be made to understand that an enemy may sometimes be defeated, but that the most consummate sill cannot insure the capture of his whole force. Nowadays we rarely hear of a fight in which our men have conducted themselves respectably but that there comes along some account of our having the enemy hemmed, cut off, or already bagged. Even sensible men will indulge and encourage this morbid appetite for the incredible. Hence it follows that frequently after a campaign in which the odds have been greatly against us, and during which the mass of the people exposed have been hopeless of the result and ready to take the oath of allegiance to the enemy, these very people, whose miserable cowardice and want of determination are a disgrace to a good cause, find it unaccountable-perfectly outrageous-that the Yankees were not all destroyed. Utter annihilation is generally the only thing that will at all suffice for these pseudosavage "stay-at-homes."

I do not think General Smith's late campaign admits a well grounded criticism. All turns upon a comparison of the objects to be gained by operating against Banks or Steele after Pleasant Hill. That it was impossible for us to pursue Banks immediately-under four or five days-cannot be gainsaid. It was impossible because we did not have transportation for supplies, and impossible because we had been beaten, demoralized, paralyzed in the fight of the 9th. One week was the shortest time in which we could put ourselves before the enemy at Natchitoches. By that time he had constructed strong works in a naturally strong position. Could we, weakened by the loss of 2,500 men and demoralized by defeat, beat the enemy here in a fortified position with a force superior to ours as seven to four? It would seem that pursuit with a small force of men to harass the enemy constantly was more effective than would have been the clumsy and slow pursuit of a larger force destitute of supplies. We were not strong enough to drive the enemy from his position, and if he retreated of his own accord we might as well be actively employed elsewhere-near enough all the time to meet any advance movement of his. A comparison can hardly be instituted between the results flowing from the defeat of Banks and that of Steele. The former rested on his gun-boats. His retreat was comparatively secure, and our pursuit beyond a certain point impossible. Steele was more than 200 miles from Helena, his permanent base of operations and supplies. His communications were through an open pine country, where his trains could be attacked at any point, and with nothing to protect him from being literally devoured by our cavalry could we once break his lines.

The regaining of the capital of the State and the breaking up of the new State government would give us perhaps 8,000 or 10,000 men, while with Steele back upon the Mississippi or his force destroyed our cavalry might now be in Missouri. Unfortunately in this department the immense tracts of desert country and the want of transportation sufficient to carry supplies over them places narrow limits to the possible achievements of our troops, and distance becomes one of the principal elements in a military problem. I contend that our failure to break up Steele's force, if not to capture or destroy it, resulted from an accident which could not be foreseen and had nothing to do with the conception of the plans-I mean General Fagan not putting himself in Steele's front between the Ouachita and the Saline. Even had our pontoon arrived in time we would most probably have fought him on fair ground and signally