Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 4.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[393] New Orleans and to subdue Texas but about twenty thousand available men, his ten thousand negroes being as yet only useful, as he said himself, to construct earthworks.

Franklin received orders to embark with five thousand men, the transports not being able to take more, and to repair to Sabine Pass. He was to land in the channel under the protection of the navy, or, if this were not possible, he was to seek under the same protection a better landing-place. Once master of the town and pass, regarding which no doubt was entertained as to his being able to easily take possession of them, he was to advance as far as Beaumont and send back the transports to Brashear for more troops. By this means and the land-route Banks expected to collect fifteen to seventeen thousand men, with which he would march upon Houston and take Galveston by flank or rear, and, leaving there a garrison, would then proceed along the coast to Indianola, and perhaps even as far as the Rio Grande if he was not recalled sooner by military events to New Orleans.

Unfortunately, this fine plan was defective in its basis. The expedition whose command had been unexpectedly given to General Franklin had been badly prepared. The transports for the most part were sailing-vessels, which had to be towed; the steam-vessels were old and rotten; the soldiers were crowded on board; there were provisions and forage for only ten days and water for even less time. Moreover, a misunderstanding delayed the departure of the most important of all the transports, that which carried a party of engineers with the instruments and material necessary to facilitate the landing. To obtain better vessels it would have been necessary to bring them from New York; there was no time for this. Those that Banks had collected, unsafe to undertake a long journey with too great a load, unfit for sailing in convoy, drew, moreover, almost too much water to pass the Sabine bar easily. Franklin's observations on the subject were not listened to, for in order to obey the orders received from Washington it was requisite at any risk to land somewhere on the coast of Texas; and on the 5th of September the fleet left New Orleans. On the morning of the next day it reached Atchafalaya Bay, and immediately resumed its sailing, escorted by four gunboats, the Clifton, Sachem, Arizona, and Granite City, which were to protect