General Rosecrans himself came to us from active campaigning, where he had rendered the most patriotic and arduous service, but had failed in attaining the highest success. At the eleventh hour he had lost the great and hotly contested battle of Chickamauga by giving a blundering order to one of his subordinate generals.[94] His intimate friends thought that ever after he carried in his face the sadness of that defeat. But his spirit was not soured. He was still ready to serve his country in any way that he could, and in any position to which he might be called. So he could heartily congratulate one, then subordinate in rank, upon entering the service that he had been compelled to abandon, while he himself cheerfully took up the military administration of the most distracted region in the Union. We have already seen him filling the office of president of the Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair, and doing all that he could to promote its interests by being present evenings with his staff. To those who did not, or could not, look below the surface, the battle in Missouri for the Union seemed to have been fought out. So, I am sure, most of the loyal in St. Louis at that time regarded it. But the general, and a few of the inner circle, already had an inkling of a deep-laid plot to promote the rebellion of the Southern States and if possible to make it successful. They were persuaded that the surface of things was deceptive; that beneath the dead ashes there were smouldering fires that might suddenly burst out into flame; that there never had been a more urgent demand for diligence than at that hour of superficial quiet.