On the 4th of May, while riding to the front to join the advance commanded by his brother, Captain Howard Dwight, Assistant Adjutant-General, was surprised and cut off at a sharp turn in the Bayou Boeuf by a party of armed men on the opposite bank. Having no reason to apprehend any special danger so far in the rear of the advance, the little party was proceeding along the road without precaution. At the moment of the encounter Captain Dwight was quite alone, concealed by the turn in the road from the ambulance and the few orderlies that were following at leisure. Armed only with his sword, and seeing that escape was hopeless, he instantly declared his readiness to surrender. "Surrender be damned!" cried the guerillas, and, firing a volley without further parley, shot him dead. When the orderlies who were with the ambulance heard the firing they galloped forward, only to find poor Dwight's lifeless body lying in the dusty road. The murderers had fled.
By this painful event the service lost a brave and promising young officer and the staff a pleasant and always cheerful comrade. The distinguished family to which this gallant gentleman belonged had given four brothers to the service of their country. Of these Howard himself most nearly resembled in character, looks, and bearing his elder brother Wilder, who fell at Antietam, honored and lamented by all that knew him.
Upon hearing the news, Banks instantly sent order to Brigadier-General Dwight to arrest all the white men he might find near the line of his march to the number of one hundred, and to send them to New Orleans to be held as hostages for the delivery of the murderers. "The people of the neighborhood who harbor and feed these lawless men," Banks wrote, "are even more directly responsible for the crimes which they commit, and it is by punishing them that this detestable practice will be stopped." There were not a hundred white men in the region through which Dwight was marching, but many were punished by imprisonment after this order--a harsh measure, it must be admitted, yet not without the justification that the countryside was infested by men wearing no uniform, who acted in turn the part of soldiers in front of the Union army, of citizens on its line of march, and of guerillas in its rear. When, under a flag of truce, Dwight presently demanded from Taylor the surrender of his brother's murderers, the Confederate officers not only disavowed but severely condemned the crime, declaring themselves, however, unable to pick out the criminals.