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Return to First Page ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, Volume 12 (Winter 1953) p.305
...General Wool is liked less every day by the volunteers because of his aristocratic manner and his harsh treatment of them. The Arkansas Volunteer Cavalry, which General Wool calls Colonel Yell's Mounted Devils, if provoked by him, would at the first opportunity blow out his life. Recently an Arkansas volunteer passing the General's tent, stopped and out of curiosity looked in. It displeased the General, and he told him to leave; as he did not leave immediately, he told his orderly to point his gun at him. The Arkansas soldier pointed his gun at General Wool and said, "Old Horse, damn your soul, if you give such orders I will shoot you for certain." General Wool withdrew quickly. Another Arkansas soldier who met the General wearing civilian clothes in his tent, asked him, "Stranger, have you seen my bay horse this morning?" although he knew it was General Wool. Another time General Wool sent his orderly to the Arkansas camp with the request not to make too much noise. The Arkansas replied, " Tell Johnny Wool to kiss our -----." (18)
For his part, Pike held such conduct among the Arkansas volunteers to be contemptible. He maintained, with probable truth, that their treatment at the hands of General Wool was a direct result of poor leadership by Colonel Yell, whom Pike thought " totally incompetent and unable to learn... [He] is the laughing stock of the men------ for as yet he has never undertaken to give an order without making a blunder." (19) It would seem that only two of the company commanders------Pike and John Preston-----had attempted to drill their men since their arrival at San Antonio. Indeed, Pike had the distinction of being the only officer in the regiment who drilled his men while en route from Arkansas. (20) Doubtlessly Pike's criticism of Colonel Yell was for political consumption on the home front, and
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18. Augustus Frederick Ehinger, Manuscript Diary of his travels from Illinois to Mexico... as a member of Comp. H., Second Regiment Illinois Volunteers, during the Mexican War, [ June 15, 1846- June 28, 1847], Dec. 16th, [1846]. Translated from the German script owned by Colonel Charles F. Ward, Roswell, New Mexico. Hereafter cited Ehinger Diary. Also in Fulton, ed., Diary & Letters of Gregg, I, 261, quoting the unpublished diary of Ehinger.
19. [Albert Pike] to "L", Patos, Mexico, December 31, 1846, in Gazette, February 6, 1847.
20. An extract from a letter of a member of Pike's company written on September 3, 1846, states that "we have been drilling on the road while other companies have been doing nothing." Gazette, October 14, 1846.