willows cut off eighteen inches or two feet long, with sharp points above the mud, making it slow and difficult to pass, save at the bridge.  I overtook the rear of the advance about two or three hundred feet up the gentle slope, and was astonished to find how small a force was making the attack.  I was also surprised to find that they were Steele’s men instead of Morgan’s.  I also saw several regiments across the bayou, but not advancing; they were near the levee.  A heavy artillery and infantry fire was going on all this time.  While making my way along the column, from which there were very few falling back, a shell burst near me, and the concussion confused me at the time and left me with a headache for several months.  When I got my wits about me again I found a good many coming back, but the main part of the force was compact and keeping up the fight.  I did not get closer to the woods than about five hundred feet, and found that a large number had penetrated into the enemy’s works.  When our men fell back, very few ran, but came slowly and sullenly, far more angry than frightened.  I found General Frank Blair on foot, and with him Colonel Sea, of Southwest Missouri, and learned that Colonel Thomas Fletcher, afterward Governor of Missouri, was captured with many of his men.  They both insisted there on the spot, with those around us, that if all the men ordered up had gone up, or even all that crossed the bayou had moved forward, we could have readily established ourselves in the enemy’s works.  I was firmly of the same opinion at the time on the ground; and, an entrance effected, we could have brought the whole force on dry ground, and had a base of operations against Vicksburg—­though probably, in view of later events, we would have had to stand a siege from Pemberton’s army.  After explanations with Blair, I rode to where the men were, who had crossed the bayou, but had not advanced with the others.  I found them to be De Courcey’s brigade; of Morgan’s division, which General Sherman supposed to be in advance.  In fact, it was the intended support that made the attack.  A correspondence and controversy followed between General Blair and Colonel De Courcey, most of which I have, but nothing came of it.  On reaching the bayou, I found that Thayer’s brigade, of Steele’s division, had in some way lost its direction and filed off to the right.  Remembering the masked battery, I suspected that had something to do with the matter, and, on following it up, I learned that the Kentucky colonel before mentioned had appealed for aid against the masked battery and invisible force of rebels, and that a regiment had been ordered to him.  This regiment, filing off into the timber, had been followed by Thayer’s brigade, supposing it to be advancing to the front, and thus left a single brigade to attack a superior force of the enemy in an intrenched and naturally strong position.  By the time the mistake could be rectified, it was too late.  Our loss was from