to the
families that remained in Jackson. Medicine and food were also sent to
Raymond for the destitute families as well as the sick and wounded, as I
thought it only fair that we should return to these people some of the
articles we had taken while marching through the country. I wrote to
Sherman: "Impress upon the men the importance of going through the State
in an orderly manner, abstaining from taking anything not absolutely
necessary for their subsistence while travelling. They should try to
create as favorable an impression as possible upon the people."
Provisions and forage, when called for by them, were issued to all the
people, from Bruinsburg to Jackson and back to Vicksburg, whose
resources had been taken for the supply of our army. Very large
quantities of groceries and provisions were so issued.

Sherman was ordered back to Vicksburg, and his troops took much the same
position they had occupied before--from the Big Black to Haines' Bluff.
Having cleaned up about Vicksburg and captured or routed all regular
Confederate forces for more than a hundred miles in all directions, I
felt that the troops that had done so much should be allowed to do more
before the enemy could recover from the blow he had received, and while
important points might be captured without bloodshed. I suggested to
the General-in-chief the idea of a campaign against Mobile, starting
from Lake Pontchartrain. Halleck preferred another course. The
possession of the trans-Mississippi by the Union forces seemed to
possess more importance in his mind than almost any campaign east of the
Mississippi. I am well aware that the President was very anxious to
have a foothold in Texas, to stop the clamor of some of the foreign
governments which seemed to be seeking a pretext to interfere in the
war, at least so far as to recognize belligerent rights to the
Confederate States. This, however, could have been easily done without
wasting troops in western Louisiana and eastern Texas, by sending a
garrison at once to Brownsville on the Rio Grande.

Halleck disapproved of my proposition to go against Mobile, so that I
was obliged to settle down and see myself put again on the defensive as
I had been a year before in west Tennessee. It would have been an easy
thing to capture Mobile at the time I proposed to go there. Having that
as a base of operations, troops could have been thrown into the interior
to operate against General Bragg's army. Thi