The attack on Baton Rouge was made the next morning at daylight, and although Rodney and Dick heard little of it and saw less, they had some hospital work on their hands. The heat was intense, and everywhere along the line of march men fell exhausted out of the ranks, and were taken in and cared for by the planters. Rodney's house and door-yard were filled with soldiers who could not go any farther toward the enemy, although they recovered their strength and power of action very suddenly when it became known that there was a possibility of the enemy's cavalry coming toward them. The attack, which was so successful at first that the Federal camps were captured or burned, failed utterly in the end, and at noon the fight was over and the Confederates were in full retreat. The _Arkansas_ did not come down to help with her big guns, and if she had she might have met a warmer reception than she bargained for, for there were five gunboats in the river, including the iron-clad _Essex_. These took an earnest part in the fight while waiting for the _Arkansas_, their fire being directed by an army signal officer who stood on the roof of the capitol building. The Confederates were so badly whipped that they left seventy men on the field for the Union forces to bury.
The closing scene of the fight was enacted the next morning. The _Essex_ went up the river six miles, found the terrible _Arkansas_, with her ten heavy guns and 180 picked men, hard and fast aground, and pounded her so severely that in fifteen minutes she was set on fire and abandoned. She blew up when the fire reached her magazine, but she left others behind which made themselves known and feared before the war was over.
This short visit of the Confederate army was like a plague of locusts; everything in the shape of eatables in and around Mooreville that they could place their hands on disappeared and was never heard of afterward. Some articles of value disappeared likewise, as was to have been expected; but not very many, for the settlers had learned that it was best to be careful of such things during war times. No one had seen a Home Guard during those two troublous days, nobody could tell where Captain Randolph had kept himself or how he had behaved, and neither was there any news to be had of Captain Roach.