When Steele's retreat to Little Rock had put an end to all hopes of a successful pursuit, Kirby Smith faced about and set Walker in rapid motion toward Alexandria with Churchill closely following. A day or two after Banks had left the place Walker arrived at Alexandria, too late to do anything more in Louisiana.
Taylor quarrelled bitterly with Kirby Smith, who ended by ordering him to turn over his command to Walker. Leaving a small force to hold the country and to observe and annoy the Union army of occupation in Louisiana, Kirby Smith then gathered his forces, and passing by Steele's right flank, invaded Missouri.
After arriving at Morganza, Emory, by Canby's orders, put his command in good condition for defence or for a movement in any direction by sending to other stations all the troops except the Nineteenth Corps and the First division, Lawler's, of the Thirteenth Corps, as well as all the extra animals, wagons, and baggage of the army. For the sedentary defensive, the position at Morganza had many advantages, but except that good water for all purposes was to be had in plenty for the trouble of crossing the levee, the situation was perhaps the most unfortunate in which the corps was ever encamped. The heat was oppressive and daily growing more unbearable. The rude shelters of bushes and leaves, cut fresh from the neighboring thicket and often renewed, gave little protection; the levee and the dense undergrowth kept off the breeze; and such was the state of the soil that when it was not a cloud of light and suffocating dust, it was a sea of fat black mud. The sickly season was close at hand, the field and general hospitals were filled, and the deaths were many. The mosquitoes were at their worst; but worse than all were the six weeks of absolute idleness, broken only by an occasional alarm or two, such as led to the brief expedition of Grover's division to Tunica and Natchez.
At first Canby intended to use the Nineteenth Corps as a sort of marine patrol or coast-guard, with its trains and artillery and cavalry reduced to the lowest point, and the main body of the infantry kept always ready to embark on a fleet of transports specially assigned for the service and to go quickly to any point up or down the Mississippi or the adjacent waters that might be menaced or attacked by the enemy. The orders for the organization and equipment of the corps in this manner form a model of forethought and of minute attention to detail, yet as events turned out, they were never put in practice.
Toward the end of June the corps underwent at the hands of Canby the last of its many reorganizations.(1) The First and Second divisions were left substantially as they had been during the campaign just ended, but the Thirteenth Corps being broken up,(2) seventeen of its best regiments were taken to form for the Nineteenth Corps a new Third division, under Lawler. Emory, who was suffering from the effects of the climate and the hardships of the campaign, had just applied for leave of absence, supposing that all idea of a movement during the summer was at an end, and Canby, having granted this, assigned Reynolds to command the corps, to which, in truth, his rank and record entitled him, and gave the First division, Emory's own, to Roberts, a total stranger. Upon this, and learning of the movement about to be made, Emory at once threw up his leave of absence, and Reynolds, noting with the eye of a soldier the deep and widespread disappointment among the officers and men of the corps, magnanimously persuaded Canby to leave the command of the Nineteenth Army Corps, for the time being, to Emory, while Reynolds himself commanded the forces at Morganza. The brigades of the First division were commanded by Beal, McMillan, and Currie. Grover kept the Second division with Birge, Molineux, and Sharpe as brigade commanders, and afterward a fourth brigade was added, made up of four regiments from the disbanded Thirteenth Corps, under Colonel David Shunk of the 8th Indiana, and comprising, in addition to his own regiment, the 24th and 28th Iowa, and the 18th Indiana. At this later period also the 1st Louisiana was taken from Molineux's brigade to remain in the Gulf, and its place was filled by the 11th Indiana and the 22d Iowa. Lawler's new Third division had Lee, Cameron, and Colonel F. W. Moore of the 83d Ohio for brigade commanders. This was a splendid division, on both sides congenial; unfortunately it was not destined to see service with the corps.
Three great reviews broke the torrid monotony of Morganza. On the 11th of June Emory reviewed the corps in a tropical torrent, which suddenly descending drenched every man to the skin and reduced the field music to discord, without interrupting the ceremony. On the 14th the troops again passed in review before Sickles, who had been sent to Louisiana on a tour of inspection, and finally on the 25th Reynolds reviewed the forces at Morganza on taking the command.
Grant's orders to Canby were the same as those he had given to
Banks, to go against Mobile.
This was indeed an integral and important, though strictly subordinate, part of the comprehensive plan adopted by the lieutenant-general for the spring campaign. Besides distracting the attention of the Confederates, and either drawing off a large part of their forces from Sherman's front or else causing them to give up Mobile without a struggle, the control of the Alabama River would give Sherman a secure base of supplies and a safe line of retreat in any contingency, while the occupation of a line from Atlanta to Mobile would, as Grant remarked, "once more split the Confederacy in twain."
But while in Louisiana the troops stood still, awaiting the full completion of Canby's exhaustive preparations, elsewhere events were marching with great rapidity. On the 3d of June Grant's campaign from the Rappahannock to the James came to an end in the bloody repulse of Cold Harbor, with the loss of 12,737 officers and men. On the 14th he crossed the James and sat down before Petersburg. In the six weeks that had passed since the Army of the Potomac made its way into the Wilderness, Grant had lost from the ranks of the two armies of the Potomac and the James nearly as many men as Lee had in the Army of Northern Virginia.(3)
While he was himself directing the movement of Meade and Butler against Richmond and Petersburg, Grant ordered Hunter, who commanded in the Shenandoah Valley, to march by Charlottesville on Lynchburg, and sent Sheridan, with the cavalry on a great raid to Charlottesville to meet Hunter; but Lee sent Early to intercept the movement, and Early, moving with the speed and promptness to which Jackson's old corps was well used, got to Lynchburg in time to head Hunter off. Then Hunter, rightly deeming his position precarious, instead of retreating down the valley, made his escape across the mountains into West Virginia. This left the gates of the great valley thoroughfare wide open for Early, who, instantly marching north, once more invaded Maryland, harried Pennsylvania, and menaced Washington.