SOLDIER 31 



Fourche to the main part of the town and spent a couple 

 of hours in exploring it. It must have been an exceedingly- 

 beautiful place, though now many of the houses are lying 

 in ruins from the bombardment last summer. 1 Then there 

 is an exceedingly pretty cemetery, embowered in red and 

 white roses which hang in clusters over the monuments. I 

 noticed on many of the tombs fresh wreaths of roses and 

 myrtle, and before many there were pictures hanging, re- 

 presenting the survivors weeping beneath a willow. Blue 

 pinks seem to be a very favorite flower and were planted 

 around almost every monument. 



" March 31. We were packed up and on the move at 8.30 

 a.m. Our road (in fact the whole way to Thibodeaux) lay 

 along the Bayou La Fourche, a very deep and cold stream 

 along which our steamers were passing bearing the sick and 

 baggage. As we wound along under the China-ball and 

 catalpa trees, the inhabitants were all on the piazzas watch- 

 ing us, and that appeared to be their principal occupation 

 everywhere. Such a slovenly, indolent set you never saw, 

 — the women especially, with frizzled hair, unhooked 

 dresses, and slipshod shoes. They were evidently poor 

 white trash. But oh, the clover fields we passed ! The heart 

 of an Alderney cow would have leaped into her mouth at 

 the sight, and a butcher's mouth would have watered in 



1 During the summer of 1862 the people of Donaldson ville pursued the 

 uniform practice of firing upon our steamers passing up and down the 

 river. Admiral Farragut reports August 10: "I sent a message to the in- 

 habitants that if they did not discontinue the practice I would destroy 

 their town. The next night they fired on the St. Charles. I therefore 

 ordered them to send their women and children out of town as I certainly 

 intended to destroy the town on my way down the river, and I fulfilled 

 my promise to a certain extent." 19 W. R. 141. 



