At this time of intense anxiety it was suggested to Miss Carroll by the War Department that she should go West and endeavor to form an opinion as to the probable result of the proposed descent of the Mississippi by the gunboats, upon the success of which the continuance of the Union depended. Accordingly she went to St. Louis, and remaining for a month or more at the Everett House, in that city, by means of maps and charts procured from the Mercantile Library she made careful study of the topography of the proposed line of advance. She became convinced that this intended expedition would result in disaster, and that the Tennessee river, not the Mississippi, would be the true pathway to success. Again we will turn to Miss Carroll's able account in the Congressional Records of the military position at that time. "It became evident, in the autumn of 1861, that if the unity of the United States could be maintained by military force, the decisive blow upon the Confederate power must be delivered within sixty or ninety days. To that period the tide of battle had been steadily against the Union, and the military operations had not met the expectations of the country. Nothing is more certain than that this rebel power was able to resist all the power of the Union upon any of the lines of operation known to the Administration; for operating on any safe base, on any of these known lines, the Union armies were not numerically strong enough to reach the vital point in the Confederate power. The enemy were in strong force on a line extending from the Potomac, westward through Bowling Green, to Columbus, on the Mississippi, and was complete master of all the territory to the Gulf. Kentucky and Missouri had been admitted formally into the Confederacy, and they had resolved to move the Capital to Nashville and extend their battle lines to the northern limits of those States, and the Secretary of War, after a tour of inspection, reported that these States had not sufficient force to hold them to the Union. The war had then been waged seven months, and between 700,000 and 800,000 men had been mustered in the field; the public debt aggregated over $500,000,000; and the daily average expenses of maintaining the army was upward of $2,000,000, besides the hundreds of precious lives which were being daily sacrificed. Thus, while the two armies were confronting each other in sight of Washington, events were rapidly pressing in the Southwest which, if unchecked, would change the destiny of the American people for ages to come. Thus, in that ominous silence which preceded the shock and storm, the two sections stood, each watching and awaiting the movements of the other. Both were confident; the South greatly strengthened from her successes and impregnable position; the North strong in its large excess of numbers, wealth, and the justice of its cause. The Army of the Potomac and the Army of the West were the two expeditions on which the Administration relied.