detachments instead of in force produced its own calamitous result.  There had never been any appreciable cooerdination among the parts of Fremont’s army.  Each worked upon a campaign of its own.  To some extent, the same criticism might be held applicable to the opposing Confederate force also, especially when the friction between Price and McCulloch be taken fully into account; but Price’s energy was far in excess of Fremont’s and he, having once made a plan, invariably saw to its accomplishment.  Lincoln viewed Fremont’s supineness with increasing apprehension and finally after the fall of Lexington directed Scott to instruct for greater activity.  Presumably, Fremont had already aroused himself somewhat; for, on the eighteenth, he had ordered Lane to proceed to Kansas City and from thence to cooeperate with Sturgis,[115] Lane slowly obeyed[116] but managed, while obeying, to do considerable marauding, which worked greatly to the general detestation and lasting discredit of his brigade.  For a man, temperamentally constituted as Lane was, warfare had no terrors and its votaries, no scruples.  The grim chieftain as he has been somewhat fantastically called, was cruel, indomitable, and disgustingly licentious, a person who would have hesitated at nothing to accomplish his purpose.  It was to be expected, then, that he would see nothing terrible in the letting loose of the bad white man, the half-civilized Indian, or the wholly barbarous negro upon society.  He believed that the institution of slavery should look out for itself[117] and, like Governor Robinson,[118] Senator Pomeroy, Secretary Cameron, John

[Footnote 115:  Official Records, vol. iii, 500.]

[Footnote 116:—­Ibid., 505-506.]

[Footnote 117:—­Ibid., 516.]

[Footnote 118:  Spring, Kansas, 272.]

Cochrane,[119] Thaddeus Stevens[120] and many another, fully endorsed the principle underlying Fremont’s abortive Emancipation Proclamation.  He advocated immediate emancipation both as a political and a military measure.[121]

There was no doubt by this time that Lane had it in mind to utilize the Indians.  In the dog days of August, when he was desperately marshaling his brigade, the Indians presented themselves, in idea, as a likely military contingent.  The various Indian agents in Kansas were accordingly communicated with and Special Agent Augustus Wattles authorized to make the needful preparations for Indian enlistment.[122] Not much could be done in furtherance of the scheme while Lane was engaged in Missouri but, in October, when he was back in Kansas, his interest again manifested itself.  He was then recruiting among all kinds of people, the more hot-blooded the better.  His energy was likened to frenzy and the more sober-minded took alarm.  It was the moment for his political opponents to interpose and Governor Robinson from among them did interpose, being firmly convinced that Lane, by his intemperate zeal and by his guerrilla-like fighting was provoking Missouri to reprisals and thus precipitating upon Kansas the very troubles that he professed to wish to ward off.  Incidentally, Robinson, unlike Fremont, was vehemently opposed to Indian enlistment.