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of the starving garrison of the Port.
In a campaign,
Dick Taylor always seemed to deal in surprises, even to his friends.
His instant grasp of a situation; his power of quick concentration; his sudden appearances, with that other gift of masking his designs in the face of an enemy, made him an enigma among the commanders of
Louisiana.
On July 4th, reporting his success in
southern Louisiana, he said, ‘I have used every exertion to relieve
Port Hudson and shall continue to the last.’
But on that very day
Vicksburg was surrendered.
He then clearly saw that the loss of
Vicksburg was sure to bring with it that of
Port Hudson.
Taylor's plan of relief had thus received an immediate quietus.
Even a sudden dash upon New Orleans, a surprise never long couchant in his mind—was unwillingly deferred under advice of
Gen. Kirby Smith.
Returning to the
Atchafalaya country,
Taylor resolved to fight the enemy on his first advance—a resolve brilliantly put in execution on the Lafourche, as narrated in the previous chapter.
Taylor himself was absolutely without illusions.
He felt assured that if Banks meant to overrun Louisiana it was within his power to do so. He saw in the rise of the Mississippi, Red, and Atchafalaya rivers an added proof that he could send his gunboats and transports into the very heart of western Louisiana.
On his side, Kirby Smith, writing from Shreveport on July 12th, had ex-pressed his satisfaction with Taylor's operations up to that date.
Smith rather took the sugar-coating from his praise, adding that Taylor's only course was to proceed with his troops to Niblett's Bluff on the Sabine.
An admirable point was this bluff to threaten the enemy's communication with Texas; but in Taylor's eye, single to his State's interest, one acre of the soil of west Louisiana looked larger than the whole State of Texas, vastest of the Confederacy.
The campaign of 1863 on the Mississippi had then already been ended.
Vicksburg and Port Hudson had protectingly stood above a closed Mississippi,
