"Our repulse at Pleasant Hill was so complete and our command was so disorganized that had Banks followed up his success vigorously he would have met with but feeble opposition to his advance on Shreveport. . . . Polignac's (previously Mouton's) division of Louisiana infantry was all that was intact of Taylor's force. . . . Our troops were completely paralyzed and disorganized by the repulse at Pleasant Hill." Again, in an intercepted letter, very clear and outspoken, Lieutenant Edward Cunningham, one of Kirby Smith's aides-de-camp, is even more emphatic: "That it was impossible for us to pursue Banks immediately--under four or five days--cannot be gainsaid. It was impossible . . . because we had been beaten, demoralized, paralyzed, in the fight of the 9th." The losses of the Union army in the battle of Pleasant Hill were 152 killed, 859 wounded, 495 missing; in all, 1,506. Of these, nearly one half fell upon Emory's division, which reported 8 officers and 47 men killed, 19 officers and 275 men wounded, 4 officers and 374 men missing; in all, 725. The Confederate losses were estimated by Taylor at 1,500. Each side claims to have fought a superior force, yet the numbers engaged seem to have been nearly equal. Including the thousand horsemen, who were not seriously engaged at any time during the day, and in the battle not at all, the Union army can hardly have numbered more than 13,000 nor less than 11,000. Taylor's force must have been about the same, for, although Kirby Smith's figures account for 16,000, on the one hand the attrition of battle and march is to be reckoned, and on the other hand Taylor himself owns to 12,000. (1) "Century War Book," vol. iv., p. 372. CHAPTER XXVI. GRAND ECORE. In the first moments of elation that succeeded the victory, Banks was all for resuming the advance, but later in the evening, after consulting his corps and division commanders, he determined to continue the retreat to Grand Ecore. Unfortunately by some mistake the ambulances had gone off with the wagon train, so that there were no adequate means of relieving the wounded on the field. Indeed, all the wounded had not been gathered, and most of the dead lay still unburied, when, about midnight, Banks gave the orders to march. Then from each corps a detail of surgeons was ordered to stay behind, with such hospital stores as they had at hand, and two hours later, in silence and in darkness, unobserved and unmolested, the army marched to the rear, leaving the dead and wounded of both sides on the ground. In the order of march Emory had the head of the column, Mower the rear. Early in the afternoon of the 10th, after a march of twenty miles, the column halted at the Bayou Mayon. At sunrise on the 11th the march was resumed; and the same afternoon found the whole army in camp at Grand Ecore.