cky; and
then, when he did start, he allowed General Forrest to head him off
and to defeat him with an inferior force, near West Point, below
Okalona, on the Mobile & Ohio Railroad.

We waited at Meridian till the 20th to hear from General Smith, but
hearing nothing whatever, and having utterly destroyed the
railroads in and around that junction, I ordered General McPherson
to move back slowly toward Canton. With Winslow's cavalry, and
Hurlbut's infantry, I turned north to Marion, and thence to a place
called "Union," whence I dispatched the cavalry farther north to
Philadelphia and Louisville, to feel as it were for General Smith,
and then turned all the infantry columns toward Canton,
Mississippi. On the 26th we all reached Canton, but we had not
heard a word of General Smith, nor was it until some time after (at
Vicksburg) that I learned the whole truth of General Smith's
movement and of his failure. Of course I did not and could not
approve of his conduct, and I know that he yet chafes under the
censure. I had set so much store on his part of the project that I
was disappointed, and so reported officially to General Grant.
General Smith never regained my confidence as a soldier, though I
still regard him as a most accomplished gentleman and a skillful
engineer. Since the close of the war he has appealed to me to
relieve him of that censure, but I could not do it, because it
would falsify history.

Having assembled all my troops in and about Canton, on the 27th of
February I left them under the command of the senior major-general,
Hurlbut, with orders to remain till about the 3d of March, and then
to come into Vicksburg leisurely; and, escorted by Winslow's
cavalry, I rode into Vicksburg on the last day of February. There
I found letters from General Grant, at Nashville, and General
Banks, at New Orleans, concerning his (General Banks's) projected
movement up Red River. I was authorized by the former to
contribute aid to General Banks for a limited time; but General
Grant insisted on my returning in person to my own command about
Huntsville, Alabama, as soon as possible, to prepare for the spring
campaign.

About this time we were much embarrassed by a general order of the
War Department, promising a thirty-days furlough to all soldiers
who would "veteranize"--viz., reenlist for the rest of the war.
This was a judicious and wise measure, because it doubtless secured
the services of a very large portion