All other troops were employed exclusively in support of these two movements.

This was the plan; and I will now endeavor to give, as concisely as I can, the method of its execution, outlining first the operations of minor detached but co-operative columns.
As stated before, Banks failed to accomplish what he had been sent to do on the Red River, and eliminated the use of forty thousand veterans whose cooperation in the grand campaign had been expected--ten thousand with Sherman and thirty thousand against Mobile.
Sigel's record is almost equally brief.

He moved out, it is true, according to programme; but just when I was hoping to hear of good work being done in the valley I received instead the following announcement from Halleck: "Sigel is in full retreat on Strasburg.

He will do nothing but run; never did anything else." The enemy had intercepted him about New Market and handled him roughly, leaving him short six guns, and some nine hundred men out of his six thousand.
The plan had been for an advance of Sigel's forces in two columns.
Though the one under his immediate command failed ingloriously the other proved more fortunate.

Under Crook and Averell his western column advanced from the Gauley in West Virginia at the appointed time, and with more happy results.