Once Vickburg and Port Hudson fell, the administration in Richmond recognized that the Trans-Mississippi functioned as a separate unit from the rest of the Confederacy. There are letters from Davis and Seddon which recognize this and in a number of communications they repeat their understanding of his unusual command. One area which is not generally recognized is the amount of trading between Union held territory and the Trans-Mississippi department. A number of Union politicians and Generals deplored the practice, but the general Union view was one of "benign neglect". The sole exception to this was the Union multi-prong offensive against Shreveport. This is generally recognized as a political move, attempting to provide good news and a supply of cheaper cotton to northeastern mill owners before the election. In reality there never was a huge shortage of cotton for Union military purposes. The federal government allowed licensed traders to purchase huge quantities of Texan cotton at Matamoras - at least one reseacher concluded that more bales from the Trans-Mississippi ended up at New York than anywhere else, often shipped in Union bottoms. Kirby Smith did have a problem controlling the cotton trade and set up regulations to reign in the speculators along the Rio Grande. He was later overruled by Richmond.