Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 4.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[563] which they had orders to remain in concealment, just as if they were besieged by a powerful army. In the city, according to the story of all the eye-witnesses, the chief employment was speculating in the cotton which was waiting for the departure of the fleet to be carried by it down Red River and either to Cairo or to New Orleans. This strange inaction permitted Taylor, who had less than five thousand men under him, to invest and fight by blockade an army five times larger than his own. Three brigades of cavalry, each containing a thousand men, sufficed to establish this blockade. They separated for that, taking with them several batteries of artillery. Steele's brigade was ordered to watch the approaches to Alexandria on the west, on the line of Bayou Rapides; Bagby on the south, on that of Bayou Boeuf; whilst Major, going down the stream below the city, posted himself at David's Ferry in order to cut Banks' communications with the Mississippi and close the navigation of Red River to the enemy's transports. Polignac with his twelve hundred infantry was placed so as to serve as a reserve for the one or the other of the last two, who were the most exposed, inasmuch as they occupied the enemy's two lines of retreat. On the left bank, Liddell with his seven hundred cavalry watched at a distance the Federals under Smith, but the absence of the artillery which Kirby Smith had taken from him did not permit him to give an effective backing to Major down Red River.

The Federals, penned up in the environs of Alexandria, found some bales of cotton to pick up, but they could not get together the necessary stores and forage for the army: luckily for them, Red River was still open to their transports. The next necessary step for the Confederates was to close it, thus completing the bold blockade by which Taylor hoped to force the Federals to quit Alexandria and sacrifice their fleet. Major soon found an opportunity to do so. On the 30th of April he had taken position on the right bank of Red River a little above Fort de Russy and within reach of Marksville, where he had his base of operations. On the 2d of May, West's horse-battery, composed of four pieces, had joined him. On the next day the steamboat City Belle, with three hundred Ohio soldiers who were on their way to join Banks, arrived in front of the point where he was posted with the battery.