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| When I'd done the Levee Ride articles back a while, I'd been here. This time I was not on top of the levee but on the road you see down on the left which made me think that maybe I hadn't been here. We climbed the levee and things suddenly looked real familiar which can be deceptive since many levees can look the same to the untrained eye. Yea, I was in the middle of Nowhere, Louisiana, again, but Nowhere doesn't last long, which is a shame. I was behind Irish Bend, I later observed where I wanted to be. They had come ashore somewhre around here. I found a site that said exactly where but I can't find any reference to those names on today's maps. |
| Grand Lake is filling with sediment and that is causing the water to rise as it tries to flush itself to the Gulf which, like at your house, doesn't work when the plumbing is stopped up. The snow has not melted and the water is this high already. Uh, Oh. |
| One of the readers was given 6 pictures of those guys boating and I asked him/them to choose one. Evidently that job overpowered him and he didn't get back to me until this morning. Thus, we have here the picture I chose. I'll give him a pass cause picture choosing is an art which only the well trained and practiced can pull off with any success. It is a hard thing to tell a picture that it just isn't good enough. Deletion is totally out of the question. They are then sent to a farm where they live out their happy days grazing among other mundane or out of focus shots. |
| The levee had to get dirt from somewhere. This bayou was the source and probably the result.. |
| Below is where Yellow Bayou flows into the bayou above. Now here's a fishin' spot. |
| This is a place where I might even learn to fish. I will start carrying a chair and try sitting first. If that works out there may be hope. "My Fishing Pictures" may be the new site. |
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| While the two other Union XIX Army Corps divisions comprising the expedition into West Louisiana moved across Berwick Bay towards Fort Bisland, Brigadier General Cuvier Grover's division went up the Atchafalaya River into Grand Lake, intending to intercept a Confederate retreat from Fort Bisland or turn the enemy's position. On the morning of April 13, the division landed in the vicinity of Franklin and scattered Rebel troops attempting to stop them from disembarking. That night, Grover ordered the division to cross Bayou Teche and prepare for an attack [Taylor] towards Franklin at dawn. From Here |
| Federals on Grand Lake, landed at Hudgins' Point, McWilliams' Plantation, April 13, 1863 |
| The Cannoneers and Captain Cornay were pulling at me again. |
| It's quiet now. |
| It wasn't then. |
| In an attempt to cut off the retreat of Confederate General Richard Taylor's troops in the aftermath of the Battle of Fort Bisland, General Cuvier Grover's 4th Division was ordered to launch an amphibious assault up Grand Lake (the 131st New York being part of this division). Learning of Grover's movements, Taylor sent a force under Colonel William Vincent to observe and oppose the movement. This action would eventually culminate, on April 14, 1863, into the Battle of Irish Bend or Nerson's Woods (as it was called by the Confederates). From Here |
| Also from there A Union Soldier writes his wife from Alexandria, after the Teche Campaign. "We left Brashear City on steam boat and went to Grand Lake where we landed under cover of the gun boats at a place called Irish Bend, where we had our first battle. The 91st N.Y. was the first to land and received the first fire from rebels who killed 2 or 3 men and wounded the Lt. Col. in the leg but they drove them back in the woods so that we all could land which we did and then commenced the march through the country. But we did not get far before they made another stand. The N.Y. 6th was now in front. They done well driving the rebs backs to a river where they stopped and set the bridge on fire but we pressed them so hard that we saved the bridge but in our stopping, it broke down and we had to stop of course. Then commenced the worst kind of murdering I ever saw, the rebs has long range rifles and they would get behind fences, trees, barns and fire at anyone they saw, while we had to lay down on the ground flat till it got dark. Then we went to bed (rolled up in our blankets with the sky for shelter) to sleep at 10 o'clock at night. We was called to arms to march across the river (as the bridge was repaired) to about one mile where we encamped for the night in one of the hardest rain storms you ever saw". |
| I've tried to find those places and can't. Indian Bend is mentioned in one letter, a place near Charenton Beach. |