“That's for the general to say,” replied Jack, “and the most we can do on the subject is to guess.”
“Well, here's for a guess,” said Harry, and the pair sat down for a council of war on their own account.
“From several things that were dropped in my hearing,” said Jack, “while I was at Van Buren, I should n't wonder if the most of Van Dorn's army was sent off to the east of the Mississippi to join the rebel forces in Tennessee. This will leave Arkansas with no army large enough to oppose us, and so we can go where we please.”
“That may be so,” said Harry, musingly; “but where's all our supplies to come from? We're a long way from Rolla now, and if we get down into the interior of Arkansas we 'll be farther still. We 'll have to live on the country, and must do as the rebels do. We 'll get along without tea and coffee and other luxuries, and settle down to corn-bread and bacon. But before we start we've got to replenish our stores of ammunition, and make up for what was consumed at Pea Ridge. In my opinion that's what the general is waiting for, and we sha'n't get orders to march until everything is ready. It won't do to go down into the middle of Arkansas without being 'well heeled,' as they say in this part of the country.”
“Yes, but where do you think we 'll go when we start?” queried Jack.
“We 'll go for the capital of the state, and I 'll bet on it,” said Harry. “When we have taken Little Rock we shall virtually have the State in our possession, and that will be a blow to the rebels. Of course, there 'll be parts of it still in their hands, but the possession of the capital is a strong point on our side.”
The youths mentioned their belief to some of their comrades, and the latter repeated it to others. The story grew with each repetition, and by the end of the day it was currently reported throughout the camp that the army was about to advance on Little Rock, and was only waiting for supplies and reinforcements. Inasmuch as that was the objective point that General Curtis then had in view, he was naturally puzzled to know how the story arose when it was reported to him. Careful and close inquiry traced it to Harry and Jack, who promptly acknowledged their authority to be nothing more nor less than guesswork.
There was a vast amount of this amateur generalship during the war, and it was by no means confined to the men in the field. Every cross-roads grocery, and every place, in fact, where men assembled to the number of half a dozen or more, was a center of strategy, in which campaigns innumerable were laid out and battles without number were fought, and always won by the side on which the sympathies of the strategists were enlisted. There was hardly an editor of a newspaper who did not feel himself fully competent to direct the generals in the field how to conduct their campaigns, and if all the editorial advice and criticism of the war could be gathered and printed in a book, it would form probably the largest, and undoubtedly the heaviest, volume ever known.
It was no more than natural that the soldiers in the field should put their brains at work to discover what moves were intended, and very often the generals were obliged to use a good deal of deception to prevent the premature working-out of their plans. Some of the generals lost their temper whenever they learned that any one besides themselves had been thus using his brains, but the majority of them took it good-naturedly, and regarded it as the evident outcome of an army drawn from the intelligent population of the North. General Curtis was one of those men of broad views, and he had a hearty laugh to himself when he found that the camp rumor was founded upon the amateur strategy of those enterprising youths, Jack and Harry.
“By the way,” said Jack to Harry, “do you know what the difference is between strategy and tactics?”