John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[233] in the last-mentioned State, was confronted by Bragg with an inferior force, but was slow to move and was also calling for reinforcements. The crisis was an important one and obviously called for a great concentration of the National forces to insure victory on both lines. So profoundly was Dana convinced that everything should be done to “obviate the possible necessity of raising the siege of Vicksburg,” that at Grant's urgent request he started in person to Banks, then besieging Port Hudson, a hundred or so miles farther down the great river, for the purpose of urging him to send the greater part of his forces to Grant's assistance. In pursuance of this object he had got as far as Grand Gulf when he met a previous messenger returning with Banks's positive decision that he could not detach any part of his force even to make Grant's success a certainty. This made it absolutely necessary to bring reinforcements in large numbers from the North, and Dana represented this so frequently and so strongly to the Secretary of War that in the end nothing essential was left undone.

In the earlier stages of the campaign it had been urged by Sherman, and possibly by others, that the armies of the Tennessee and the Cumberland should be united on the Tennessee, and that the latter could be transported within a week by the ample fleet of steamboats under Grant's control to such point on that river as would render the junction certain and insure a great victory for the National arms; but while Dana admitted this, he thought Grant's situation was such that it would be fatal to his reputation to relinquish even temporarily his campaign against Vicksburg. After the brilliant operations which had scattered Johnston's forces and placed Grant's army in the rear of the stronghold, which was his principal objective, Dana properly took the view that withdrawal under the circumstances was inadmissible, if not impossible, unless