The strategical way according to the rule, therefore, would have been to go back to Memphis; establish that as a base of supplies; fortify it so that the storehouses could be held by a small garrison, and move from there along the line of railroad, repairing as we advanced, to the Yallabusha, or to Jackson, Mississippi.

At this time the North had become very much discouraged.
Many strong Union men believed that the war must prove a failure.

The elections of 1862 had gone against the party which was for the prosecution of the war to save the Union if it took the last man and the last dollar.

Voluntary enlistments had ceased throughout the greater part of the North, and the draft had been resorted to to fill up our ranks.

It was my judgment at the time that to make a backward movement as long as that from Vicksburg to Memphis, would be interpreted, by many of those yet full of hope for the preservation of the Union, as a defeat, and that the draft would be resisted, desertions ensue and the power to capture and punish deserters lost.