Vicksburg. This water-line runs parallel with the Mississippi.
Selfridge succeeded in reaching the head of navigation, Tensas Lake
and Bayou Macon, thirty miles above Vicksburg, and only five or six
from the Mississippi. The expedition was divided at a tributary of the
Black, called Little Red River; two going up it, while two continued
up the Tensas. Afterward it went up the Washita as far as
Harrisonburg, where the batteries stopped them. Four steamers were
destroyed, together with a quantity of ammunition and provisions.

A few weeks later, in August, Lieutenant Bache, late of the
Cincinnati, went up the White River with three gunboats, the
Lexington, Cricket, and Marmora. At a second Little Red River, a
narrow and crooked tributary of the White, the Cricket was sent off to
look for two steamers said to be hidden there. Bache himself went on
to Augusta, thirty miles further up the White, where he got certain
news of the movements of the Confederate army in Arkansas; thus
attaining one of his chief objects. He now returned to the mouth of
the Little Red, and, leaving the Marmora there, went up himself to see
how the Cricket had fared. The little vessel was met coming down;
bringing with her the two steamers, but having lost one man killed and
eight wounded in a brush with sharpshooters. On their return the three
vessels were waylaid at every available point by musketry, but met
with no loss. They had gone two hundred and fifty miles up the White,
and forty up the Little Red River.

During a great part of 1863, Tennessee and Kentucky, beyond the lines
of the Union army, were a prey not only to raids by detached bodies of
the enemy's army, but also to the operations of guerillas and light
irregular forces. The ruling feeling of the country favored the
Confederate cause, so that every hamlet and farm-house gave a refuge
to these marauders, while at the same time the known existence of some
Union feeling made it hard for officers to judge, in all cases,
whether punishment should fall on the places where the attacks were
made. The country between the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers early in
the year harbored many of these irregular bodies, having a certain
loose organization and a number of field-pieces. The distance between
the two streams in the lower part of their course being small, they
were able to move from the banks of one to the other with ease. It was
necessary, therefore, to keep these rivers patrolled by a for