For a mile below Madame Porter's plantation the Bayou Teche runs to the southeast and then turns sharply to the southwest towards Franklin, a very pretty village, some five miles below. The road following the sinuosities of the stream runs parallel to it, with a strip of a few rods in width between. We enter an immense cane field, its furrows in line with the road. On the west the field was bounded by a rail fence, beyond which arose a dense wood of magnolias, cotton wood and semi-tropical trees looking like a long green wall. Far in front arose a transverse wall like to the first, and making at its intersection a right angle. At this angle, the road entered the wood, near to the ground this forest was absolutely impenetrable to the sight, by reason of the suffocating growth of briars, vines, palmettos and underbrush. We ought to have occupied these woods the night before, and have hemmed the enemy in the open beyond. We now knew that the foe was in our immediate front. We marched down the field, the right wing deployed as skirmishers, the left wing in close battalion front following a few rods in its rear. By and by a puff of smoke from the green wall in front of us and a second or two afterwards the crack of a rifle. The fight had begun; another puff, another crack then more and more, multiplying as we approached. The bend in the road is now disclosed, the enemy's skirmishers disappeared from our front to reappear in greater numbers on our right. Our skirmishers were called in and we changed front forward on first company, moved down towards the wood on the right, and halting about 150 yards from the fence, we poured a volley into the enemy's ranks. The One Hundred and Fifty-ninth New York came down into line on our left, the Twenty-sixth Maine formed in our rear, the Thirteenth Connecticut took position on our extreme left occupying both sides of the road. The canes of the previous year's sugar crop stood in the field and their volley firing didn't get our range, and our lines were parallel with the furrows. The enemy's shot rattled through the dry stalks, crackling like hail against the windows. The enemy were armed with the smooth bores, every cartridge charged with a bullet and three buck shot, while our regiment was armed with Enfield rifles and so the Rebels, man for man were giving us four shots to our one in return.