The fleet steamed and sailed away, disappointed and defeated in the object of their coming. Banks was moving up the Red River Valley, with heavy land forces, supported by gun-boats, and Steele down through Arkansas, to a junction with him at Shreveport. But Texas, now relieved by the change of situation at Galveston, could spare their forces and send them to the front against Banks and Steele. They met them in detail, before the junction of the two lines, and both were defeated, and made disastrous retreats. Everything so far under Magruder seemed to favor the fortunes of Texas arms, and the prestige thereof by this time had become immense, particularly at home.
Soon after these several triumphs of Texas arms, a vessel was shipwrecked on the Gulf, and among the debris that washed upon the coast, a U. S. mail bag was picked up by the soldiers on duty there and forwarded to headquarters. It contained a large amount of letter mail, going North from Texas. The letters were written in part by Texans, who had fled the country to Mexico on account of proscription for Union sentiments, and to avoid conscription, with other reasons. And many were written by those still remaining in the country.
The accident furnished an opportunity for the military authorities to discover who might be traitors in their midst. The contents of the letters were carefully examined, and indicated that some of the writers entertained sentiments more or less treasonable to the Southern cause. Among the writers of this class was a Mrs. E., living a hundred miles from the coast, on the Texas Central Railroad. She had emigrated years before from the central part of the Old Empire State of the North. She was a lady of a decidedly literary turn of mind, and this fact was strongly marked in the literary tone of the contraband letter that had, by unforeseen accident, fallen into military hands. It read, in part, as quoted below:
"Dear Mother: It is a long time since communication was broken off between us. It seems an age. I am tired of it, and would that the unnatural struggle were over. But how and when, God only knows! I am living under a reign of terror, where dissembling is an art, and must be practiced, though self-bemeaning to an honest mind. The crushing incubus is upon us, and must be borne as best it can be. It would be comparatively easy to float with the current here if one's sympathies were with it. But dare I say it (?), mine are not. May the gods, in their own quick time, relieve the terrible suspense, and give victory to the 'Stars and Stripes.'"