About this time Miss Carroll was spoken of by those conversant with her plans as "the great unrecognized member of Lincoln's Cabinet." But, glorious as was the success, Miss Carroll's plans were not fully carried out, to the great after regret of the War Department, who recognized that the war, which might then have been brought to a speedy termination, had been greatly prolonged through the omission. Miss Carroll continued her communications to the War Department, endeavoring to rectify mistakes. * * * * * Extract from Miss Carroll's letter to the Department on the reduction of Island No. 10, and pointing out the advantages of the immediate seizure of the Memphis and Charleston railroad, March 26, 1862. "The failure to take Island No. 10, which thus far occasions much disappointment to the country, excites no surprise in me. When I looked at the gunboats at St. Louis and was informed as to their power, and considered that the current of the Mississippi at full tide runs at the rate of five miles per hour, which is very near the speed of our gunboats, I could not resist the conclusion that they were not well fitted to the taking of batteries on the Mississippi river if assisted by gunboats perhaps equal to our own. Hence it was that I wrote Colonel Scott from there that the Tennessee was our strategic point, and the successes at Fort Henry and Donelson established the justice of these observations. Had our victorious army, after the fall of Fort Henry, immediately pushed up the Tennessee river and taken a position on the Memphis and Charleston railroad, between Corinth, Mississippi, and Decatur, Alabama, which might easily have been done at that time with a small force, every rebel soldier in Western Kentucky and Tennessee would have fled from every position to the south of that railroad; and had Buell pursued the enemy in his retreat from Nashville, without delay, into a commanding position in North Alabama, on the railroad between Chattanooga and Decatur, the rebel government at Richmond would have necessarily been obliged to retreat to the cotton States. I am fully satisfied that the true policy of General H----is to strengthen Grant's column by such force as will enable him at once to seize the Memphis and Charleston railroad, as it is the readiest means of reducing Island 10 and all the strongholds of the enemy to Memphis." Letter written from St. Louis, military headquarters for the Southwest: [27]ST. LOUIS, _May 2, 1862_.