Major-general Earl Van Dorn formally assumed command of the newly created Trans-Mississippi District of Department No. 2, January 29, 1862.[45] He was then at Little Rock, Arkansas.  By February 6, he had moved up to Jacksonport and, a week or so later, to Pocahontas, where his slowly-assembling army was to rendezvous.  His call for troops had already gone forth and was being promptly answered,[46] requisition having been made upon all the state units within the district, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, also Texas.  Indian Territory, through Pike[47] and his subordinates,[48] was yet to be communicated with; but Van Dorn had, at the moment, no other plan in view for Indian troops than to use them to advantage as a means of defence and as a corps of observation.[49] His immediate object, according to his own showing and according to the circumstances that had brought about the formation of the district, was to protect Arkansas[50] against

[Footnote 45:  Official Records, vol. viii, 745-746.]

[Footnote 46:—­Ibid., vol. liii, supplement, 776-779, 783-785, 790, 793-794.]

[Footnote 47:—­Ibid., vol. viii, 749, 763-764.]

[Footnote 48:—­Ibid., 764-765.]

[Footnote 49:  Van Dorn to Price, February 14, 1862, Ibid., 750.]

[Footnote 50:  Arkansas seemed, at the time, to be but feebly protected.  R.W.  Johnson deprecated the calling of Arkansas troops eastward.  They were (cont.)]

invasion and to relieve Missouri; his plan of operations was to conduct a spring campaign in the latter state, “to attempt St. Louis,” as he himself put it, and to drive the Federals out; his ulterior motive may have been and, in the light of subsequent events, probably was, to effect a diversion for General A.S.  Johnston; but, if that were really so, it was not, at the time, divulged or so much as hinted at.

Ostensibly, the great object that Van Dorn had in mind was the relief of Missouri.  And he may have dreamed, that feat accomplished, that it would be possible to carry the war into the enemy’s country beyond the Ohio; but, alas, it was his misfortune at this juncture to be called upon to realise, to his great discomfiture, the truth of Robert Burns’ homely philosophy,

  The best-laid schemes o’ mice and men
  Gang aft a-gley.

His own schemes and plans were all rendered utterly futile by the unexpected movement of the Federal forces from Rolla, to which safe place, it will be remembered, they had been drawn back by order of General Hunter.  They were now advancing by forced marches via Springfield into northwestern Arkansas and were driving before them the Confederates under McCulloch and Price.

The Federal forces comprised four huge divisions and were led by Brigadier-general Samuel R. Curtis.  Towards the end of the previous December, on Christmas Day in fact, Curtis had been given “command of the Southwestern District of Missouri, including the