I only think he is the prey of wicked and designing men; and I think he has absolutely no military capacity." For a short while General Hunter filled Fremont's place, until, in November, General Henry W. Halleck was assigned to command the Department of Missouri. In February, 1862, General Curtis drove the only regular and considerable rebel force across the border into Arkansas; and soon afterward, March 7 and 8, within this latter State, he won the victory of Pea Ridge. In Tennessee the vote upon secession had indicated that more than two thirds of the dwellers in the mountainous eastern region were Unionists. Mr. Lincoln had it much at heart to sustain these men, and aside from the personal feeling of loyalty to them it was also a point of great military consequence to hold this district. Near the boundary separating the northeastern corner of the State from Kentucky, the famous Cumberland Gap gave passage through the Cumberland Mountains for the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad, "the artery that supplied the rebellion." The President saw, as many others did, and appreciated much more than others seemed to do, the desirability of gaining this place. To hold it would be to cut in halves, between east and west, the northern line of the Confederacy. In the early days a movement towards the Gap seemed imprudent in face of Kentucky's theory of "neutrality." But this foolish notion was in time effectually disposed of by the Confederates. Unable to resist the temptation offered by the important position of Columbus at the western end of the State on the Mississippi River, they seized that place in September, 1861. The state legislature, incensed at the intrusion, immediately embraced the Union cause and welcomed the Union forces within the state lines.