While this movement was in progress, Walker was on the march toward Natchitoches or Alexandria, by varying routes, according as the plans changed to suit the news of the day. Taylor observed Banks and followed his march to Simmesport, while Mouton hung upon the rear and flank of Chickering's column, guarding the big wagon-train and the spoils of the Teche campaign.
Then Kirby Smith, not caring as yet to venture across the Atchafalaya, ordered Taylor to take Walker's division back into Northern Louisiana and try to break up Grant's campaign by interrupting his communications opposite Vicksburg; but this attempt turned out badly, for Grant had already given up his communications on the west bank of the Mississippi and restored them on the east, and Taylor's forces, after passing from Lake Catahoula by Little River into the Tensas, ascending that stream to the neighborhood of Richmond and occupying that town on the 3d of May, were roughly handled on the 7th in an ill-judged attempt to take Young's Point and Milliken's Bend. Then, leaving Walker with orders to do what damage he could along the river bank--which was not much--and, if possible, as it was not, to throw supplies of beef and corn into Vicksburg, Taylor went back to Alexandria and prepared for his campaign in La Fourche, from which Kirby Smith's superior orders had diverted him. Meanwhile nearly a month had passed and Walker, after coming down to the Red River, a week too late, was once more out of reach.
Taylor's plan was for Major, with his brigade of cavalry, to cross the Atchafalaya at Morgan's Ferry, while Taylor himself, with the main body under Mouton, should attempt the surprise and capture of Brashear: then, if successful, the whole army could be thrown into La Fourche, while in case of failure Major could easily return by the way he came.
Major left Washington on the 10th of June, marched twenty-eight miles to Morgan's Ferry, by a road then high and dry although in April Banks had found it under water, and crossing the Atchafalaya on the 14th rode along the Bayou Fordoche with the intention of striking the river at the Hermitage; but a broken bridge turned him northward round the sweep of False River toward Waterloo. Sage was at False Point with six companies of his 110th New York, a squadron of the 2d Rhode Island cavalry, and a section of Carruth's battery. As soon as he found the enemy approaching in some force he moved down the levee to the cover of the lower fleet and thus lost the chance of gaining and giving timely notice of Major's operation. Major on his part rode off by the Grosstête through Plaquemine, as already related, and so down the Mississippi to Donaldsonville, having passed on the way three garrisons without being seen by any one on board. Making a feint on Fort Butler, Major, under cover of the night, took the cut-off road and struck the Bayou La Fourche six miles below Donaldsonville; thence he rode on to Thibodeaux, entering the town at daylight on the 21st of June. At Thibodeaux Major picked up all the Union soldiers in the place to the number of about 100, mostly convalescents.