I at once
sent to General Grant and other commanders at the front all the
troops I could possibly spare, saying at the same time that this
would leave me very weak, but that I was "willing to risk it in
view of the vast importance of Grant's success."

Thus I began my military operations by stripping the department of
troops to the lowest possible defensive limit. But this was what
I had so earnestly urged before, when in a subordinate position;
and I was glad to do it when the responsibility rested upon me.
My loss of troops to Grant was returned with interest as soon as
practicable after Vicksburg had fallen, and I was then able to
advance a large force, under General Steele, for the capture of
Little Rock, resulting in holding the entire line of the Arkansas
River from that time forward.

At the time I had met General Grant but once, and then only for a
moment, and I have always assumed that the timely aid sent him at
Vicksburg was the foundation for the kind and generous friendship
and confidence which he ever afterward manifested toward me, and
which, with the like manifestations of approval from President
Lincoln, are to me the most cherished recollections of my official
career.

TROOPS SENT TO GENERAL GRANT

The appreciation of my action in Washington was expressed by General
Halleck in a letter dated July 7, 1863, in which he said: "The
promptness with which you sent troops to General Grant gave great
satisfaction here"; and by the President himself, in a letter to
the "Hon. Charles D. Drake and others, committee," dated October
5, 1863, in which he wrote: "Few things have been so grateful to
my anxious feelings as when, in June last, the local force in
Missouri aided General Schofield to so promptly send a large general
force to the relief of General Grant, then investing Vicksburg and
menaced from without by General Johnston."

It would have been impossible for me to send away more than a small
part of those troops if I had not been able to replace them by
Missouri militia. This General Curtis had probably been unable to
do because of the unfortunate antagonism between him and the State
government; and perhaps this much ought to be said in explanation
of his apparently selfish policy of retaining so many idle troops
in Missouri. For my part, I could see neither necessity nor excuse
for quarreling with the governor of Missouri, and thus depriving
myse