have not the dispatch with me,
but it was to this effect: that they had whipped the enemy terribly;
that Price was killed, also two or three other rebel generals whom he
named, but who have since recovered; and that I was to send back the
subsistence trains for such and such troops. I was very much puzzled by
that order, and immediately sent a staff officer back for more specific
instructions. But he had not been gone more than half an hour when a
staff officer of General Banks arrived with an order to me, with which
he had left in the night, for me to continue pressing on with the whole
train to Grand Ecore, and with instructions if any wagons broke down to
burn them, not stop to fix anything, but get everything into Grand Ecore
as quickly as I could, and look out very carefully on the flanks."

There can be no question of the correctness of these statements of
General A.L. Lee.

The following quotations from the reports of Admiral Porter to the
Secretary of the Navy are taken from page 239, and succeeding pages of
the same volume:

"FLAG-SHIP CRICKET, GRAND ECORE, _April 14, 1864_.

"The army here has met with a great defeat, no matter what the generals
try to make ofit. With the defeat has come demoralization, and it will
take some time to reorganize and make up the deficiencies in killed and
prisoners. The whole affair has been seriously mismanaged. It was well
we came up, for I am convinced the rebels would have attacked this
broken army at Grand Ecore had we not been here to cover them. I do not
think our army would be in a condition to resist them. I must confess
that I feel a little uncertain how to act. I could not leave this army
now without disgracing myself forever; and, when running a risk in their
cause, I do not want to be deserted. One of my officers has already been
asked 'If we would not burn our gunboats as soon as the army left?'
speaking as if a gunboat was a very ordinary affair, and could be burned
with indifference. I inclose two notes I received from Generals Banks
and Stone. There is a faint attempt to make a victory out of this, but
two or three such victories would cost us our existence."

Again, on page 166 of the same volume appears this dispatch from
Lieutenant-General Grant, at Culpepper, Virginia, to General Halleck,
Chief of Staff, at Washington:

"You can see from General Brayman's dispatch to me something of General
Banks's disaster."

Concerning the battle of Pleasant Hill G