Book I, P. 255.]

political pressure was exerted in Richmond and the Arkansas delegation in Congress demanded Hindman's recall, Holmes's displacement, and Kirby Smith's appointment. The loss of that historic fort, Arkansas Post, also a tardy appreciation of the economic value of the Arkansas Valley and, incidentally, of the entire Trans-Mississippi Department, had really determined matters; but, fortunately, the supersedure of Holmes by Smith did not affect the position of Steele.

Steele divined that the Federals would naturally make an early attempt to occupy in force the country north of the Arkansas River and beyond it to the southward in what had hitherto been a strictly Confederate stronghold. It was his intention to forestall them. The two Cherokee regiments constituted, for some little time, his best available troops and them he kept in almost constant motion. His great reliance, and well it might be, was upon Stand Watie, whom he had