The truth was that the advance of the Confederates had had a blighting effect upon that large portion of the people which had hoped to remain neutral in the struggle. Gen. Lyon, with all his intensity of purpose, had kept uppermost in mind that he was an agent of the law, and his mission was to enforce the law. He had kept his troops under excellent discipline, had permitted no outrages upon citizens, and had either paid for or given vouchers for anything his men needed, and had generally conducted himself in strict obedience of the law. His course was a crushing refutal of the inflammatory proclamations of Gov. Jackson and others about the Union soldiers being robbers, thieves, ravishers and outragers. 191 Quite different was the course of the twenty or more thousand men whom Price and McCulloch led into Springfield. They were under very little discipline of any kind, and were burning with a desire to punish and drive out of the country not merely those who were outspoken Unionists, but all who were not radical Secessionists. They knew that the sentiment in Springfield and the country of which it was the center was in favor of the Union, and they wanted to stamp this out by terror. While this brought to their ranks a great many of the more pliant neutrals, it drove away from them a great number, and put into the ranks of the Union many who had been more or less inclined to the pro-slavery element. The soreness between Price and McCulloch which had been filmed over before the battle by Price subordinating himself and his troops to McCulloch, became more inflamed during the stay at Springfield. In spite of the fact that the Missouri troops had done much better fighting, and suffered severer losses in the battle than McCulloch, he persisted in denouncing them as cowards, stragglers and mobites, without soldierly qualities. The following extracts from a report to J. P. Benjamin, Confederate Secretary of War, will show the temper which pervaded all his correspondence, and was probably still more manifest in his personal relations with the Missourians: It was at this point that I first saw the total inefficiency of the Missouri mounted men under Brig.-Gen. Rains. A thousand, more or less, of them composed the advance guard, and whilst reconnoiterlng the enemy's position, some eight miles distant from our camp, were put to flight by a single cannon-shot, running in the greatest confusion, without the loss of a single man except one who died of overheat or sunstroke, and bringing no reliable information as to the position or fore of the enemy; nor were they of the slightest service as scouts or spies afterwards. 192