<h3><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</SPAN></h3>
<div class="chapquot">
<div>
<p>Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more,<br/>
Or close the wall up with our English dead!</p>
<p class="citation">King Henry V.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sidenote">A "Kid-Gloved" Corps.</div>
<p>General Fremont's Body Guard was composed of picked young men of
unusual intelligence. They were all handsomely uniformed, efficiently
armed, and mounted upon bay horses. They cultivated the mustache,
with the rest of the face smooth—at least, not a more whimsical
decree than the rigid regulation of the British army, which compelled
every man to shave and wear a stock under the burning sun of the
Crimea. Many denounced the Guard as a "kid-gloved," ornamental corps,
designed only to swell Fremont's retinue.</p>
<p>Major Zagonyi, commandant of the Guard, with one hundred and fifty of
his men, started with orders to reconnoiter the country in front of
us. When near Springfield, they found the town held by a Rebel force
of cavalry and infantry, ill organized, but tolerably armed, and
numbering two thousand.</p>
<p>Zagonyi drew his men up in line, explained the situation, and asked
whether they would attack or turn back for re-enforcements. They
replied unanimously that they would attack.</p>
<p>They <em>did</em> attack. Men and horses were very weary. They had ridden
fifty miles in seventeen hours; they had never been under fire
before; but history hardly parallels their daring.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Charge of the Body Guard.</div>
<p>The Rebels formed in line of battle at the edge of a wood. To
approach them, the Guard were compelled
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</SPAN></span>
to ride down a narrow lane, exposed to a terrible fire from three
different directions. They went through this shower of bullets,
dismounted, tore down the high zig-zag fence, led their horses over
in the teeth of the enemy, remounted, formed, and, spreading out,
fan-like, charged impetuously, shouting "Fremont and the Union."</p>
<p>The engagement was very brief and very bloody. Though only in the
proportion of one to thirteen, the Guard behaved as if weary of their
lives. Men utterly reckless are masters of the situation. At first,
the Confederates fought well; but they were soon panic-stricken, and
many dropped their guns, and ran to and fro like persons distracted.</p>
<p>The Guard charged through and through the broken ranks of the Rebels,
chased them in all directions—into the woods, beyond the woods,
down the roads, through the town—and planted the old flag upon the
Springfield court-house, where it had not waved since the death of
Lyon.</p>
<p>Armed with revolvers and revolving carbines, members of the Guard had
twelve shots apiece. After delivering their first fire, there was no
time to reload, and (the only instance of the kind early in the war)
nearly all their work was done with the saber. When they mustered
again, almost every blade in the command was stained with blood.</p>
<p>Of their one hundred and fifty horses, one hundred and twenty were
wounded. A sergeant had three horses shot under him. A private
received a bullet in a blacking-box, which he carried in his pocket.
They lost fifty men, sixteen of whom were killed on the spot.</p>
<p>"I wonder if they will call us fancy soldiers and kid-gloved boys any
longer?" said one, who lay wounded in the hospital when we arrived. </p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote">Turning the Tables.</div>
<p>On a cot beside him, I found an old schoolmate. His eye brightened as
he grasped my hand.</p>
<p>"Is your wound serious?" I asked.</p>
<p>"Painful, but not fatal. O, it was a glorious fight!"</p>
<p>It <em>was</em> a glorious fight. Wilson Creek is doubly historic ground.
There first a thousand of our men poured out their blood like water,
and the brave Lyon laid down his life "for our dear country's sake."
