I remember running into some correspondence in the OR's between Kirby Smith and Richmond after Taylor had gone East. Smith wrote a carefully reasoned reply as to why he was unable to move any significant number of troops across the river. His arguments seemed pretty realistic. As for Texas troops refusing to cross the river, it wasn't just the Mississippi. There had been an earlier "mutiny" when Texas State troops refused to move into Louisiana through Niblett's Bluff! One of the unit commander's at Sabine Pass wrote a short description of the event for home consumption and it is on the net. I believe it was Captain Keith or Odlum who wrote it. I believe that one of the underlying reasons that senior officers had no enthusiasm for such a movement was that the Engineer Department's plans included stripping the Department of heavy artillery to emplace above and below the crossing point en battery. It was assumed that after the troop movement, their would be insufficient men left remove the guns and they would be lost! Cavalry units would not be able to take their mounts, and apparently, even tied to the sides of boats with safety lines, the river was too wide to swim them. All of their field guns would have been left on the west side. In a war in which artillery was already the largest killer on the battlefield, veterans of four years of war had no interest in going into battle without their heaviest weapons.