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At this time the entire land-force, under Major-General Mansfield Lovell, hardly exceeded 5,000 men. Of these, 1,100 occupied Forts Jackson and St. Philip, under the command of General Duncan; 1,200 held the Chalmette line, under General Martin L. Smith, and about 3,000, chiefly new levies, badly armed, were in New Orleans.
He signified his opinion, that, even if it should be found practicable, it would be very impolitic to throw any men into St. Philip's castle, which could not be saved without a land-force sufficient to raise the seige; therefore, a small reinforcement would only add so many men to the number which must fall into the hands of the enemy.
As the accomplishment of his designs depended mainly on his obtaining a powerful land-force, he regarded a Spartan as preferable to an Athenian alliance; and, having once made his choice, he lent his ally such effectual aid that in two years from the time of his coming down to the coast the war was terminated.
There they formed an army, and having money at command, and open sea communications, they were able to import equipment from abroad, and eventually to transport their land-force, secured from molestation on the voyage by the sea-power at their disposal, to the neighbourhood of Valparaiso, where it was landed and triumphantly ended the campaign.
The land-force fought with bravery, but was at length put to the rout. The island of Thasos was the next member of the confederacy against which the Athenians directed their arms. The expedition to Thasos was attended with a circumstance which first gives token of the coming hostilities between Sparta and Athens.
Philip would certainly never have prevailed at sea and come to Attica with a fleet, nor would he have marched with a land-force by Phocis and Thermopylae: he must either have acted honorably, observing the peace and keeping quiet, or been immediately in a war similar to that which made him desire the peace. Enough has been said to awaken recollection.
The scattered condition of the forces in the eastern half of the empire, the method of the general never to operate except with superior masses, his cumbrous and tedious movements, and the discord of the coalition may perhaps explain in some measure, though not excuse, the inactivity of the land-force; but that the fleet, which commanded the Mediterranean without a rival, should have thus done nothing to influence the course of affairs nothing for Spain, next to nothing for the faithful Massiliots, nothing to defend Sardinia, Sicily, Africa, or, if not to reoccupy Italy, at least to obstruct its supplies this makes demands on our ideas of the confusion and perversity prevailing in the Pompeian camp, which we can only with difficulty meet.
The scattered condition of the forces in the eastern half of the empire, the method of the general never to operate except with superior masses, his cumbrous and tedious movements, and the discord of the coalition may perhaps explain in some measure, though not excuse, the inactivity of the land-force; but that the fleet, which commanded the Mediterranean without a rival, should have thus done nothing to influence the course of affairs nothing for Spain, next to nothing for the faithful Massiliots, nothing to defend Sardinia, Sicily, Africa, or, if not to reoccupy Italy, at least to obstruct its supplies this makes demands on our ideas of the confusion and perversity prevailing in the Pompeian camp, which we can only with difficulty meet.
But to the contemporary world, the retreat, which Xenophon so successfully conducted, afforded a far more impressive lesson than any of his literary compositions. It taught in the most striking manner the impotence of the Persian land-force, manifested not less in the generals than in the soldiers.
Seven days and seven nights were consumed in the passage of that prodigious armament. The whole amount of the land-force, according to Herodotus, was 1,700,000. Later writers have been skeptical as to this vast number, but without sufficient grounds for their disbelief.
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