Secretary Smith's telegram, as the reader has probably already observed, had given to Dole a small piece of information that was not of slight significance, signifying as it did a change of front by the War Department. The War Department had rescinded its former action and had now refused to organize the Indians for service. The objections to Lane's enterprise must have been cumulative. Before the idea of it had embraced the Indians and before it had become so closely identified with Lane's name and personality, in fact, while it was more or less a scheme of McClellan's, Hunter had interposed[562] objections, but purely on military grounds. His force was scarcely equal to a movement southward. Subsequently, Halleck interposed objections likewise and his reasons,[563] whatever his motives may have been, were perfectly sound, indeed, rather alarmingly so, since they broadly hinted at the miserably local interests involved in the war in the west and the gross subordination of military policies to political. Then came Lane with energy like the whirlwind, a local politician through and through. He had absolutely no respect for official proprieties and the military men, opposed to him, were men of small calibre. He reached Kansas, joyfully intent upon putting into immediate effect the power that Lincoln had conferred upon him, only to find that there stood Hunter, fully prepared to contest authority with him. The Adjutant-general had written[564] Hunter that Lane had not been given a command independent of his own and that, if he so desired, he might conduct the expedition southward in person. In the evening of the twenty-sixth, Lane reached Leavenworth, and the very next day, Hunter issued general orders[565] that he would command in person. Taken aback and excusably indignant, Lane communicated[566] at once with John Covode and requested him to impart the news to the President, to Stanton[567] and the new Secretary of War, and to General McClellan.