able opportunity for accomplishing his main
purpose. He seems to have desired the Confederate government to add
the contiguous portion of Arkansas to his command, but in that he
was disappointed.[11] Nevertheless, Arkansas early interpreted his
presence in the state to imply that he was there primarily for her
defence and, by the middle of June, that idea had so far gained
general acceptance that C.C. Danley, speaking for the Arkansas
Military Board, urged President Davis "to meet

[Footnote 8: _Official Records_, vol. liii, supplement, 679.]

[Footnote 9: The name of Montgomery was not one for even Indians to
conjure with. James Montgomery was the most notorious of bushwhackers.
For an account of some of his earlier adventures, see Spring,
_Kansas_, 241, 247-250, and for a characterization of the man
himself, Robinson, _Kansas Conflict_, 435.]

[Footnote 10: _Official Records_, vol. liii, supplement, 682.]

[Footnote 11: Snead, _Fight for Missouri_, 229-230.]

the exigent necessities of the State" by sending a second general
officer there, who should command in the northeastern part.[12]

McCulloch's relations with leading Confederates in Arkansas seem
to have been, from the first, in the highest degree friendly, even
cordial, and it is more than likely that, aside from his unwillingness
to offend the neutrality-loving Cherokees, the best explanation for
his eventual readiness to make the defence of Arkansas his chief
concern, instead of merely a means to the accomplishment of his
original task, may be found in that fact. On the twenty-second of May,
the Arkansas State Convention instructed Brigadier-general N. Bart
Pearce, then in command of the state troops, to cooeperate with the
Confederate commander "to the full extent of his ability"[13] and,
on the twenty-eighth of the same month, the Arkansas Military Board
invited that same person, who, of course, was Ben McCulloch, to
assume command himself of the Arkansas local forces.[14] Sympathetic
understanding of this variety, so early established, was bound to
produce good results and McCulloch henceforth identified himself most
thoroughly with Confederate interests in the state in which he was, by
dint of untoward circumstances, obliged to bide his time.

It was far otherwise as respected relations between McCulloch and
the Missouri leaders. McCulloch had little or no tolerance for the
rough-and-ready methods of men like Claiborne Jackson and Sterling
Price. H