o others, as may be needed, the railroads
furnishing ready means of reinforcing their main points, if
occasion requires. Doubtless local uprisings will for a time
continue to occur, but these can be met by detachments and
local forces of our own, and will ere long tire out of
themselves.

While, as stated in the beginning of the letter, a large
discretion must be and is left with yourself, I feel sure
that an indefinite pursuit of Price or an attempt by this
long and circuitous route to reach Memphis will be
exhaustive beyond endurance, and will end in the loss of the
whole force engaged. Your obedient servant,

A. LINCOLN.

This letter, undoubtedly dictated by McClellan, who was then
the dominant military influence at Washington, is yet strikingly
characteristic of President Lincoln, and abounds in that profound common
sense which made him easily the first General of the War.

The army was already 125 miles away from its base of suppliess on the
railroad, with a terrible rough intervening country. Consequently, the
problem of supplying it was of momentous seriousness and the expense
appalling.

Though in the midst of a region of wonderful fertility, with its crops
gathered in barns, no one seems to have though of utilizing these. They
left them for Price to gather in, while they hauled their supplies from
Rolla. Our officers as yet were only in the primer class in war.

240

The letter also shows the firm hold of the prevailing opinion that
Secession was only a temporary madness, from which the people would
recover when the Winter gave them time to reflect and reason. Probably
this would have been the case had the Government put forth its power
with crushing effectiveness. But the first year of the war was to end
with the Secessionists successful almost everywhere, and big scores
to their credit in Missouri. The fresh disaster at Ball's Bluff on the
Potomac unnerved many loyal people.

Possibly President Lincoln did not anticipate that his suggestions would
be carried out so literally. His best information was that Price's army
had virtually gone to pieces, and that by taking post at Sedalia
and Rolla the central and southwestern parts of the State could be
effectually controlled by parties sent out from there. He could not
have conceived that Price had a strong, compact, aggressive army well
in hand, and that the new commander of the Departme