Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/260

246 Seymour was arrested by the Confederate victory at Olustee, February 2oth, fought under Generals Colquitt and Finegan. Texas and Louisiana, at this season, became the ground of an expedition of combined land and naval forces under General Banks and Admiral Porter, who went up Red river early in March and advanced upon Shreveport. The expedition had large proportions and expectations of acquiring an immense quantity of cotton, but it met with most mortifying defeats by the Confederates under General Taylor. Banks found the way to New Orleans for himself and parts of his disordered command, while Porter escaped with his gunboats by the ingenuity of an engineer. General Banks was relieved of his command.

The trial year of war had arrived, the last of those four years from April, 1861, to April, 1865, in which the Confederacy was defended by armies which had fought with unexcelled courage, and by a navy of gunboats and cruisers created with a rapidity and managed with a skill that provoked astonishment and admiration.

While little mention in this scant outline has been made of the action of the Confederate administration at Richmond during the progress of hostilities, it will be borne in mind that all departments had been thoroughly absorbed with the business of war. The President, as commander-in-chief, had often been personally in council on the field with military chieftains, and two or three times exposed in battle. The secretaries of war and the navy, the adjutant-general with his assistants, the bureaus and all chiefs of departments had little relaxation from labor. Congress in frequent and prolonged sessions prepared and passed all acts which the increasing pressure of the war demanded. Governors of States, with the officials under them, bent all their energies to the duty of meeting the demands upon them, and the people of