rtis's
previous order to march eastward with two divisions, which order,
though premature when given, might now be renewed without danger.
At once, therefore, I set to work to organize a suitable force,
including the Indian regiments, to hold the country we had gained,
and three good divisions to prosecute such operations as might be
determined on, and at once commenced the march north and east toward
the theater of future active operations.

Although I had at first esteemed General Blunt much more highly
than he deserved, and had given him most liberal commendation in
my official report for all he had done, I became satisfied that he
was unfit in any respect for the command of a division of troops
against a disciplined enemy. As was my plain duty, I suggested
confidentially to General Curtis that the command of a division in
the field was not General Blunt's true place, and that he be assigned
to the District of Kansas, where I permitted him to go, at his own
request, to look after his personal interests. General Curtis
rebuked me for making such a suggestion, and betrayed my confidence
by giving my despatch to James H. Lane, senator from Kansas, and
others of Blunt's political friends, thus putting me before the
President and the United States Senate in the light of unjust
hostility to gallant officers who had just won a great victory over
the enemy at Prairie Grove. The result of this, and of radical
influence in general, was that my nomination as major-general of
volunteers, then pending in the Senate, was not confirmed, while
both Blunt and Herron were nominated and confirmed as major-
generals!

Such as Lane and Blunt were the men who so long seemed to control
the conduct of military affairs in the West, and whom I found much
more formidable enemies than the hostile army in my front. Herron
I esteemed a very different man from Blunt, and thought he would,
with experience, make a good division commander. But circumstances
occurred soon after which shook my confidence in his character as
well as in that of General Curtis. Herron and some of his staff-
officers were subpoenaed, through department headquarters, as
material witnesses for the defense in the case of an officer on
trial before a military commission. They failed to appear. Soon
after, when Herron was assigned to command the Army of the Frontier,
he "dissolved" the commission "for the present," adding: "The
court will be reassembled by order fr