March 28, 1864. |
March 15. |
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reduced the force of the expedition three thousand, and General Banks was compelled to make an equal deduction from his force by an unforeseen necessity.
It had been intended to carry supplies the whole distance, in the advance on Shreveport, by water, but the river was now so low that but few transports could pass the rapids, and it was found necessary to establish a depot of supplies at Alexandria, and a wagon-train to take them from vessels below to vessels above the rapids.
To protect this depot and train required a considerable force, and to that duty General Grover was assigned, with three thousand men. General Banks then found his available force with which to move forward from Alexandria reduced to about twenty thousand men, without any expectation of co-operation with General Steele.
There was no unity of command, and experts prophesied, at the beginning of April, a probable failure of the expedition.1
Before the gun-boats had passed up the rapids, General Banks's column, under General Franklin, advanced
to Natchitoches, near the river, eighty miles above Alexandria by land,2 where he arrived on the 3d of April.
The Confederates had continually retreated before him, frequently stopping to skirmish with his vanguard, but offering no serious resistance, and now they continued their flight toward Shreveport.
At about the same time, General Smith's command was embarked at Bayou Rapide, and moved up the river with the fleet.
The difficulties and dangers of the expedition increased every hour, for the water in the river, instead of rising, as it was expected it would, was slowly falling, making the navigation more and more difficult.
And now, the advance of Banks and Smith had placed a strong Confederate force between their columns, and that of General Steele, which was expected to co-operate with them.3
Now, too, another most serious danger to the expedition appeared, in the possibility of its numbers being reduced full one-third more, before its object could be accomplished, by the withdrawal of General Smith's command.
Expecting no delay on account of low water in the Red River, General Banks had told General Sherman, at New Orleans, that the troops under Smith might be spared from the expedition within thirty days after their arrival at Alexandria.
Acting upon this assurance Lieutenant-General Grant, on assuming supreme command, sent word
to General Banks,4 that if he should find that the taking of Shreveport would occupy ten or fifteen days more time than General Sherman gave his troops to be
1 While the forces under the four commanders, Banks, Smith, Steele, and Porter, were operating together, “neither one of them,” says the first named, in his report, “had a right to give any order to the other. General Smith never made any report to me, but considered his as a substantially independent force.” He could get no information readily from General Steele. “It took us twenty days,” Banks said, “to communicate with him,” and then the sum of advantage was a simple statement of position, and a few words of advice. Halleck himself said, as late as the 5th of March, that he had no information of General Steele's plans, other than that he was to facilitate Banks's march on Shreveport; and on the day after Banks's arrival at Alexandria, he received a dispatch from Halleck, dated ten days earlier, saying he had directed General Steele to make a real move on Shreveport, instead of a demonstration only, as that officer had thought advisable. From time to time Banks was told that Steele would co-operate with him, but, at the close of April, the latter sent him word to the effect that co-operation with him was out of the question, for reasons that we shall observe presently.
2 Natchitoches is on the margin of the old Red River, four miles southward of Grand Ecore, which is on the bank of the new channel of that stream.
3 A scout was sent from Natchitoches across the country to Steele, and an aid-de-camp (Captain R. T. Dunham) was sent to the same destination by way of the White River, and both succeeded in delivering dispatches. But the operation was of no practical use.
4 General Banks received this dispatch at Alexandria, on the eve of his departure for Natchitoches.
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