oats in time for the rising of the waters; and
now Sherman promised to send with the fleet ten thousand picked
men of his army, to be at Alexandria on the 17th of March. Banks,
on his part, agreed that his troops, marching north by the Teche,
should meet Sherman's at Alexandria. Steele, who was at Little
Rock, undertook to move at the same time to meet the combined forces
and the fleet on the Red River. Confronting Steele was Price;
across Banks's line of advance stood Taylor; with the whole or any
part of his force, Sherman and Porter might have to reckon, and in
any case Fort De Russy must be neutralized or reduced before they
could get to Alexandria.

Thus upon a given day two armies and a fleet, hundreds of miles
apart, were to concentrate at a remote point far within the enemy's
lines, situated on a river always difficult and uncertain of
navigation, and now obstructed and fortified. Not often in the
history of war is the same fundamental principle twice violated in
the same campaign; yet here it was so, and even in the same orders,
for after once concentrating within the enemy's lines at Alexandria,
the united forces of Banks, Sherman, and Porter were actually to
meet those of Steele within the enemy's lines at Shreveport, where
Kirby Smith, strongly fortified moreover, was within three hundred
miles, roughly speaking, of either Banks or Steele, while Steele
was separated from Banks by nearly five hundred miles of hostile
territory, practically unknown to any one in the Union armies, and
neither commander could communicate with the other save by rivers
in their rear, over a long circuit, destined to lengthen with each
day's march, as they should approach their common enemy in his
central stronghold.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about all this was Sherman's
ready and express assent to the disregard of the first rule of the
great art of which he had always been an earnest student and long
past a master; yet it is to be observed that Sherman knew the Red
River country better than any one in the Union armies; he knew well
the scanty numbers and the scattered state of the hostile forces;
with him, as well as with Admiral Porter, this movement had long
been a favorite; he had indeed hoped and expected to undertake it
himself; but he evidently had in mind a quick and bold movement,
having for its object the destruction of the Confederate depots
and workshops at Shreveport, without giving the enemy notice,
b