Weitzel, who, as far as Saint Martinville, had led the advance of the main column, followed by Emory with Paine and Ingraham, there took the road to the left and halted on the evening of the 17th of April at Côte Geleé, four miles in the rear of Grover. The next morning Weitzel moved up to Grover's support, while Banks, with Emory, rested at Côte Geleé to await the rebuilding of the bridge.
From St. Martinville, Emory sent the 173d New York, under Major Gallway, with Norris's section of Duryea's battery, to follow the Teche road to Breaux Bridge and endeavor to capture the bayou steamboats, five in number, that were still left to the Confederates. Five miles below the village of that name, Gallway met a small Confederate picket, and pushing it aside, soon afterward found the bridge over the bayou in flames. On the morning of the 18th he learned that four of the boats had been burned by the Confederates, and about the same time his farther advance was stopped by orders from Banks, despatched as soon as it was known that Grover had been brought to a stand. A courier from headquarters having lost his way in the night of the 18th, on the following morning Gallway found himself in the air without any apparent object. He accordingly marched along the banks of the Teche and the Bayou Fusilier, and taking the road to Opelousas, there rejoined Paine on the 1st.
On the 19th of April the army crossed the Vermilion and the Carencro, and marched unopposed sixteen miles over the prairie to Grand Coteau. Gooding's brigade rejoined Emory during the day.
On the 20th the march was continued about eight miles to Opelousas. Just outside the town the Corps went into bivouac, after throwing forward all the cavalry, the 13th Connecticut, and a section of Rodgers's battery, to Washington, on the Courtableau.
On the same day, after a brief engagement, Cooke, with the gunboats _Estrella, Arizona_, and _Calhoun_, and a detachment of four companies of the 16th New Hampshire from Brashear, captured Fort Burton at Butte-à-la-Rose, with its garrison of 60 men of the Crescent regiment and its armament of two 32-pounders; thus at last gaining the complete control of the Atchafalaya, and at the same time opening communication with Banks by way of Port Barré or Barré's Landing on the Courtableau, distant about nine miles northeasterly from Opelousas. Then Cooke steamed up the Atchafalaya to make his report to Farragut, lying in the Mississippi off the mouth of the Red River, and to seek fresh orders.