Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[363] North was much troubled, regarding it as a defeat, while in the South it was glorified as a victory; but the Federal troops derived from it reliance upon their own courage, and their generals acquired a little of that experience which they needed. They began to understand that it was not by disjointed and insignificant efforts that they could accomplish a task of such magnitude as that of conquering the whole course of the Mississippi.

Important changes among superior officers paved the way for the beginning of a new era in the war. On the 1st of November McClellan had succeeded Scott in the supreme command of the armies, and he had entrusted the department of the West to General Halleck, an educated and methodical officer, whose name will henceforth be frequently mentioned in these pages.

The new chief, who arrived in St. Louis on the 16th of November, set to work at once to collect the necessary means for undertaking a serious campaign by water; in order to do this, it required more troops than Grant was able to furnish, numerous steamers for transportation, and gun-boats able to cope with the heavy artillery of the Confederate forts. The preparations for this campaign continued until the year 1862.

In the mean time, Halleck was occupied in reorganizing the army of the Missouri, which Hunter had left him after a few days' command, exchanging the department of the West for that of Kansas. He introduced into it a severe discipline, and finally succeeded in establishing order and method in the administrative service. As we have already stated, Hunter's retreat to Rolla had surrendered a great portion of Missouri to Price. The latter had taken advantage of the liberty thus granted him to return northward towards those rich river regions of the Missouri where he was always sure of finding recruits, horses, provisions, and even money, and had taken up a position on the banks of the Osage. There he was in constant communication with all the secessionists of that section of the State; he increased and provisioned his army and addressed earnest appeals to his partisans. The latter, it is true, did not flock to his standard so rapidly as he desired, but, on the other hand, they persecuted those Unionists who had the misfortune of being among them more bitterly than ever. Bands of refugees, stripped of everything, in a frightful