SOLDIER 17 



to Fort Jackson, rowed, or rode, over the country for 

 fifteen miles. He had an exquisitely fine sympathy with 

 vegetable life in all its forms and especially with trees, 

 and the country charmed him. "I wish you could see the 

 orange and lemon groves," he writes, "with the trees per- 

 fectly bowed down with their weight of fruit. Such oranges ! 

 Citrons almost as large as my head and lemons as would 

 make the heart of a thrifty house-wife rejoice. Upon my 

 word, I am in love with the sunny South. Don't be as- 

 tonished if, finding my affinity, you should hear that 

 Gibraltar had surrendered and I had settled down for life." 



But he was not likely to find an assailant of his fortress 

 among the then inhabitants of New Orleans. He writes: 

 "The ladies wore 'secesh' cockades in their bonnets. Oh, 

 but it was amusing to see the curl of the lip and the un- 

 pleased nose with which they would sweep by us. Of course 

 I used my privilege of staring them full in the face." He 

 was master of a peculiar facial expression of a serio-comic 

 character, which he may have used, but he never had any 

 success with what he called, "my bran-new, two-for-a- 

 quarter smile." 



The object of the expedition was to cooperate with 

 General Grant in the reduction of Vicksburg. But General 

 Banks did not know until he arrived at New Orleans that 

 Port Hudson was fortified and manned by almost as large 

 a force as he could bring against it, or that fifty miles or 

 so west of New Orleans was a force of five or six thousand 

 men ready to move on the city and cut his lines of communi- 

 cation the moment he moved up the river. In addition to 

 this, he was furnished with transportation for only one 

 division of his army, and a letter from General Grant was 



