ollow the failing fortunes of
the Missouri Confederates to the banks of the Rio Grande.

The problem of absorbing intensity for the Secession leaders--Messrs.
Jackson, Reynolds, Green, Polk and others--was to win over, entrap or
constrain a sufficient number of the 117 "Doubtful" voters out of every
165, to give them a working majority in the State. There was fiery zeal
enough and to spare on the Secession side; what was needed was skillful
management to convince the Union-loving peace-loving majority that the
Northern "Abolitionists," flushed with victory, meant unheard-of wrongs
and insults to the South; that Missouri must put herself in shape
to protect her borders, call a halt on the insolent North, and in
connection with the other Border States be the arbiter between the
contending sections, and in the last resort ally herself with the other
Slave States for mutual protection.

29

A man to be reckoned with in those days was the Commander of the
Department of the West, which included all that immense territory
stretching from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains, except Texas,
New Mexico, and Utah. This man was the embodiment of the Regular Army
as it was developed after the War of 1812. At this time that Army was
a very small one--two regiments of dragoons, two of cavalry, one of
mounted riflemen, four of artillery, and 10 of infantry, making, with
engineers, ordnance and staff, a total of only 12,698 officers and
men--but its personnel and discipline were unsurpassed in the world.
Among its 1,040 commissioned officers there was no finer soldier than
William Selby Harney. A better Colonel no army ever had. A Colonel, mind
you--not a General; there is a wide difference between the two, as we
found out during the war. There are very many Americans--every little
community has at least one--who, given a regiment, where every man is
within reach of his eye and voice, will discipline it, provide for it,
rule it, and fight it in the very best fashion. Give him some piece of
work to do, of which he can see the beginning and the end, and he will
make the regiment do every pound of which it is capable. But put in
command of a brigade, anything beyond voice and eye, set to a task
outreaching his visual horizon, he becomes obviously unequal to the
higher range of duty.

[Illustration: 029-The Harney Mansion]

30

A form of commanding hight (sp.), physique equal to any test of activity
or endurance, a natural lea