McCulloch’s relations with leading Confederates in Arkansas seem to have been, from the first, in the highest degree friendly, even cordial, and it is more than likely that, aside from his unwillingness to offend the neutrality-loving Cherokees, the best explanation for his eventual readiness to make the defence of Arkansas his chief concern, instead of merely a means to the accomplishment of his original task, may be found in that fact.  On the twenty-second of May, the Arkansas State Convention instructed Brigadier-general N. Bart Pearce, then in command of the state troops, to cooeperate with the Confederate commander “to the full extent of his ability"[13] and, on the twenty-eighth of the same month, the Arkansas Military Board invited that same person, who, of course, was Ben McCulloch, to assume command himself of the Arkansas local forces.[14] Sympathetic understanding of this variety, so early established, was bound to produce good results and McCulloch henceforth identified himself most thoroughly with Confederate interests in the state in which he was, by dint of untoward circumstances, obliged to bide his time.

It was far otherwise as respected relations between McCulloch and the Missouri leaders.  McCulloch had little or no tolerance for the rough-and-ready methods of men like Claiborne Jackson and Sterling Price.  He regarded their plans as impractical, chimerical, and their warfare as after the guerrilla order, too much like

[Footnote 12:  Official Records, vol. liii, supplement, 698-699.]

[Footnote 13:—­Ibid., 687.]

[Footnote 14:—­Ibid., 691.]

that to which Missourians and Kansans had accustomed themselves during the period of border conflict, following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.  McCulloch himself was a man of system.  He believed in organization that made for efficiency.  Just prior to the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, he put himself on record as strongly opposed to allowing unarmed men and camp followers to infest his ranks, demoralizing them.[15] It was not to be expected, therefore, that there could ever be much in common between him and Sterling Price.  For a brief period, it is true, the two men did apparently act in fullest harmony; but it was when the safety of Price’s own state, Missouri, was the thing directly in hand.  That was in early August of 1861.  Price put himself and his command subject to McCulloch’s orders.[16] The result was the successful engagement, August 10 at Wilson’s Creek, on Missouri soil.  On the fourteenth of the same month, Price reassumed control of the Missouri State Guard[17] and, from that time on, he and McCulloch drifted farther and farther apart; but, as their aims were so entirely different, it was not to be wondered at.

Undoubtedly, all would have been well had McCulloch been disposed to make the defence of Missouri his only aim.  Magnanimity was asked of him such as the Missouri leaders never so much as contemplated showing in return.  It seems never to have occurred to either Jackson or Price that cooeperation might, perchance, involve such an exchange of courtesies as would require Price to lend a hand in some project that McCulloch might devise for the well-being of his own particular