty-six different organizations of some sort present.

Van Dorn had ordered him to attack on the 5th of August at daybreak, supported by the ram Arkansas, which had been sent down there. He says he intended a surprise.

General Williams, in command of the department, learned when the attack would be made. On the 4th he called together his several commanding officers and selected the position of his forces to meet the attack. General Weitzel reported that this position was an admirable one. Then Williams awaited Breckinridge.

The attack was made under cover of an almost impenetrable fog, but it was fully met by Williams and his command. Breckinridge made one mistake: He knew our centre was held by the Indiana regiment, and he had also learned that at dress parade on the night of the 4th only one hundred and twenty men of that regiment appeared for duty, and he therefore deemed that point the weakest one. But when the tocsin of attack sounded through our camps, the men of the Indiana regiment turned out nearly three times more on the line of fight. They seized their muskets and abandoned their hospitals, although some of them were so weak that they could not have marched a mile. The same was true in a lesser degree of the other regiments.