 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.The Federals brushed aside modest resistance from Mississippi troops and the 1st Choctaw Battalion, and burned two railroad bridges north of town.Ponchatoula itself was sacked after an unsuccessful guerrilla attack enraged the Federals.