Downing’s Civil War Diary.–Alexander G. Downing.

Monday, 24th–Spending the night here we started early this morning and moved on to Bayou Mason only seven miles further on. Here we remained during the balance of the day and for the night. There being no bridge, we had to wade the bayou to enter the town. Our cavalry routed about one hundred and fifty of the rebels in a camp on the west bank of the bayou. Most of our way today was shaded by forest trees. The country here is low and heavily timbered with cypress and the ground is covered with masses of palm leaf. We noticed driftwood high up in the trees, some forty or fifty feet, and were told by the natives that it was carried there last winter when the “Yanks” cut the levee up at Lake Providence, flooding the whole country. So we were permitted to see some of the results of our attempt at directing the waters of the Mississippi.