ring from Missouri, he was not able to interpose
between them.

On Saturday, Aug. 3, the Confederates had all gotten together on the
banks of Crane Creek, 55 miles southwest of Springfield, with general
headquarters in and around the village of Cassville.

How many were concentrated is subject to the same obscurity which
usually envelops Confederate numbers. Lyon estimated there were 30,000.
Later estimates by competent men put the number at 23,000. Gen. Snead,
Price's Adjutant-General, put the number at 11,000, which would be a
severe reflection on the loyalty of the Missouri Secessionists to their
Governor, since Gen. McCulloch certainly brought up about 5,000 from
Arkansas, which would leave only 6,000 to respond to Gov. Jackson's
proclamation, and gather under the standards set up by his seven
Brigadier-Generals--Parsons, Rains, Slack, J. B. Clark, M. L. Clark,
Watkins and Randolph.

While Lyon had incomparable troubles, there was far from concord in the
camp of his opponents. Like thousands of other men, McCulloch's ambition
far transcended his abilities. He at once assumed the attitude that as a
Brigadier-General in the Confederate army he out-ranked Sterling Price,
who was a Major-General of state troops. This, at that early period
of the war, was a humorous reversal of the State Sovereignty idea, so
flagrant in the minds of those precipitating Secession.

151

Jefferson Davis and his school of thought had been fierce in their
contention that the part was greater than the whole, and that the
States were greater than the General Government. Yet Gen. McCulloch
was unflinching in his insistence that a Confederate Brigadier-General
outranked a State Major-General. The dispute became quite acrimonious,
but was at last settled by Price's yielding to McCulloch, so anxious was
he that something decisive should be done toward driving back Lyon and
"redeeming the State of Missouri." According to Gen. Thomas L. Snead,
his Chief of Staff, he went to Gen. McCulloch's quarters on Sunday
morning, Aug. 4, and after vainly trying to persuade McCulloch to attack
Lyon, he said:

"I am an older man than you, Gen. McCulloch, and I am not
only your senior in rank now, but I was a Brigadier-General
in the Mexican War, with an independent command, when you
were only a Captain; I have fought and won more battles
than you have ever witnessed; my force is twice as great as
yours; and some of my offic