Wounded Federals

“Towing the wounded Federal soldiers down the bayou on a raft, on the night of January 14th, 1863, after the Battle of Bayou Teche, La. General Banks had arranged to stop the depredations which the Confederate steamer J. A. Cotton had been long committing along the Bayou Teche. He had advanced from Labadieville on January 11th with four gunboats, ten regiments of infantry and one of artillery, reaching Carney’s Bridge, near Pattersonville, early on the 14th. Their progress here was stopped by several earthworks, under whose guns lay the J. A. Cotton. Early on the 15th Commander McKean Buchanan opened fire from the Calhoun, and was joined in it by the other gunboats, while the troops were advancing on shore to engage the Confederate vessels and batteries from the rear. The troops were not long in subjecting their enemy to a fierce enfilading musketry and artillery fire from the woods; and such was its destructive effect that the J. A. Cotton had finally to retire toward an upper battery at Butte La Rose, on the Atchafalaya. Early on the following morning the J. A. Cotton was seen floating down the bayou in a sheet of flame, having been set afire and abandoned by the Confederates. The troops, therefore, returned to Brashcar City, the Federal wounded having been meanwhile placed on a raft and towed down the river."— Frank Leslie, 1896

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