Gallant Green, once out for adventures, was for multiplying them. In the vicinity of Donaldsonville, at the junction of the Lafourche and the Mississippi, was an earthwork called Fort Butler. Green, after some correspondence with Mouton, decided to assault the place. In the night of June 27th, Green attacked, with the support of Colonel Major's brigade, in all 800 men. Neither Green nor Major knew the ground—a fatal mistake in a night movement. An error in thinking the levee above the fort to be its parapet cost Colonel Phillips' life, as he was killed on reaching the ditch. By that time the expedition had become a failure. Major Ridley, of Phillips' regiment, calling to his men, gallantly leaped upon the parapet. Seeing Ridley there, the enemy fled, but finding Ridley alone, they returned and made him prisoner. Green dropped a laurel or two at Fort Butler.
Taylor was kept busy for some days hurrying and forwarding artillery, and arranging for moving these new and most valuable stores into the interior. He succeeded in placing twelve guns on the river below Donaldsonville. The new battery did good work. Green's men,, dismounted, were ready to affright all inquisitive strangers. One transport was destroyed; several turned back; gunboats driven off; the river closed for three days to transports; and mounted scouts rode with free rein to a point opposite Kenner's. A few hours more and New Orleans might have been Confederate for one delicious space. But in the first week of July, 1863, events were clubbing counter to Taylor's plans for the city. Vicksburg had fallen. On the night of July 10th news came that the blue-coats were in Port Hudson.
At times, history chooses agents of unequal power for its triumphs. On July 13th, Generals Weitzel, Grover and Dwight, with 6,000 of the victors of Port Hudson, came down the river, disembarked at Donaldsonville
