Footnote 696: [(return)]
It might as well be said, at the outset, that Cooper was not the ranking officer of Steele. He claimed that he was [Official Records, vol. xxii, part ii, 1037-1038]; but the government disallowed the contention [ibid., 1038].
Footnote 697: [(return)]
—Ibid., part i, 28; part ii, 862, 883, 909.
Footnote 698: [(return)]
Confederate Records, chap. 2, no. 270, pp. 29-30.
Footnote 699: [(return)]
Official Records, vol. xxii, part ii, 895, 909.
Footnote 700: [(return)]
—Ibid., part i, 30.
Footnote 701: [(return)]
Confederate Records, chap. 2, no. 270, p. 31.
Footnote 702: [(return)]
Official Records, vol. xiii, 51.
maintain any considerable force there. He, therefore, resolved to take big chances and to attempt to hold it with as few men as his commissary justified, trusting that he would be shielded from attack "by the inclemency of the season and the waters of the Arkansas."[703] The larger portion of his army[704] was sent southward, in the direction of Red River.[705] But lack of food and forage was, by no manner of means, the only difficulty that confronted Steele. He was short of guns, particularly of good guns,[706] and distressingly short of money.[707] The soldiers had not been paid for months.
The opening of 1863 saw changes, equally momentous, in Federal commands. Somewhat captiously, General Schofield discounted recent achievements of Blunt and advised that Blunt's District of Kansas should be completely disassociated from the Division of the Army of the Frontier,[708] which he had, at Schofield's own earlier request, been commanding. It was another instance of personal jealousy, interstate rivalry, and local