Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field Part 7

Just before the reception of this order, "positive" news was received that the enemy was advancing from Ca.s.sville toward Springfield, and would either attack us in the town, or meet us on the ground south of it. General Hunter had not arrived, and therefore General Fremont formed his plan of battle, and determined on marching out to meet the enemy.

On the morning of the 3d, the scouts brought intelligence that the entire Rebel army was in camp on the old Wilson Creek battle-ground, and would fight us there. A council of war was called, and it was decided to attack the enemy on the following morning, if General Hunter did not arrive before that time. Some of the officers were suspicious that the Rebels were not in force at Wilson Creek, but when Fremont announced it officially there could be little room for doubt.

Every thing was put in readiness for battle. Generals of division were ordered to be ready to move at a moment's notice. The pickets were doubled, and the grand guards increased to an unusual extent. Four pieces of artillery formed a portion of the picket force on the Fayetteville road, the direct route to Wilson Creek. If an enemy had approached on that night he would have met a warm reception.

About seven o'clock in the evening, a staff officer, who kept the journalists informed of the progress of affairs, visited General Fremont's head-quarters. He soon emerged with important intelligence.

"It is all settled. The army is ready to move at the instant. Orders will be issued at two o'clock, and we will be under way before daylight. Skirmishing will begin at nine, and the full battle will be drawn on at twelve."

"Is the plan arranged?"

"Yes, it is all arranged; but I did not ask how."

"Battle sure to come off--is it?"

"Certainly, unless Hunter comes and countermands the order."

Alas, for human calculations! General Hunter arrived before midnight.

Two o'clock came, but no orders to break camp. Daylight, and no orders to march. Breakfast-time, and not a hostile shot had been heard. Nine o'clock, and no skirmish. Twelve o'clock, and no battle.

General Fremont and staff returned to St. Louis. General Hunter made a reconnoissance to Wilson Creek, and ascertained that the only enemy that had been in the vicinity was a scouting party of forty or fifty men. At the time we were to march out, there was not a Rebel on the ground. Their whole army was still at Ca.s.sville, fifty-five miles from Springfield.

On the 9th of November the army evacuated Springfield and returned to the line of the Pacific Railway.

General Fremont's scouts had deceived him. Some of these individuals were exceedingly credulous, while others were liars of the highest grade known to civilization. The former obtained their information from the frightened inhabitants; the latter manufactured theirs with the aid of vivid imaginations. I half suspect the fellows were like the showman in the story, and, at length, religiously believed what they first designed as a hoax. Between the two cla.s.ses of scouts a large army of Rebels was created.

The scouting service often develops characters of a peculiar mould.

Nearly every man engaged in it has some particular branch in which he excels. There was one young man accompanying General Fremont's army, whose equal, as a special forager, I have never seen elsewhere.

Whenever we entered camp, this individual, whom I will call the captain, would take a half-dozen companions and start on a foraging tour. After an absence of from four to six hours, he would return well-laden with the spoils of war. On one occasion he brought to camp three horses, two cows, a yoke of oxen, and a wagon. In the latter he had a barrel of sorghum mola.s.ses, a firkin of b.u.t.ter, two sheep, a pair of fox-hounds, a hoop-skirt, a corn-sh.e.l.ler, a baby's cradle, a lot of crockery, half a dozen padlocks, two hoes, and a rocking-chair.

On the next night he returned with a family carriage drawn by a horse and a mule. In the carriage he had, among other things, a parrot-cage which contained a screaming parrot, several pairs of ladies' shoes, a few yards of calico, the stock of an old musket, part of a spinning-wheel, and a box of garden seeds. In what way these things would contribute to the support of the army, it was difficult to understand.

On one occasion the captain found a trunk full of clothing, concealed with a lot of salt in a Rebel warehouse. He brought the trunk to camp, and, as the quartermaster refused to receive it, took it to St. Louis when the expedition returned. At the hotel where he was stopping, some detectives were watching a suspected thief, and, by mistake, searched the captain's room. They found a trunk containing thirteen coats of all sizes, with no pants or vests. Naturally considering this a strange wardrobe for a gentleman, they took the captain into custody.

He protested earnestly that he was not, and had never been, a thief, but it was only on the testimony of the quartermaster that he was released. I believe he subsequently acted as a scout under General Halleck, during the siege of Corinth.

After the withdrawal of our army, General Price returned to Springfield and went into winter-quarters. McCulloch's command formed a cantonment at Cross Hollows, Arkansas, about ninety miles southwest of Springfield. There was no prospect of further activity until the ensuing spring. Every thing betokened rest.

