nd them in the
hospitals, and the untiring Gen. Asboth, commanding the cavalry, pushed
the rear guard rapidly through to Bentonville. Returning to Curtis's
camp a day or two later, Gen. Asboth was sent with a force of cavalry to
Fayetteville, a most important town in northwestern Arkansas, where he
learned that his enemies had hid themselves in the Boston Mountains.

309

Gen. Curtis had completed his work of driving Price from Missouri and
some distance beyond her borders. He then drew his forces together and
established himself at Cross Hollows, with the ultimate intention of
retiring to the better position of Sugar Creek Crossing, in the event of
the enemy concentrating any force against him. In the meanwhile he would
hope that the turning movements which Halleck had planned would occupy
Price's and McCulloch's attention, and draw them away from him.

310

CHAPTER XVIII. GEN. EARL VAN DORN TAKES COMMAND.

Jefferson Davis carried out his determination to appoint an officer
superior in rank to both Gens. McCulloch and Price. After first
appointing Gen. Harry Heth, and then offering the appointment to Gen.
Braxton Bragg, he selected another of his favorites, Gen. Earl Van Dorn,
who had been a fiery partisan among the officers of the Regular Army
for States Rights and Secession, was a native of Mississippi, and had
graduated from West Point in 1842, 52d in a class of 56. Whatever his
intellectual qualities may have been, he was a man of great force and
energy, and had won two brevets for distinguished gallantry in the
Mexican War. He gained still more distinction by his successful
expeditions against the fierce Comanches, a tribe then in the hight of
its power. In one of these his small command killed 56 Indians. In his
engagements with the Comanches he had received four wounds, two of
which were quite serious. He had been very active in bringing about Gen.
Twiggs's disgraceful surrender of his command in Texas.

When Jefferson Davis, as Secretary of War, organized the additional
regiments for the Regular Army he took particular pains to promote
into them men of his way of thinking on States Rights, and who would be
useful in the coming contest which he foresaw.

311

One of these new regiments,--then called the 2d U. S. Cav., later
changed to the 5th U. S. Cav., was quite remarkable for this selection,
as it showed Mr. Davis's thorough acquaintance with the character of
the Regular officers, and what