[Footnote 697:—­Ibid., part i, 28; part ii, 862, 883, 909.]

[Footnote 698:  Confederate Records, chap. 2, no. 270, pp. 29-30.]

[Footnote 699:  Official Records, vol. xxii, part ii, 895, 909.]

[Footnote 700:—­Ibid., part i, 30.]

[Footnote 701:  Confederate Records, chap. 2, no. 270, p. 31.]

[Footnote 702:  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

[Footnote 703:  Official Records, vol. xxii, part i, 30.]

[Footnote 704:  Perhaps the word, army, is inapplicable here.  Steele himself was in doubt as to whether he was in command of an army or of a department [Confederate Records, chap. 2, no. 270, p. 54].]

[Footnote 705:  Confederate Records, chap. 2, no. 270, p. 36.  See also, Steele to Anderson, January 22, 1863 [ibid., 50-51], which besides detailing the movements of Steele’s men furnishes, on the authority of “Mr. Thomas J. Parks of the Cherokee Nation,” evidence of brutal murders and atrocities committed by Blunt’s army “whilst on their march through the northwestern portion of this State in the direction of Kansas.”]

[Footnote 706:  Crosby’s telegram, February first, to the Chief of Ordnance is sufficient attestation,

“Many of Cooper’s men have inferior guns and many none at all.  Can you supply?” [Ibid., 65-66].]

[Footnote 707:  The detention and the misapplication of funds by William Quesenbury seem to have been largely responsible for Steele’s monetary embarrassment [ibid., 28, 63-64, 75, 76, 77, 79-81, 101, 147].  Cotton speculation in Texas was alluring men with ready money southward [ibid., 94, 104].]

[Footnote 708:  Official Records, vol. xxii, part ii, 6.]