on both sides. Old and tried officers felt
secure, _ceteris paribus_, of success against the northern troops of
the coast, or Middle States; but the hardy hunters from the West and
North-west were men of a very different stamp. The resources of the
whole country had been strained to send into Virginia such an army in
numbers and equipment as the preparation for invasion of her borders
seemed to warrant. This had left the South and South-west rather more
thinly garrisoned than all deemed prudent. The grounds for security in
Virginia were that the mass of the southern troops were thoroughly
accustomed to the use of arms and perfectly at home on horseback; and
no doubts were felt that the men of the North-eastern States, there
opposed to them, were far below them in both requirements. The superior
excellence of the latter in arms, equipment, and perhaps discipline,
was more than compensated to the former by their greater familiarity
with the arms they carried and their superiority of physique and
endurance. Any advantage of numbers, it was argued, was made up by the
fact of the invading army being forced to fight on the ground chosen by
the invaded; and in the excellence of her tacticians, rather more than
in any expected equality of numbers, the main reliance of the southern
government was placed. Hence it was full of confidence as to the result
in the East.

In the West, it was far different. There the armies of the United
States were recruited from the hardy trappers and frontiersmen of the
border; from the sturdy yeomen of the inland farms; and, in many
instances, whole districts had separated, and men from adjoining farms
had gone to join in a deadly fight, in opposing ranks. Though the
partisan spirit with these was stronger than with other southern
troops--for they added the bitterness of personal hate to the sectional
feeling--yet thinking people felt that the men themselves were more
equally matched in courage, endurance and the knowledge of arms.

It is an old axiom in war, that when the _personnel_ of armies is
equal, victory is apt to rest with numbers. In the West, the United
States not only had the numbers in their favor, but they were better
equipped in every way; and the only hope of the South was in the
superiority of its generals in strategic ability.

Thus, the fight at Carthage was viewed by the Government as a test
question of deep meaning; and Sterling Price began at once to rank as a
rising man. T