An ordnance-battery, also, was organized for the
purposes of the expedition. Brevet Brigadier-General Harney was assigned
to the command-in-chief, an officer of a rude force of character,
amounting often to brutality, and careless as to those details of
military duty which savor more of the accountant's inkstand than of
the drum and fife, but ambitious, active, and well acquainted with the
character of the service for which he was detailed. He was, at the time,
in command in Kansas, subject in a measure to the will of Governor
Walker.
The whole number of troops under orders for the expedition was hardly
twenty-five hundred, but from this total no estimate can be predicated
of the enormous quantities of commissary stores and munitions of war
necessary to be dispatched to sustain it. It was thought advisable
to send a supply for eighteen months, so that the trains exceeded in
magnitude those which would accompany an army of twenty thousand in
ordinary operations on the European continent, where _depots_ could be
established along the line of march. To appreciate such preparations, it
is necessary to understand the character of the country to be traversed
between the Missouri River and the Great Salt Lake.
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