ffectives and 14 guns, Steele on the 23d with
7,500 effectives and 16 guns; besides these, he left Clayton with
1,600 men and 11 guns to hold Pine Bluff.

We have seen how, in one movement, three divergent ideas were being
carried out without either having been distinctly decided on: a
foothold in Texas, an overland occupation in force, and a swift
raid by the river. To these there was now to be added a fourth
idea, in itself sound, yet fatally inconsistent with the others.

On the 27th of March, before setting out from Alexandria, Banks
received, by special messenger, the orders of Lieutenant-General
Grant, dated the 15th of March, on taking command of the armies of
the United States. For the first time during the war, all the
armies were to move as one, with a single purpose, ruled by a single
will; along the whole line, from the Mississippi to the Atlantic,
a combined movement was to take place early in May, and in this
the entire effective force of the Department of the Gulf was to
take part. A. J. Smith was to join the Army of the Tennessee for
the Atlanta campaign, and Banks was to go against Mobile. Sherman
had lent A. J. Smith to Banks for thirty days. This limit Grant
was willing to extend by ten or fifteen days, but if Shreveport
were not to be taken by that time--that is, by the 25th of April
at the very latest,--then Banks was to send A. J. Smith's detachment
back to Vicksburg in season to arrive there at the date originally
named--that is, by the 10th of April,--even if this should lead to
the abandonment of the expedition. The orders for the expedition
given by Halleck, while occupying nominally the supreme command
that had now in truth fallen into the strong hand of Grant, were
not revoked; the expedition was to go on; only, to make sure that
it should not be gone too long, it was to be put in irons.

Grant may easily be excused if, while as yet hardly warm in the
saddle, he hesitated to revoke orders that he must have known to
be those of the President himself; yet, since a door must be either
open or shut it would have been far better to revoke the orders
than to trammel their execution with conditions so hard that Banks
might well have thrown up the campaign then and there. However,
Banks on his part had good reason to know the wishes of the government
and not less the consequences of disregarding them; moreover, as
the case must have presented itself to him, there was an off chance
that Ki