 Many members of the 1st Regiment had also been members of the Confederate 1st Native Guard, and Cailloux and the other officers were not willing to resign and leave them to the fate of the New England officers who were widely mistreating black soldiers under their command in the other two regiments.The 1st Regiment of the Native Guard was assigned primarily to fatigue duty (chopping wood, digging trenches) until May 1863, when Banks moved most of his army (35,000 men) into a position to surround the Confederate fortifications at Port Hudson, Louisiana.Port Hudson was a strategically located fort on a bend in the Mississippi River just north of Baton Rouge.