-support when he,
Pillow, was engaged in a terrible struggle on the west side of the
river with a force "three times my own." Pillow asserted that he had
repeatedly driven back the Unionists at the point of the bayonet, after
his ammunition had been exhausted, and no more was furnished him by Gen.
Polk. He said that Polk had thus needlessly sacrificed many brave men,
and that a like, if not greater, calamity was possible if he were to
continue in command. "His retention is the source of great peril to
the country." Pillow said: "As a zealous patriot, I admire him; as
an eminent minister of the Gospel, I respect him; but as a Commanding
General I cannot agree with him."

270

Southeastern Missouri had, therefore, a season of rest for some time.

271

CHAPTER XVI. HUNTER, LANE, MISSOURI AND KANSAS.

Maj.-Gen. David Hunter felt that fortune was not smiling on him
according to his deserts. He had graduated from West Point in 1822,
and had been in the Army 39 years, or longer than any but few of the
officers then in active employment. He was a thorough soldier, devoted
to his profession, highly capable, inflexibly upright, strongly
loyal, an old-time friend of President Lincoln, and enjoyed his full
confidence. He had done a very painful piece of necessary work for the
Administration in investigating the conditions in Gen. John C. Fremont's
command, faithfully reporting them, and in relieving that officer,
thereby incurring the enmity of all his partisans. Then he had handed
the command over to Maj.-Gen. H. W. Hal-leck, who had graduated 17 years
later than he, and who had been seven years out of the Army.

Gen. Hunter had been assigned to Kansas, which was created a Department
for him, but it had few troops, and was remote from the scene of
important operations. He was particularly hurt that Brig.-Gen. Don
Carlos Buell, 19 years his junior, should be assigned to the command
of a splendid army of 100,000 men in Kentucky; and Brig.-Gen. Thos. W.
Sherman, 14 years his junior, should be selected to lead an important
expedition to the coast of South Carolina and Georgia.

272

Like the faithful soldier he was, however, he made little plaint of his
own grievances, but addressed himself earnestly to the work to which he
was assigned. He soon had other troubles enough to make him forget his
own. His hardest work was to keep the Kansans off the Missourians. In
the strained and wavering conditions of public opinio