After an all night run, we landed this morning at daylight
at Goodrich's Landing, on the Louisiana side, from which place we marched two
miles up the river and went into bivouac, where we remained all day. There were
four brigades in the expedition, comprising about five thousand men, and
commanded by Brigadier General Stephenson. There is a camp of several thousand
negro refugees here, old men, women and children, they having fled from the
plantations. They are fed on Government rations doled out to them, which cannot
take the place of their accustomed corn bread and pork. They are poorly cared
for, the place being a miserable camp of filthy hovels, and are dying by the
hundreds of disease and neglect.
Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B.,
Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 136
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