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the service. Squad, Company, Battalion, and Brigade drill, with any quantity of discipline considered essential to fit men for the campaigning and hardships visible in the distance, were gone through with.

Perhaps few in the volunteer service, none of whom could boast of very much practical experience, were better adapted than Colonel Molineux for this severe task; very quick, energetic, ambitious to do his own duty and to keep every man in his command busy, was the true secret of his success as a disciplinarian.

For nearly three months the men were kept steadily under instruction, and became quite proficient in the use of the musket, and all the essential discipline to make an effective army.

On the 13th of March, 1863, broke camp, and the army moved up to the rear of Port Hudson. Colonel Molineux having command of a provisional Brigade with Nims' Massachusetts Battery, went up the Clinton Road, while the main army proceeded down the Port Hudson Road about eighteen miles, skirmishing the Rebels the whole way, driving their pickets and scouts as they advanced.

At this time Port Hudson was strongly manned, there being from 23,000 to 25,000 men in that natural stronghold. Manoeuvred about this quarter until the 20th, when we again joined the main body of the army on the Port Hudson Road, returning to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

This movement was made to attract the attention of the enemy, and enable Admiral Farragut's boats to proceed up the river past the fort that here impeded his passage. This was a bold but brilliantly successful move, that only an "iron Farragut" could have accomplished. This blind enabled General Banks to more successfully pursue his future designs, as the enemy had been led to suppose by the formidable movements around Port Hudson that a general attack was to be made at once to reduce the place. Subsequent events exhibited the picture in a different light.

From the 20th to the 28th of March we were kept in readiness to move at a moment's notice. Finally

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