From Springfield I returned to St. Louis by way of Rolla, designing to follow the example of the army, and seek a good locality for hibernating. On my way to Rolla I found many houses deserted, or tenanted only by women and children. Frequently the crops were standing, ungathered, in the field. Fences were prostrated, and there was no effort to restore them. The desolation of that region was just beginning.

CHAPTER X.

TWO MONTHS OF IDLENESS.

A Promise Fulfilled.--Capture of a Rebel Camp and Train.--Rebel Sympathizers in St. Louis.--General Halleck and his Policy.--Refugees from Rebeldom.--Story of the Sufferings of a Union Family.--Chivalry in the Nineteenth Century.--The Army of the Southwest in Motion.--Gun-Boats and Transports.--Capture of Fort Henry.--The Effect in St. Louis.--Our Flag Advancing.

Early in the December following the events narrated in the last chapter, General Pope captured a camp in the interior of the State, where recruits were being collected for Price's army. After the return of Fremont's army from Springfield, the Rebels boasted they would eat their Christmas dinner in St. Louis. Many Secessionists were making preparations to receive Price and his army, and some of them prophesied the time of their arrival. It was known that a goodly number of Rebel flags had been made ready to hang out when the conquerors should come. Sympathizers with the Rebellion became bold, and often displayed badges, rosettes, and small flags, indicative of their feelings. Recruiting for the Rebel army went on, very quietly, of course, within a hundred yards of the City Hall. At a fair for the benefit of the Orphan Asylum, the ladies openly displayed Rebel insignia, but carefully excluded the National emblems.

This was the state of affairs when eight hundred Rebels arrived in St.

Louis. They redeemed their promise to enjoy a Christmas dinner in St.

Louis, though they had counted upon more freedom than they were then able to obtain. In order that they might carry out, in part, their original intention, their kind-hearted jailers permitted the friends of the prisoners to send a dinner to the latter on Christmas Day. The prisoners partook of the repast with much relish.

The capture of those recruits was accompanied by the seizure of a supply train on its way to Springfield. Our success served to diminish the Rebel threats to capture St. Louis, or perform other great and chivalric deeds. The inhabitants of that city continued to prophesy its fall, but they were less defiant than before.

General Fremont commanded the Western Department for just a hundred days. General Hunter, his successor, was dressed in brief authority for fifteen days, and yielded to General Halleck. The latter officer endeavored to make his rule as unlike that of General Fremont as could well be done. He quietly made his head-quarters at the Government Buildings, in the center of St. Louis, instead of occupying a "palatial mansion" on Chouteau Avenue. The body-guard, or other c.u.mbersome escort, was abolished, and the new general moved unattended about the city. Where General Fremont had scattered the Government funds with a wasteful hand, General Halleck studied economy. Where Fremont had declared freedom to the slaves of traitors, Halleck issued his famous "Order No. 3," forbidding fugitive slaves to enter our lines, and excluding all that were then in the military camps. Where General Fremont had surrounded his head-quarters with so great a retinue of guards that access was almost impossible, General Halleck made it easy for all visitors to see him. He generally gave them such a reception that few gentlemen felt inclined to make a second call.

The policy of scattering the military forces in the department was abandoned, and a system of concentration adopted. The construction of the gun-boat fleet, and accompanying mortar-rafts, was vigorously pushed, and preparations for military work in the ensuing spring went on in all directions. Our armies were really idle, and we were doing very little on the Mississippi; but it was easy to see that we were making ready for the most vigorous activity in the future.

In the latter part of December many refugees from the Southwest began to arrive in St. Louis. In most cases they were of the poorer cla.s.s of the inhabitants of Missouri and Northern Arkansas, and had been driven from their homes by their wealthier and disloyal neighbors. Their stories varied little from each other. Known or suspected to be loyal, they were summarily expelled, generally with the loss of every thing, save a few articles of necessity. There were many women and children among them, whose protectors had been driven into the Rebel ranks, or murdered in cold blood. Many of them died soon after they reached our lines, and there were large numbers who perished on their way.

Among those who arrived early in January, 1862, was a man from Northern Arkansas. Born in Pennsylvania, he emigrated to the Southwest in 1830, and, after a few years' wandering, settled near Fayetteville.

When the war broke out, he had a small farm and a comfortable house, and his two sons were married and living near him.

In the autumn of '61, his elder son was impressed into the Rebel service, where he soon died. The younger was ordered to report at Fayetteville, for duty. Failing to do so on the day specified, he was shot down in his own house on the following night. His body fell upon one of his children standing near him, and his blood saturated its garments.

The day following, the widow, with two small children, was notified to leave the dwelling, as orders had been issued for its destruction.

Giving her no time to remove any thing, the Rebel soldiers, claiming to act under military command, fired the house. In this party were two persons who had been well acquainted with the murdered man. The widow sought shelter with her husband's parents.

