 After some light skirmishing, the Rebels torched "Cotton" to prevent her capture.Weitzel let his troops loose on the march home, and foraging soon evolved into outright pillaging, including the burning of five plantation homes.After guarding New Orleans again until March, the regiment was ordered in conjunction with fragments of other commands to destroy railroad bridges north of Ponchatoula, Louisiana, as a feint in support of a larger advance by Butler’s successor, Nathaniel P. Banks.