arther southwest against the Confederates
whom he eventually fought at Pea Ridge. From St. Louis there was
good river, rail, and road connection south to Halleck's center in
the neighborhood of Cairo, where General Ulysses S. Grant had his
chief field base, at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio. A
little farther east Grant had another excellent position at Paducah,
beside the junction of the Ohio and the Tennessee. Naval forces
were of course indispensable for this amphibious campaign; and in
Flag-Officer Andrew Hull Foote the Western Flotilla had a commander
able to cooeperate with the best of his military colleagues. Halleck's
left--a semi-independent command--was based on the Ohio, stretched
clear across Kentucky, and was commanded by a good organizer and
disciplinarian, General Don Carlos Buell, whose own position at
Munfordville was not only near the middle of the State but about
midway between the important railway junctions of Louisville and
Nashville.

Henry W. Halleck was a middle-aged, commonplace, and very cautious
general, who faithfully plodded through the war without defeat or
victory. He looked so long before he leaped that he never leaped at
all--not even on retreating enemies. Good for the regular office-work
routine, he was like a hen with ducklings for this river war, in
which Curtis, Grant, Buell, and his naval colleague Foote, were
all his betters on the fighting line.

His opponent, Albert Sidney Johnston, was also middle-aged, being
fifty-nine; but quite fit for active service. Johnston had had
a picturesque career, both in and out of the army; and many on
both sides thought him likely to prove the greatest leader of the
war. He was, however, a less formidable opponent than Northerners
were apt to think. He was not a consummate genius like Lee. He had
inferior numbers and resources; and the Confederate Government
interfered with him. Yet they did have the good sense to put both
sides of the Mississippi under his unified command, including not
only Kentucky and Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas, but the whole
of the crucial stretch from Vicksburg to Port Hudson. In this they
were wiser than the Federal Government with Halleck's command,
which was neither so extensive nor so completely unified.

Johnston took post in his own front line at Bowling Green, Kentucky,
not far south of Buell's position at Munfordville. He was very
anxious to keep a hold on Kentucky and Missouri, along the souther