Colonel G. T. Roberts, of the 7th Vermont, fell early in the action, and near its close Williams was instantly killed while urging his men to the attack. In him his little brigade lost the only commander present of experience in war; the country, a brave and accomplished soldier. If he was, as must be confessed, arbitrary, at times unreasonable, and often harsh, in his treatment of his untrained volunteers, yet many who then thought his discipline too severe to be endured, lived to know, and by their conduct vindicate, the value of his training. The Confederates appear to have suffered to some extent during the last attack, until the lines drew too near together, from the fire of the _Essex_ and her consorts. Ransom also speaks of having shelled the enemy with great effect during the afternoon from the _Kineo_ and _Katahdin_, accurately directed by signals from the capitol; but no other account even mentions any firing at that period of the day; the effect cannot, therefore, have been severe, and it seems probable that the troops against whom it was directed may have been some outlying party. Cahill's seniority entitled him to the command after Williams fell, yet during the remainder of the battle Dudley seems to have commanded the troops actually engaged. Shortly after the close of the action Cahill assumed the command and sent word to Butler of the state of affairs. The Confederates were still to be seen upon the field of battle. Their force was naturally enough over-estimated. Another attack was expected during the afternoon, and reinforcements were urgently called for. Butler had none to give without putting New Orleans itself in peril. However, during the evening he determined to release from arrest a number of officers who had been deprived of their swords by Williams at various times, and for various causes, mainly growing out of the confused and as yet rather unsettled policy of the government in reference to the treatment of the negroes, and to send all these officers to Baton Rouge. Among them were Colonel Paine of the 4th Wisconsin and Colonel Clark of the 6th Michigan. Since the 11th of June Paine had been in arrest; an arrest of a character peculiar and perhaps unprecedented in the history of armies. Whenever danger was to be faced, or unusual duty to be performed, he might wear his sword and command his men, but the moment the duty or the danger was at an end he must go back into arrest. Paine, who was an extremely conscientious officer, as well as a man of high character and firmness of purpose, had from the first taken strong ground against the use of any portion of his force in aid of the claims of the master to the service of the slave. Williams, strict in his idea of obedience due his superiors, not less than in his notions of obedience due to him by his own inferiors in rank, stood upon his construction of the law and the orders of the War Department, as they then existed; hence