n
organized campaign.

For this new loss, Fremont was subjected to a shower of fierce
criticism, which this time he sought to disarm by ostentatious
announcements of immediate activity. "I am taking the field myself," he
telegraphed, "and hope to destroy the enemy either before or after the
junction of forces under McCulloch." Four days after the surrender, the
St. Louis newspapers printed his order organizing an army of five
divisions. The document made a respectable show of force on paper,
claiming an aggregate of nearly thirty-nine thousand. In reality,
however, being scattered and totally unprepared for the field, it
possessed no such effective strength. For a month longer extravagant
newspaper reports stimulated the public with the hope of substantial
results from Fremont's intended campaign. Before the end of that time,
however, President Lincoln, under growing apprehension, sent Secretary
of War Cameron and the adjutant-general of the army to Missouri to make
a personal investigation. Reaching Fremont's camp on October 13, they
found the movement to be a mere forced, spasmodic display, without
substantial strength, transportation, or coherent and feasible plan; and
that at least two of the division commanders were without means to
execute the orders they had received, and utterly without confidence in
their leader, or knowledge of his intentions.

To give Fremont yet another chance, the Secretary of War withheld the
President's order to relieve the general from command, which he had
brought with him, on Fremont's insistence that a victory was really
within his reach. When this hope also proved delusive, and suspicion was
aroused that the general might be intending not only to deceive, but to
defy the administration, President Lincoln sent the following letter by
a special friend to General Curtis, commanding at St. Louis:

"DEAR SIR: On receipt of this, with the accompanying inclosures, you
will take safe, certain, and suitable measures to have the inclosure
addressed to Major-General Fremont delivered to him with all reasonable
dispatch, subject to these conditions only, that if, when General
Fremont shall be reached by the messenger--yourself, or any one sent by
you--he shall then have, in personal command, fought and won a battle,
or shall then be actually in a battle, or shall then be in the immediate
presence of the enemy in expectation of a battle, it is not to be
delivered, but held for further orders.