Note (return) — VIII. THE RETIREMENT OF GENERAL PIKE

The irregularity of Hindman's assignment to command has been already commented upon in this narrative. Additional details may now be given. Van Dorn had hopes, on the occasion of his own summons to work farther east, that Sterling Price would be the one chosen eventually to succeed him or, at all events, the one to take the chief command of the Confederate forces in the West. He greatly wished that upon him and upon him alone his mantle should fall.497 The filling of the position by Hindman was to be but tentative, to last only until Price,498 perhaps also Van Dorn,