Interesting.I would have guessed at two or three times that number.Had I been General Grant or Admiral Porter,I wouldv'e ordered transports and a weeks rations to all those desiring to return to the Trans-Mississipp.

Tho as many as 3,000 to cross over by skiffs would have been difficult and time consuming even with a blind eye from the Federal navy.Perhaps so soon after the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson there were still a few unfound and undestroyed larger vessels available to assist in crossing over the troops.

What an amazing and heroic story of those 12th La.soldiers that returned east so late in the war.

MWT