The Mississippi River was very much swollen in the spring of 1863, and a bayou near Helena offered a possible channel in the direction of Vicksburg. It was broad and deep enough to admit the passage of steamers and gunboats, but too narrow for a boat to turn around. A fleet of steamers, bearing a well-chosen force, and accompanied by gunboats, was sent down this bayou. The fleet of boats had not gone far till the way was found blockaded. Large trees had been cut down, so that in falling they bridged the narrow stream from shore to shore. But determined men can overcome almost any obstacle. They did not stop to cut the trees to pieces, but loosened them from the stumps, attached ropes and chains to them, and with their hands, by main force, pulled them out onto the dry land. Overhanging branches had to be cut away, and yet all the outworks of the boats were torn to pieces. Finding that this channel of approach was impracticable, a retrograde movement was made. There was but one way to get the boats out, and that was to back out stern foremost. But while they were pushing on, the enemy had been felling the trees behind them, and the same hard work of pulling them out by human hands became necessary; and it was done. It was my privilege to see the fleet of boats as it came in to join the force opposite Vicksburg, and a more dilapidated, ragged-looking lot of boats and men was never seen on the earth. They looked as though they had been through a dozen battles. Little was left of the boats but the substantial framework. The flags hung in tatters; the smoke-stacks had been carried away; the pilot-houses torn to pieces; the guards and outworks were gone; the wheel-houses torn away, and the broken wheels left bare. As heroes returning from battle, the soldiers of that expedition were welcomed by hearty cheers, as boat after boat came in, by their comrades. One boat, the first to enter the bayou, was the last to come in, and arrived about ten o’clock at night. The landing was made alongside our Sanitary boat, where the agents and workers of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions were quartered. There were a number of ladies there; and their sympathies were deeply moved, that men who had been out on such hard service should be marched out through the rain and mud at so late an hour to make their camp. “Why can they not stay under shelter where they are till morning?” was the indignant question that passed from lip to lip, as we stood out on the guards looking down upon them.