McClernand's Expedition Page 39

HDQRS. RIGHT WING, THIRTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
Memphis, December 18, 1862.
Colonel JOHN A. RAWLINS,
Assistant Adjutant-General, Oxford, Miss.:
SIR: Captain H. S. Fitch arrived last night with your
dispatches of December 15 and 16. All right. I am now in full
receipt of letters from Colonel Parsons, General Allen's agent
for chartering boats, who assures me plenty of boats will be
here to-day. I am promised the names of some sixty boats. I
have some fifteen here now loading, and have at helena about
ten, and am momentarily looking for the whole fleet. As soon
as they arrive I will be aboard and off for Helena.
Admiral Porter is just in from above, having been detained
four days by low water, but his letters are all we could ask.
I am also informed that there is a rise in the water above, so
that the fleet of boats ought not to be longer delayed. Every
possible preparation has been made, so that no moment should
be lost. If the fleet comes to-day all shall be on board
to-morrow, and I hope to be at Helena the 20th and at
Milliken's Bend, where we shall first begin to act, by the
23rd or 24th. Nothing is wanting but the boats, and I feel
every assurance they will be here to-day. I was all ready, so
that even the loss of the one day must not be charged to me.
Generals Gorman and Steele both write me most satisfactorily
from Helena, and indeed we must admit they have fulfilled
their parts handsomely. I give Steele full command of the
division at Helena, which, by the addition of Blair's brigade,
part of which (three regiments) have passed and two more
reported near at hand, will reach near 13,000 men, so that I
hope to have 33,000 men. Such a force operating at vicksburg
in concert with the gunboats will make something yield and
prepare your way. You will have heard that our ironclad
gunboat Cairo was sunk in the Yazoo by the explosion of one of
the infernal machines.
The weather is fine, and I repeat that I only await the fleet
of gunboats to be off.
Yours, truly,
W. T. SHERMAN,
Major-General.