(*11) One of Colonel Ellet's vessels which had run the blockade
on February the 2d and been sunk in the Red River.
(*12) NOTE.--On this occasion Governor Richard Yates, of
Illinois, happened to be on a visit to the army and accompanied
me to Carthage. I furnished an ambulance for his use and that
of some of the State officers who accompanied him.
(*13) NOTE.--When General Sherman first learned of the move I
proposed to make, he called to see me about it. I recollect
that I had transferred my headquarters from a boat in the river
to a house a short distance back from the levee. I was seated
on the piazza engaged in conversation with my staff when Sherman
came up. After a few moments' conversation he said that he would
like to see me alone. We passed into the house together and shut
the door after us. Sherman then expressed his alarm at the move
I had ordered, saying that I was putting myself in a position
voluntarily which an enemy would be glad to manoeuvre a year--or
a long time--to get me in. I was going into the enemy's country,
with a large river behind me and the enemy holding points
strongly fortified above and below. He said that it was an
axiom in war that when any great body of troops moved against an
enemy they should do so from a base of supplies, which they would
guard as they would the apple of the eye, etc.
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