> I don't know Cozzen's motives but I have to agree with Halleck and Roscran's belief that Union
> forces could have caught up with and probably destroyed what was left of Van Dorn's forces. If
> Van Dorn's men could retreat, Rosecran's troops could pursue. It seems from the O.R. Grant was
> not the originator of "living off the land" tactics, it was Halleck that suggested it to Grant.

Grant's men in May of 1863 were traveling through country that had not been touched by armies of either side, and were not relying exclusively on forage for resupply until after the Battle of Champion Hill. Rosecrans, on the other had, was *following* an enemy army through country from which forage had been drawn by armies of both sides for months. For Cozzens to let stand without comment Rosecrans' assertion that he could have reached Vicksburg from Corinth in *a week* is notable. Assuming a hungry army could actually march that far behind a force that was denuding the countryside of forage, and assuming they could still manage 10 miles a day average, we're talking about at LEAST 20 days of marching to reach Jackson if we only calculate the distance as the crow flies. Meanwhile, reinforcements would be arriving by rail from all over the Confederacy.