The widow of the elder son went to the same place of refuge. Thus there were living, under one roof, the old man, his wife, a daughter of seventeen, and the two widows, one with two, and the other with three, children. A week afterward, all were commanded to leave the country. No cause was a.s.signed, beyond the fact that the man was born in the North, and had been harboring the family of his son, who refused to serve in the Rebel ranks. They were told they could have two days for preparation, but within ten hours of the time the notice was served, a gang of Rebels appeared at the door, and ordered an instant departure.

They made a rigid search of the persons of the refugees, to be sure they took away nothing of value. Only a single wagon was allowed, and in this were placed a few articles of necessity. As they moved away, the Rebels applied the torch to the house and its out-buildings. In a few moments all were in flames. The house of the elder son's widow shared the same fete.

They were followed to the Missouri line, and ordered to make no halt under penalty of death. It was more than two hundred miles to our lines, and winter was just beginning. One after another fell ill and died, or was left with Union people along the way. Only four of the party reached our army at Rolla. Two of these died a few days after their arrival, leaving only a young child and its grandfather. At St.

Louis the survivors were kindly cared for, but the grief at leaving home, the hardships of the winter journey, and their dest.i.tution among strangers, had so worn upon them that they soon followed the other members of their family.

There have been thousands of cases nearly parallel to the above. The Rebels claimed to be fighting for political freedom, and charged the National Government with the most unheard-of "tyranny." We can well be excused for not countenancing a political freedom that kills men at their firesides, and drives women and children to seek protection under another flag. We have heard much, in the past twenty years, of "Southern chivalry." If the deeds of which the Rebels were guilty are characteristic of chivalry, who would wish to be a son of the Cavaliers? The insignia worn in the Middle Ages are set aside, to make room for the torch and the knife. The chivalry that deliberately starves its prisoners, to render them unable to return to the field, and sends blood-hounds on the track of those who attempt an escape from their hands, is the chivalry of modern days. Winder is the Coeur-de-Leon, and Quantrel the Bayard, of the nineteenth century; knights "without fear and without reproach."

Early in January, the Army of the Southwest, under General Curtis, was put in condition for moving. Orders were issued cutting down the allowance of transportation, and throwing away every thing superfluous. Colonel Carr, with a cavalry division, was sent to the line of the Gasconade, to watch the movements of the enemy. It was the preliminary to the march into Arkansas, which resulted in the battle of Pea Ridge and the famous campaign of General Curtis from Springfield to Helena.

As fast as possible, the gun-boat fleet was pushed to completion. One after another, as the iron-clads were ready to move, they made their rendezvous at Cairo. Advertis.e.m.e.nts of the quartermaster's department, calling for a large number of transports, showed that offensive movements were to take place. In February, Fort Henry fell, after an hour's sh.e.l.ling from Admiral Foote's gun-boats. This opened the way up the Tennessee River to a position on the flank of Columbus, Kentucky, and was followed by the evacuation of that point.

I was in St. Louis on the day the news of the fall of Fort Henry was received. The newspapers issued "extras," with astonishing head-lines.

It was the first gratifying intelligence after a long winter of inactivity, following a year which, closed with general reverses to our arms.

In walking the princ.i.p.al streets of St. Louis on that occasion, I could easily distinguish the loyal men of my acquaintance from the disloyal, at half a square's distance. The former were excited with delight; the latter were downcast with sorrow. The Union men walked rapidly, with, faces "wreathed in smiles;" the Secessionists moved with alternate slow and quick steps, while their countenances expressed all the sad emotions.

The newsboys with the tidings of our success were patronized by the one and repelled by the other. I saw one of the venders of intelligence enter the store of a noted Secessionist, where he shouted the nature of the news at the highest note of his voice. A moment later he emerged from the door, bringing the impress of a Secessionist's boot.

The day and the night witnessed much hilarity in loyal circles, and a corresponding gloom in quarters where treason ruled. I fear there were many men in St. Louis whose conduct was no recommendation to the membership of a temperance society.

All felt that a new era had dawned upon us. Soon after came the tidings of a general advance of our armies. We moved in Virginia, and made the beginning of the checkered campaign of '62. Along the Atlantic coast we moved, and Newbern fell into our hands. Further down the Atlantic, and at the mouth of the Mississippi, we kept up the aggression. Grant, at Donelson, "moved immediately upon Buckner's works;" and, in Kentucky, the Army of the Ohio occupied Bowling Green and prepared to move upon Nashville. In Missouri, Curtis had already occupied Lebanon, and was making ready to a.s.sault Price at Springfield. Everywhere our flag was going forward.

CHAPTER XI.