ept
Gen. Price, I asked if they required their General to be put
in command of the troops of Arkansas, of Texas, and of the
other Southern States. To bring these different forces into
harmonious co-operation is a necessity. I have sought to
effect it by selecting Gen. Heth to command them in
combination. If it is designed, by calling Heth a West Point
Cadet, merely to object to his education in the science of
war, it may pass for what it is worth; but if it be Intended
to assert that he is without experience, his years of active
and distinguished service on the frontier of Missouri and
the territory west of it will, to those who examine before
they censure, be a sufficient answer. The Federal forces are
not hereafter as heretofore to be commanded by pathfinders
and holiday soldiers, but by men of military education and
experience in war. The contest is therefore to be on a scale
of very different proportions than that of the partisan
warfare witnessed during the past Summer and Fall. I have
long since learned to bear hasty censure, in hope that
justice, if tardy, is sure; and in any event to find
consolation in the assurance that all my ends have been my
country's.

With high respect,

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

296

Gen. Ben McCulloch thought best to go on to Richmond to explain his
course since Wilson's Creek, and also to look after the very tender
subject of his rank and powers. He left Gen. James S. Mcintosh in
command of his troops. Mcintosh had grievances of his own. He was not
being recognized by the Confederate authorities as he thought a man of
his abilities and soldierly experience should have been, and he seems to
have liked cooperation with Gen. Price very much less even than did Gen.
McCulloch. In no very gentlemanly terms he repelled Price's proposition
to combine their forces and push forward to the Missouri River. The best
that Price could get out of him was the assurance that if the Federals
advanced upon him at Springfield he, Mcintosh, would come forward to his
assistance.

Price had greatly underestimated Gen. Halleck's energy and
aggressiveness. Gen. Halleck was the first of our commanders to really
rise to the level of the occasion and take a comprehensive grasp upon
affairs. Unlike some others, he wasted no time in sounding proclamations
or in lengthy letters of advice to the Admini