Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[269] below Alexandria, by a large Confederate force, at the morning twilight, and were so badly injured that the Covington was abandoned and burnt, and the other two vessels were surrendered. Of the soldiers, about one hundred and fifty were captured, and about one hundred were killed. The remainder took to the shore and escaped. Soon afterward, the City Belle, with a little more than four hundred Ohio troops, was captured by another guerrilla party, when about one-half of them escaped.

But the army in its march for Simms' Port met with very little opposition, excepting by a considerable force of Confederate cavalry, who, at daybreak on the 16th, confronted its advance at Mansura, near Marksville, where the National skirmishers and artillery, after pushing the foe back across an open prairie to a wood, kept up a fire for about three hours, until the main body came up. A battle-line was then formed, with General Emory and his forces on the right, and General A. J. Smith and his command on the left. After a sharp but brief struggle, the Confederates were dispersed, losing a number of men by capture. Among these were some of the prisoners they had taken on the Signal and Warren some days before.. That evening the army reached the Atchafalaya at Simms' Port, where, under the direction of Colonel Bailey, a bridge, more than six hundred yards long, was constructed of steamboats. Over it the wagon-train passed on the afternoon of the 19th, at which time the rear of the army, composed of the command of A. J. Smith, was attacked at Yellow Bayou by a Confederate force under Polignac. He was beaten back with a heavy loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, while the Nationals lost one hundred and fifty in killed and wounded. On the following day

May 20, 1864.

the army crossed the Atchafalaya, when General E. R. S. Canby, who had arrived the day before, assumed the, command of Banks's troops as a part of the forces of the Military Division of West Mississippi, to the charge of which he had been assigned. General Banks then hastened to New Orleans.

General Smith returned to Memphis, stopping on his way up the Mississippi at Sunnyside, in the extreme southeastern part of Arkansas, to seek a reported force of Confederates, under Marmaduke, who had gathered there with mischievous intent. He found them, three thousand strong, near Columbia, the capital of Chicot County, posted across a bayou that empties into Lake Chicot. He attacked and drove them away, with a loss of about one hundred men.

Edward R. S. Canby.

They retreated westward, and were no more seen in that region. Smith's loss was about ninety men. Admiral Porter, meanwhile, had passed quietly down the Red River, nearly parallel with the march of the army, and resumed the duty of keeping open and safe the navigation of the Mississippi.