In answer to this situation, drastic means were taken to force men into uniform. Shirkers were arrested and forced into military service, and troops detailed to non-combatant jobs were returned to active commands. Confederate regiments at guard positions in Texas were shifted to Louisiana, while defense of the Gulf ports was left to state soldiers.[99] In the meanwhile, Major General F. Steele and the Union forces in Arkansas pushed across the Little Missouri River to within two hundred miles of Banks, who had now secured Natchitoches, Louisiana. Then, on April 8, 1864, as Banks’ invaders occupied Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, and advanced to within three miles of Mansfield, Louisiana, General Taylor committed his forces in a desperate attempt to throw back the Federals. After a hard fought battle Banks’ army was defeated and compelled to retreat to Pleasant Hill. Taylor’s men retained close contact with the retreating Federals and after equally hard fighting on the second day, the Confederate commander could report that the Union troops were undertaking a night withdrawal to the Red River near Natchitoches. Later Southern reports claimed a Union rout on the first day and a definite check on enemy counter-attack on the second day.[100] When Union prisoners captured in this fighting were asked what had caused their retreat, some of them claimed that it was “them ‘durned Texans’ hollerin’ that scared them.”[101] Texas troops especially enjoyed the capturing of A regiment of New York Zouaves all dressed in red flannel trousers, looking somewhat like ladies’ bloomers of later times. They wore dainty red caps with tassels and made a sight for the Texans to look at, and when they were marching by and were halted, the Texas troops pretended to get mad, swore because they had been compelled to fight women. Some of them threw down their guns and declared that if they were to fight any more women they would go home. The Zouaves thought the Texas boys were in earnest and protested loudly that they were not women.[102] Banks eventually withdrew to Alexandria, barely saving his fleet, which was almost stranded upstream by a sudden fall in the Red River.[103] Meanwhile, in late April, Price forced an enemy retreat in Arkansas. At Poison Springs, Marks’ Mill, and Jenkins’ Ferry, General Steele was repulsed and his command pressed northward. Thus, the overall Union plan to converge on Shreveport was frustrated and Kirby Smith’s men had victoriously repulsed overwhelming numbers.