At a plantation near some Indian
mounds we met a detachment of the Eighth Missouri, that had been up
to the fleet, and had been sent down as a picket to prevent any
obstructions below. This picket reported that Admiral Porter had
found Deer Creek badly obstructed, had turned back; that there was
a rebel force beyond the fleet, with some six-pounders, and nothing
between us and the fleet. So I sat down on the door-sill of a
cabin to rest, but had not been seated ten minutes when, in the
wood just ahead, not three hundred yards off, I heard quick and
rapid firing of musketry. Jumping up, I ran up the road, and found
Lieutenant-Colonel Rice, who said the head of his column had struck
a small force of rebels with a working gang of negroes, provided
with axes, who on the first fire had broken and run back into the
swamp. I ordered Rice to deploy his brigade, his left on the road,
and extending as far into the swamp as the ground would permit, and
then to sweep forward until he uncovered the gunboats. The
movement was rapid and well executed, and we soon came to some
large cotton-fields and could see our gunboats in Deer Creek,
occasionally firing a heavy eight-inch gun across the cotton field
into the swamp behind.
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