was beyond our reach. Here,
at the place where it had opened more than two months before, the
campaign closed.

The army I had the honor to command in this campaign numbered, at its
greatest strength, about thirteen thousand of all arms, including
Liddell's force on the north bank of Red River; but immediately after
the battle of Pleasant Hill it was reduced to fifty-two hundred by the
withdrawal of Walker's and Churchill's divisions. Many of the troops
marched quite four hundred miles, and from the 5th of April to the 18th
of May not a day passed without some engagement with the enemy, either
on land or river. Our total loss in killed, wounded, and missing was
three thousand nine hundred and seventy-six; that of the enemy, nearly
three times this number.

From the action at Yellow Bayou on the 18th of May, 1864, to the close
of the war in the following year, not a shot was fired in the
"Trans-Mississippi Department." Johnston was forced back to Atlanta and
relieved from command, and Atlanta fell. Not even an effective
demonstration was made toward Arkansas and Missouri to prevent troops
from being sent to reenforce Thomas at Nashville, and Hood was
overthrown. Sherman marched unopposed through Georgia and South
Carolina, while Lee's gallant army wasted away from cold and hunger in
the trenches at Petersburg. Like Augustus in the agony of his spirit,
the sorely pressed Confederates on the east of the Mississippi asked,
and asked in vain: "Varus! Varus! Where are our legions?"

The enemy's advance, fleet and army, reached Alexandria on the 16th of
March, but he delayed sixteen days there and at Grand Ecore. My first
reenforcements, two small regiments of horse, joined at Natchitoches on
the 31st; but the larger part of Green's force came in at Mansfield on
the 6th of April, Churchill's infantry reaching Keachi the same day. Had
Banks pushed to Mansfield on the 5th instead of the 8th of April, he
would have met but little opposition; and, once at Mansfield, he had the
choice of three roads to Shreveport, where Steele could have joined him.

Judging from the testimony given to the Congressional Committee on the
Conduct of the War, cotton and elections seem to have been the chief
causes of delay. In the second volume of "Report" may be found much
crimination and recrimination between the Navy and Army concerning the
seizure of cotton. Without attempting to decide the question, I may
observe that Admiral Porter informs