It is hard to imagine what Canby might have been thinking in regard to the railroad in northeast Louisiana. He must have known that the Confederates in the Trans-Mississippi could do nothing in that area that would hurt the Union war effort. And his troops could not have accomplished much by moving into or through that area. Canby's biographer devotes only a few pages to May and June 1864 and says nothing about any plans Canby might have had.