Note (return) — I. THE BATTLE OF PEA RIDGE, OR ELKHORN, AND ITS MORE IMMEDIATE EFFECTS

It has been most truthfully said4 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.