The end of June was now drawing near, and already the losses of the besiegers in the month of constant fighting exceeded 4,000. At least as many more were sick in the hospitals, while the reinforcements from every quarter barely numbered 3,000. There were no longer any reserves to draw from; the last man was up. The effective strength of all arms had at no time exceeded 17,000.(1) Of these less than 12,000 can be regarded as available for any duty directly connected with the siege, and now every day saw the command growing smaller in numbers, as the men fell under the fire of the sharp-shooter, or succumbed to the deadly climate, or gave out exhausted by incessant labor and privation. The heat became almost insupportable, even to those who from time to time found themselves so fortunate as to be able to snatch a few hours' rest in the dense shade of the splendid forest, until their tour of duty should come again in the trenches, where, under the June sun beating upon and baking all three surfaces, the parched clay became like a reverberating furnace. The still air was stifling, but the steam from the almost tropical showers was far worse. Merely in attempting to traverse a few yards of this burning zone many of the strongest men were sunstruck daily. The labor of the siege, extending over so wide a front, pressed so severely upon the numbers of the besieging army, always far too weak for such an undertaking in any climate at any season, above all in Louisiana in June, that the men were almost incessantly on duty, either in digging, as guards of the trenches, as sharp-shooters, or on outpost service; and as the number available for duty grew smaller, and the physical strength of all that remained in the ranks daily wasted, the work fell the more heavily. When the end came at last the effective force, outside of the cavalry, hardly exceeded 8,000, while even of this small number nearly every officer and man might well have gone on the sick-report had not pride and duty held him to his post.
This will seem the less remarkable when it is remembered that the garrison during the same period suffered in the same proportion, while from like causes less than a year before Breckinridge had, in a much shorter time, lost the use of half his division. Butler's experience had been nearly as severe.
