[Footnote 3:--Ibid., 568.]

difference now, as it made no difference then, in the consideration
of the consequences; yet the consequences were, none the less, rather
serious. They were such, in fact, as to increase very greatly the
confusion on the border and to give the Confederates that chance of
recovery which soon made it necessary for their foes to do the work of
Nathaniel Lyon all over again.

It has been most truthfully said[4] that never, throughout the period
of the entire war, did the southern government fully realize the
surpassingly great importance of its Trans-Mississippi District;
notwithstanding that when that district was originally organized,[5]
in January, 1862, some faint idea of what it might, peradventure,
accomplish did seem to penetrate,[6] although ever so vaguely, the
minds of those then in authority. It was organized under pressure from
the West as was natural, and under circumstances to which meagre and
tentative reference has already been made in the first volume of this
work.[7] In the main, the circumstances were such as developed out of
the persistent refusal of General McCulloch to coöperate with General
Price.

There was much to be said in justification of McCulloch's obstinacy.
To understand this it is well to recall that, under the plan, lying
back of this first

[Footnote 4: _Official Records_, vol. liii, supplement, 781-782;
Edwards, _Shelby and His Men_, 105.]

[Footnote 5:--Ibid., vol. viii, 734.]