While the intention of the government to open the Mississippi River by a
powerful expedition received additional emphasis through Halleck's
appointment, that general found no immediate means adequate to the task
when he assumed command at St. Louis. Fremont's regime had left the
whole department in the most deplorable confusion. Halleck reported that
he had no army, but, rather, a military rabble to command and for some
weeks devoted himself with energy and success to bringing order out of
the chaos left him by his predecessor. A large element of his difficulty
lay in the fact that the population of the whole State was tainted with
disloyalty to a degree which rendered Missouri less a factor in the
larger questions of general army operations, than from the beginning to
the end of the war a local district of bitter and relentless factional
hatred and guerrilla or, as the term was constantly employed,
"bushwhacking" warfare, intensified and kept alive by annual roving
Confederate incursions from Arkansas and the Indian Territory in
desultory summer campaigns.
XIX
Lincoln Directs Cooeperation--Halleck and Buell--Ulysses S.
Grant--Grant's Demonstration--Victory at Mill River--Fort Henry--Fort
Donelson--Buell's Tardiness--Halleck's Activity--Victory of Pea
Ridge--Halleck Receives General Command--Pittsburg Landing--Island No.
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