Here, too, early on the 27th came Hunter, with fresh and very positive orders from Grant to Banks, bearing date the 17th, requiring him to bring the expedition to an immediate end, to turn over his command at once to the next in rank, and to go himself to New Orleans. In truth, this was but the culmination of an earnest and persistent wish on Grant's part, shown even as far back as the beginning of the campaign, to replace Banks in command by Hunter or another. When, afterward, Grant came to learn of the perilous situation of the fleet, and moreover perceived that none of the troops engaged in the expedition could be in time to take part in the spring campaigns east of the Mississippi, he suspended these orders, and, without recalling that portion of them that required Banks to go to New Orleans, directed the operations for the rescue of the navy to go on under the senior commander present. In any case, however, it was now clearly impossible to abandon the fleet in its dangerous and helpless position above the rapids, with the river falling, and an active enemy on both banks.
And Steele,--where was Steele all this time? Having rejected Banks's advice to join him near Alexandria, marching by way of Monroe and so down the Ouachita, Steele set out from Little Rock on the 24th of March, moved by his right on Arkadelphia, and arrived there on the 28th. His object in preferring this direction was, not only to avoid the heavy roads in the low lands of the Ouachita, but to take up Thayer, who was already on the march from Fort Smith, thus making a fourth concentration in the enemy's country. The exigencies of the wretched farce called a State election in Arkansas had reduced Steele's effective force by fully 3,000, so that he now moved with barely 7,000 of all arms, and six batteries. Opposed to Steele was Price, with the cavalry divisions of Fagan and Marmaduke, the former at Spring Hill to meet the advance from Arkadelphia, and the latter at Camden, to guard the line of the Ouachita. To strengthen himself, Price drew in Cabell and Maxey, who with three brigades were at first engaged in watching Thayer.
On the 1st of April, hearing nothing from Thayer, Steele advanced from Arkadelphia, crossed the Little Missouri at Elkin's Ferry on the 3d, was joined by Thayer on the 6th, and on the 10th had a sharp engagement with an outlying brigade, under Shelby, of Price's army. Price was then at Prairie d'Ane, covering the crossing of the roads that led to Camden and to Shreveport, but on the evening of the 11th he drew back beyond the prairie to a strong position eight miles north of Washington. To have followed Price would have been to put Steele's long and lengthening line of communication at the mercy of Marmaduke. This was what Price wanted; but when, on the 12th, Steele saw the road to Camden left open, he promptly took it, and, harried by Price in his rear, and not seriously impeded by Marmaduke in his front, he marched into Camden on the 15th, and occupied the strong line of the Confederate defences. This was four days after the return of Banks to Grand Ecore, which of course put an end to any farther advance of Steele in the direction of Shreveport, and while he was waiting for authentic news, Price was busy on his line of communication with Pine Bluff, and Kirby Smith, with Churchill and Walker, was moving rapidly to join Price. On the 20th of April Kirby Smith appeared before the lines of Camden; but Steele had already begun his inevitable retreat a few hours earlier, and having destroyed the bridge across the Ouachita, gained so long a start that he was enabled make good the difficult crossing of the Saline at Jenkins's Ferry, but only after a hard fight on the 30th of April with the combined forces of Smith and Price. Finally, the 2d of May saw Steele back at Little Rock with his army half starved, greatly reduced in men and material in these six ineffectual weeks, thinking no longer of Halleck's wide schemes of conquest, or even of Grant's wish to hold the line of the Red River, but rather hoping for some stroke of good fortune to enable him to defend the line of the Arkansas and to keep Price out of Missouri.