instructed to make
immediate preparations for an expedition to Texas. This was speedily
followed by other urgent orders to occupy some point or points of
Texan territory, doubtless as an indication that the course of
interference begun in the weaker republic would not be permitted to
extend to lands over which the United States claimed authority, though
actually in revolt. The expectation that France would thus attempt to
interfere was far from lacking foundation, and was shared, with
apprehension, by the Confederate Government. A year before, M. Theron,
a French consul in Texas, acting in his official capacity, had
addressed a letter to the Governor of the State, suggesting that the
re-establishment of the old republic of Texas, in other words, the
secession of the State from the Confederacy, might be well for his
"beloved adopted country;" and ended by saying that the Governor's
answer would be a guide to him in his political correspondence with
the government he represented. In consequence of this letter, M.
Theron and the French consul at Richmond, who had also been meddling
with Texan affairs, were ordered to leave the Confederate States. The
object evidently was to set up an independent republic between the new
empire in Mexico and whichever power, Union or Confederacy, should
triumph in the Civil War.

The Commander-in-Chief, General Halleck, expressed his own preference
for a movement by the Red River to Shreveport, in the northwest corner
of Louisiana, and the military occupation from that point of northern
Texas, but left the decision as to taking that line of operation, or
some other, to General Banks. The latter, for various reasons,
principally the great distance of Shreveport, seven hundred miles from
New Orleans, and the low state of the Red River, which entirely
precluded water transportation, chose to operate by the sea-coast, and
took as the first point of attack Sabine Pass and city, three hundred
miles from Southwest Pass, where the river Sabine, separating the
States of Louisiana and Texas, enters the Gulf. If he could make good
his footing here at once, he hoped to be able to advance on Beaumont,
the nearest point on the railroad, and thence on Houston, the capital
and railway centre of the State, which is less than one hundred miles
from Sabine City, before the enemy could be ready to repel him.

Owing to lack of transportation, all the troops for the destined
operations could not go forward at