of April, the day after the battle of Pleasant Hill. General Smith's instructions, which he showed me, required him to confer constantly with Admiral Porter, the approved friend of the Army of the Tennessee. His orders were dated headquarters Red River expedition, steamer Clara Bell. He never declined co-operation with me, nor did he receive orders from me. He made no official reports of his forces or their operations. He was in nowise responsible for the results of the expedition, and may perhaps be said to have gained as much by its failure as he would from its success. When his thirty days were up he claimed the right at Grand Ecore to return to Vicksburg, irrespective of the condition of the army or the fleet, and did not consider himself at all responsible for the inevitable consequences of his withdrawal to the army or the navy, nor for that detention which their preservation demanded. That responsibility I was called upon to assume in written demanded. That responsibility I was called upon to assume in written orders. I entertain no doubt that his official course was entirely consistent with his orders, and I cheerfully acknowledge the generous and earnest efforts of General Mower, of the Sixteenth, and General T. Kilby Smith, of the Seventeenth Corps, to infuse into the different corps that unity of spirit which is as essential to victory as the valor of the soldiers in actual battle. I gladly accord to the men of their commands the honor of having fought a desperate enemy, superior in numbers, with as much gallantry and success as that which distinguished the troops of my immediate command. No higher praise than this can be given to any soldiers. Alexander's troops never fought better.

The results of the position of the cavalry train, and the loose order of march by the leading column of troops under Major-General Franklin, on the 8th of April, before the battle of Sabine Cross-Roads, have been stated. A commanding officer is, of course, responsible for all that occurs to his command, whatever may have been the cause. I do not shrink from that responsibility. But while it was both proper and necessary for me to give personal attention to the prompt advance of all the troops and fleet from Grand Ecore on the morning of the 7th, it was supposed that the movement of a single column of 13,000 men, moving in advance on one road for a distance of less than 50 miles in such manner as to be able to encounter the enemy if the offered resistance, might safely be instructed to an officer of the reputation and experience of Major-General Franklin, whose rank, except in one instance, was superior to that of any officer of the expedition or for the Department of the Gulf.

I make no complaint of the navy, but in view of its prolific dispatches, long since published on this campaign, I may properly repeat a few facts already stated. The success of the expedition depended solely upon celerity of movement. The navy delayed the advance of the army at Alexandria sixteen days, and at Grand Ecore three days. It occupied four days in moving from Grand Ecore to Spring-field Landing, a distance of 104 miles, upon what the dispatches call "a rising river with good water," where it arrived two days after the first battle and one day after the decisive battle of the campaign at Pleasant Hill. It detained the army ten days at Grand Ecore and eighteen days at Alexandria on its return. These are not opinions; they are event. To the army they were pregnant and bloody events. The difficulties of navigation, the imperfect concentration of forces, the incautious march of the 8th of April, and the limited time allotted to the expedition were the causes of its failure.

We owe nothing to the enemy, not even our defeat. Could any