e guns had Gen. Price
done the Louisiana regiment justice in his official report
The language used by him was calculated to make the
impression that the battery was captured by his men Instead
of that regiment * * *

McCulloch was a voluminous writer, both to the Confederate War
Department and to personal and official friends, and few of these
communications are without some complaint about the Missouri troops.
Everything that he had failed to do was due to their inefficiency,
their lack of soldierly perceptions, and conduct. They would give him
no information, would not scout nor reconnoiter, and he was continually
left in the dark as to the movements of the enemy. When they were
attacked he claimed that they would run away in a shameful manner. His
dislike of Gen. Rains seemed to grow more bitter continually.

[Illustration: 195-General Samuel R. J. Curtis]

193

Gen. Price saw a great opportunity and was anxious to improve it. The
retreat of the Union forces from Springfield opened up the whole western
part of the State, and a prompt movement would carry the army forward to
the Missouri River again, where it could control the navigation of
that great stream, receive thousands of recruits now being assembled at
places north of the river, separate the Unionists of Missouri from the
loyal people in Kansas and Nebraska, and hearten up the Secessionists
everywhere as much as it disheartened the Union people, and possibly
recover St. Louis.

He pressed this with all earnestness upon Gen. McCulloch, only to have
it received with cold indifference or strong objections. He proposed
that if McCulloch would undertake the movement, that he, Price, would
continue in subordination to him and give him all the assistance that
his troops could give.

There is no doubt that Price was entirely right in his views, and that
a prompt forward movement with such forces as he and McCulloch commanded
would have been a very serious matter for the Union cause and carry
discouragement everywhere to add to that which had been caused by the
disaster of Bull Run.

The relations between the two Generals constantly became more strained,
and for the latter part of the two weeks which McCulloch remained at
Springfield there was little communication between them. Gen. Price made
good use of the time to bring in recruits from every part of the State
which was accessible and to organize and discipline them for furth