Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 4.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[486] south-eastward direction, traverse obliquely the two States of Arkansas and Louisiana. Both receive on the left, near their conjunction with the Mississippi, an important tributary which flows down from the north almost parallel with the great river; the tributary of the Arkansas is the White River, and that of the Red River the Washita. The efforts of Blunt and Steele had made the Federals masters of the basin of the Arkansas; they had yet to gain possession of that of the Red River. This was the object Halleck had in view. To attain it it was necessary to act in concert with Steele's forces on the north and Banks' on the south against Price's and Taylor's small armies, which formed the command of Kirby Smith, but being dispersed over a vast extent of country, separated the two Federal generals from each other. Too weak to operate singly, they were also too far apart to co-operate effectually with each other. But a favorable circumstance at last enabled Halleck to guarantee them the reinforcements necessary to undertake this difficult campaign with some chances of success. The severity of the winter prevented Grant from resuming before the end of April the great operations which he was preparing in the Tennessee Valley. Sherman, as we have said, had returned with the greater part of his command to the banks of the Mississippi. By leaving sufficient garrisons in the places protecting the navigation of this river, he could put in the field an army sufficiently strong, and above all well inured to war, which the climate of the South permitted him to use actively during three months before the time when Grant would again need it. In order that the latter might take on either bank of the Mississippi all the troops for which this river was used as a base of operations, the Army of the Arkansas and the garrison of Helena had been placed temporarily under his command. Halleck fully expected in the early part of January that all these forces would join, without delay, either Sherman or Banks, in order to undertake, in conjunction with them, the campaign he had been so long projecting. But some difficulties which he might have foreseen came to again thwart his design. On the one hand, the great severity of the winter this year rendered, according to Steele's saying, military operations impossible in the State of Arkansas. On the other hand, the waters of the Red River, which