Thus any expectation of a sanguinary battle fell in disappointment. So much had been said about Cross Hollows that the Union troops were certain that they would have to fight a desperate battle at or near it. It was known that at least 4,000 regularly-organized troops had been quartered there for months, subjected to thorough drill and discipline. Gen. McCulloch had boasted that he had prepared a trap in which to catch and ruin the Federal General if he ventured that far south. McCulloch's only fear was of being unable to draw the Federal General into the trap. The Confederates left their sick and wounded behind them in the hospitals, and the untiring Gen. Asboth, commanding the cavalry, pushed the rear guard rapidly through to Bentonville. Returning to Curtis's camp a day or two later, Gen. Asboth was sent with a force of cavalry to Fayetteville, a most important town in northwestern Arkansas, where he learned that his enemies had hid themselves in the Boston Mountains. 309 Gen. Curtis had completed his work of driving Price from Missouri and some distance beyond her borders. He then drew his forces together and established himself at Cross Hollows, with the ultimate intention of retiring to the better position of Sugar Creek Crossing, in the event of the enemy concentrating any force against him. In the meanwhile he would hope that the turning movements which Halleck had planned would occupy Price's and McCulloch's attention, and draw them away from him. 310 CHAPTER XVIII. GEN. EARL VAN DORN TAKES COMMAND. Jefferson Davis carried out his determination to appoint an officer superior in rank to both Gens. McCulloch and Price. After first appointing Gen. Harry Heth, and then offering the appointment to Gen. Braxton Bragg, he selected another of his favorites, Gen. Earl Van Dorn, who had been a fiery partisan among the officers of the Regular Army for States Rights and Secession, was a native of Mississippi, and had graduated from West Point in 1842, 52d in a class of 56. Whatever his intellectual qualities may have been, he was a man of great force and energy, and had won two brevets for distinguished gallantry in the Mexican War. He gained still more distinction by his successful expeditions against the fierce Comanches, a tribe then in the hight of its power. In one of these his small command killed 56 Indians. In his engagements with the Comanches he had received four wounds, two of which were quite serious. He had been very active in bringing about Gen. Twiggs's disgraceful surrender of his command in Texas. When Jefferson Davis, as Secretary of War, organized the additional regiments for the Regular Army he took particular pains to promote into them men of his way of thinking on States Rights, and who would be useful in the coming contest which he foresaw. 311