Map of Louisiana. Sheet I. " " " " II. " " " " III. Battle Plan of Bisland, April 12-13, 1863 Battle Plan of Irish Bend, April 14, 1863 Battle Plan of Port Hudson Map of Louisiana. Sheet IV. Battle Plan of Sabine Cross-Roads, April 8, 1864. From General Emory's Map Battle Plan of Pleasant Hill, April 9, 1864. From General Emory's Map Battle Plan of Cane River Crossing or Monett's Bluff, April 23, 1864. From General Emory's Map The Red River Dam Map of Shenandoah Valley Campaign. From Major W. F. Tiemann's "History of the 159th New York" Battle Plan of Opequon, September 19, 1864. From the Official Map, 1873 Battle Plan of Fisher's Hill, September 22, 1864. From the Official Map Battle Plan of Cedar Creek, October 19, 1864. From the Official Map of 1873 INTRODUCTORY The history of the Nineteenth Army Corps, like that of by far the greater number of the organizations of like character, in which were arrayed the great armies of volunteers that took up arms to maintain the Union, is properly the history of all the troops that at any time belonged to the corps or served within its geographical limits. To be complete, then, the narrative my comrades have asked me to write must go back to the earliest service of these troops, at a period before the corps itself was formally established, and must continue on past the time when the earlier territorial organization became merged or lost and the main body of the corps was sent into the Shenandoah, down to the peace, and the final muster of the last regiment. If hitherto less known and thus less considered than the proud record of those great corps of the Armies of the Potomac, of the Tennessee, and of the Cumberland, on whom in the fortune of war fell the heat and burthen of so many pitched battles, whose colors bear the names of so many decisive victories, yet the story of the Nineteenth Army Corps is one whose simple facts suffice for all that need to told or claimed of valor, of achievement, of sacrifice, or of patient endurance. I shall, therefore, attempt neither eulogy nor apology, nor shall I feel called upon to undertake to criticise the actions or the failures of the living or the dead, save where such criticism may prove to be an essential part of the narrative. From the brows of other soldiers, no one of us could ever wish to pluck the wreaths so dearly won, so honorably worn; yet, since the laurel grows wild on every hill-side in this favored land, we may without trespass be permitted to gather a single spray or two to decorate the sacred places where beneath the cypresses and the magnolias of the lowlands of Louisiana, or under the green turf among the mountains of Virginia, reposes all that was mortal of so many thousands of our brave and beloved comrades. THE NINETEENTH ARMY CORPS. CHAPTER I. NEW ORLEANS.