for Shirk to command the detachment, Porter said, “Suppose I go along myself?” I answered, if he would do so, it would insure the success of the enterprise.  At that time I supposed General McClernand would send me on this business, but he concluded to go himself, and to take his whole force.  Orders were at once issued for the troops not to disembark at Milliken’s Bend, but to remain as they were on board the transports.  My two divisions were commanded—­the First, by Brigadier-General Frederick Steele, with three brigades, commanded by Brigadier-Generals F. P. Blair, C. E. Hooey, and J. M. Thayer; the Second, by Brigadier-General D. Stuart, with two brigades, commanded by Colonels G. A. Smith and T. Kilby Smith.

The whole army, embarked on steamboats convoyed by the gunboats, of which three were iron-clads, proceeded up the Mississippi River to the mouth of White River, which we reached January 8th.  On the next day we continued up White River to the “Cut-off;” through this to the Arkansas, and up the Arkansas to Notrib’s farm, just below Fort Hindman.  Early the next morning we disembarked.  Stuart’s division, moving up the river along the bank, soon encountered a force of the enemy intrenched behind a line of earthworks, extending from the river across to the swamp.  I took Steele’s division, marching by the flank by a road through the swamp to the firm ground behind, and was moving up to get to the rear of Fort Hindman, when General McClernand overtook me, with the report that the rebels had abandoned their first position, and had fallen back into the fort.  By his orders, we counter-marched, recrossed the swamp, and hurried forward to overtake Stuart, marching for Fort Hindman.  The first line of the rebels was about four miles below Fort Hindman, and the intervening space was densely, wooded and obscure, with the exception of some old fields back of and close to the fort.  During the night, which was a bright moonlight one, we reconnoitred close up, and found a large number of huts which had been abandoned, and the whole rebel force had fallen back into and about the fort.  Personally I crept up to a stump so close that I could hear the enemy hard at work, pulling down houses, cutting with axes, and building intrenchments.  I could almost hear their words, and I was thus listening when, about 4 A. M. the bugler in the rebel camp sounded as pretty a reveille as I ever listened to.

When daylight broke it revealed to us a new line of parapet straight across the peninsula, connecting Fort Hindman, on the Arkansas River bank, with the impassable swamp about a mile to its left or rear.  This peninsula was divided into two nearly equal parts by a road.  My command had the ground to the right of the road, and Morgan’s corps that to the left.  McClernand had his quarters still on the Tigress, back at Notrib’s farm, but moved forward that morning (January 11th) to a place in the woods to our rear, where he had a man up a tree, to observe and report the movements.