August 27, 1863
---At
Bayou Meto, east of Little Rock, Marmaduke and Gen. Walker receive a series of
attacks from Gen. Davidson’s Federal cavalry.
The Yankees are rebuffed, and the Confederates fall back on Little Rock. Gen. Steele and the rest of the Federal force
approach Little Rock to follow up Davidson’s advance, in spite of nearly 1,000
of his men down sick from the summer heat and fevers.
---Sergeant
Alexander P. Downing, of the 11th Iowa Infantry Regiment, writes in
his journal of his division’s sortie into northern Louisiana, and the miseries
of campaigning in the American South in the summer:
Thursday, 27th—Leaving our Oak Ridge bivouac
early this morning we journeyed fifteen miles more and stopped for the night on
the banks of Bayou Said, only seven miles from Monroe, our destination. During
the day we crossed another ridge known as Pine Ridge, which is eight miles
across and about twenty feet above the surrounding land. It is beautifully
covered with yellow pine, growing so straight and tall, seventy-five to one
hundred feet. We noticed a few small clearings with log huts. This is the worst
bivouac we have yet occupied. It is full of poisonous reptiles and insects,
centipedes, jiggers, woodticks, lizards, scorpions and snakes of all kinds—I
have never seen the like. Some of the boys killed two big, spotted, yellow snakes
and put them across the road—they measured about fifteen feet each. The ground
is covered with leaves ten inches deep, and the water of the bayou has a layer
of leaves and moss fully two inches thick.
From Daily Observations of the Civil War:
dotcw.com
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