e letter
addressed to him by Banks on the 13th of March, and placed in the
hands of Farragut just before the _Hartford_ ran the batteries of
Port Hudson. Thus on either side began a correspondence clearly
intended by both commanders to bring about an effective co-operation
between the two armies, aided by the combined fleets of Farragut
and Porter. Yet in the end, while the consequences remained unfelt
in the Army by the Tennessee, upon the Army of the Gulf the practical
effect, after the first period of delay and doubt, was to cause
its commander to give up the thought of moving toward Grant and to
conform all his movements to the expectation that Grant would send
an army corps to Bayou Sara to join in reducing Port Hudson. Thus,
quite apart from the confusion and the eventual disappointment,
much valuable time was lost while the matter was in suspense; and
so was demonstrated once more the impossibility, well established
by the history of war, of co-ordinating the operations of two armies
widely separated, having different objectives, while an enemy
strongly holds the country between them.

When Banks wrote his despatch of the 13th of March, he was at Baton
Rouge, about to demonstrate against Port Hudson. When Grant received
this despatch he was on the low land opposite Vicksburg, with the
rising river between him and his enemy, laboriously seeking a
practical pathway to the rear of Vicksburg, and in the meantime
greatly troubled to find dry ground for his seventy thousand men
to stand on. Grant's first idea, derived from Halleck's despatches,
was that Banks should join him before Vicksburg, with the whole
available force of the Army of the Gulf. When he learned from
Banks that this would be out of the question so long as Port Hudson
should continue to be held by the Confederates, Grant took up the
same line of thought that had already attracted Banks, and began
to meditate a junction by the Atchafalaya, the Red, the Tensas,
and the Black rivers. What Grant then needed was not more troops,
but standing-room for those he had. Accordingly, he began by
preparing to send twenty thousand men to Banks, when the Ohio River
steamers he had asked for should come.(1) They never came, yet even
after he had embarked upon the campaign, alike sound in conception
and splendid in execution, that was to become the corner-stone of
his great and solid fame, Grant kept to his purpose.

On the 14th of April he penned this brie