Besides the ordinary duty of a rear-guard, the object of this disposition of Weitzel's force was to cover the withdrawal toward Brashear of the long train of surplus wagons for which there was now no immediate need, and which would only have encumbered the proposed movement of the Corps by water. All the troops took the road by Cheneyville instead of that by Marksville, in order to conceal from the Confederates as long as possible the true direction of the movement. Having given these orders, Banks embarked on one of the river steamboats on the evening of the 15th and transferred his headquarters to Simmes's plantation on the east bank of the Atchafalaya opposite Simmesport. Thence he proceeded down the Atchafalaya to Brashear, and so by rail to New Orleans. Grover broke camp at Stafford's plantation on the 14th of May, and marched seventeen miles to Cheneyville; on the 15th, fourteen miles to Enterprise; on the 16th, sixteen miles to the Bayou de Glaise; and, on the morning of the 17th, twelve miles to Simmesport, and immediately began to cross on large flatboats rowed by negro boatmen. To these were presently added a little, old, slow, and very frail stern-wheel steamboat, named the _Bee_, which, a short time afterwards, quietly turned upside down, without any observable cause, while lying alongside the levee; then the _Laurel Hill_, one of the best boats in the service of the quartermaster; afterward gradually but very slowly the other steamers began to come in. Grover finished crossing on the morning of the 18th, and went into camp near the Corps headquarters. Paine, with the 6th New York added to his command for the few remaining days of its service, followed in the footsteps of Grover. Leaving Alexandria on the morning of the 15th, Paine marched twenty miles and halted at Lecompte. On the 16th, he marched twenty-five miles to the Bayou Rouge; on the 17th, twenty miles to the Bayou de Glaise, where the Marksville road crosses it; on the 18th, seven miles to Simmesport, and on the following morning began to cross. Before leaving Alexandria, Weitzel, on the 14th May, sent two companies of cavalry to reconnoitre a small force of the enemy said to be near Boyce's Bridge on Bayou Cotile. The Confederates were found in some force. A slight skirmish followed, with trifling loss on either side, and when, the next day, Weitzel sent the main body of the cavalry with one piece of Nims's battery, accompanied by the ram _Switzerland_ with a detachment of 200 men of the 75th New York, the Confederates once more retired beyond Cane River.