complete chaos. The most astounding orders and contracts for
supplies of all kinds have been made, and large amounts purported to
have been received, but there is nothing to show that they have ever
been properly issued and they cannot now be found.

Of the condition of the troops he found in his department, he wrote:

Some of these corps are not only organized in a way entirely contrary
to law, but are by no means reliable, being mostly foreigners, and
officered in many cases by foreign adventurers, or perhaps refugees
from justice; and, having been tampered with by political partizans
for political purposes, they constitute a very dangerous element to
society as well as to the Army itself. Wherever they go they convert
all Union men into bitter enemies. The men, if properly officered,
would make good soldiers, but with their present officers they are
little better than an armed mob.

They were not paid, had not been mustered into our service, and the
commissions emanated from General Fremont, not from the State or
Government.

General Halleck's plans evidently were to make a campaign against Price as
soon as he could organize the forces concentrated at Rolla. Price's
headquarters were at Springfield, and his northerly line was along the
Osage Valley. His force was estimated anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000. As
outposts General Halleck had Rolla, Jefferson City, and Sedalia. There was
located at Rolla five or six thousand troops; at Sedalia and along that
line about ten or twelve thousand, under General Pope, including Jeff C.
Davis's Division; but these troops Halleck intended to send down the
Mississippi and up the Tennessee.

General Pope in his letters to General Halleck urged that he be allowed to
move on Price and destroy his Army, which he said he could do with his
force. Rumors of Price's force and their movements were a constant terror
and excitement throughout Missouri. The whole of northern Missouri was
aroused by Price's proximity, and all the counties had recruiting officers
from his Army enrolling and sending it recruits. The numbers of these
recruiting officers and their small squads of recruits were magnified into
thousands, and Price, when he sent a thousand men to Lexington for the
purpose of holding that place and recruiting, brought orders from Halleck
for a movement of all the troops to cut him off. The prompt movement of
Halleck kept him from remai