Two months later, the same stream witnessed the charge of the Body
Guard, which, in those dark days, when the Cause looked gloomy,
thrilled every loyal heart in the nation. It will shine down the
historic page, and be immortal in song and story.</p>
<p>Major Frank J. White, of our army, was with the Rebels as a prisoner
of war during the charge. Just before they were routed, fourteen men,
under a South Carolina captain, started with him for General Price's
camp. At a house where they spent the night, the farmer boldly
avowed himself a Union man. He supposed White to be one of the Rebel
officers; but, finding a moment's opportunity, the major whispered to
him:</p>
<p>"I am a Union prisoner. Send word to Springfield at once, and my men
will come and rescue me."</p>
<p>The Rebels, leaving one man on picket outside, went to bed in the
same room with their prisoner. Then the farmer sent his little boy of
twelve years, on horseback, fourteen miles to Springfield. At three
o'clock in the morning, twenty-six Home Guards surrounded the house,
and captured the entire party. Major White at once took command, and
posted <em>his</em> guards over the crestfallen Confederates.</p>
<p>While they sat around the fire in the evening, waiting for supper,
the Rebel captain had remarked:</p>
<p>"Major, we have a little leisure, and I believe I will
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</SPAN></span>
amuse myself by looking over your papers." Whereupon he spent an hour
in examining the letters which he found in White's possession. In
the morning, when the party, again sitting by the fire, waited for
breakfast, the major said, quietly:</p>
<p>"Captain, we have a little leisure, and I think I will amuse
myself by looking over <em>your</em> papers." So the Rebel documents were
scrutinized in turn. White returned in triumph to Springfield,
bringing his late captors as prisoners. A friendship sprang up
between him and the South Carolina captain, who remained on parole in
our camp for several days, and they messed and slept together.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Welcome from Union Residents.</div>
<p>When our troops entered Springfield, the people greeted them with
uncontrollable joy; for they were intensely loyal, and had been under
Rebel rule more than eleven weeks. Scores and scores of National
flags now suddenly emerged from mysterious hiding-places; wandering
exiles came pouring back, and we were welcomed by hundreds of glad
faces, waving handkerchiefs, swinging hats, and vociferous huzzas.</p>
<p>Fremont had now modified his Proclamation; but the logic of events
was stronger than President Lincoln. The negroes would throng our
camp, and Fremont never permitted a single one to be returned. One
slave appropriated a horse, and, guiding him only by a rope about the
nose, without saddle or bridle, blanket or spur, rode from Price's
camp to Fremont's head-quarters, more than eighty miles, in eighteen
hours.</p>
<p>A brigade of regular troops, under General Sturgis, having marched
from Kansas City, joined us in Springfield. They were under very
rigid discipline, and all their supplies, whether procured from
Rebels or Unionists, were paid for in gold. Sturgis was then very
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</SPAN></span>
"conservative," and some of our people denounced him as disloyal.
But, like hundreds of others, inexorable war educated him very
rapidly. His sympathies were soon heartily on our side. He afterward,
in the Army of the Potomac, won and wore bright laurels.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Freaks of the Kansas Brigade.</div>
<p>The Kansas volunteer brigade, under General "Jim" Lane, also
joined us at Springfield. Their course contrasted sharply with that
of Sturgis's men. They had a good many old scores to settle up, and
they swept along the Missouri border like a hurricane. Sublimely
indifferent to the President's orders, and all other orders which
did not please them, they received over two thousand slaves, sending
them off by installments into Kansas. When the master was loyal,
they would gravely appraise the negro; give him a receipt for his
slave, named ----, valued at ---- hundred dollars, "lost by the march
of the Kansas Brigade," and advise him to carry the claim before
Congress!</p>
<p>By some unexplained law, dandies, fools, and supercilious braggarts
often gravitate into staff positions; but Fremont's staff was an
exceedingly agreeable one. Many of its members had traveled over
the globe, and, from their wide experiences, whiled away many hours
before the evening camp-fires.</p>
<p>On the 31st of October, the correspondents, under cavalry escort,
visited the Wilson Creek battle-ground, ten miles south of
Springfield.</p>
<p>The field is broken by rocky ridges and deep ravines, and covered
with oak shrubs. Picking his way among the brushwood, my horse's
hoof struck with a dull, hollow sound against a human skull. Just
beyond, still clad in uniform, lay a skeleton, on whose ghastliness
the storms and sunshine of three months had fallen. The head was
partially severed; and though the upturned
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</SPAN></span>
face was fleshless, I could not resist the impression that it wore a
look of mortal agony. It was in a little thicket, several yards from
the scene of any fighting. The poor fellow was carried there, dying
or dead, during the progress of the battle, and afterward overlooked.
Among our lost his name was probably followed by the sad word
"Missing."</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"Not among the suffering wounded;</span><br/>
<span class="i2">Not among the peaceful dead;</span><br/>
<span class="i0">Not among the prisoners. <span class="smcap">Missing—</span></span><br/>
<span class="i2">That was all the message said.</span><br/></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"Yet his mother reads it over,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Until, through her painful tears,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Fades the dear name she has called him<br/></span>
<span class="i2">For these two-and-twenty years."<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p>Many graves had been opened by wolves. Bones of horses, haversacks,
shoes, blouses, gun-barrels, shot, and fragments of shell, were
scattered over the field. The trees were scarred with bullets, and
hundreds were felled by the artillery. A six-inch shot would cut down
one of these brittle oaks a foot in diameter.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Capture of a Female Spy.</div>
<p>A few miles south of Springfield one of our scouts encountered a
young woman on horseback. Suspecting her errand, he informed her
confidentially that he was a spy from Price's army, who had been
several days in Fremont's camp. Falling into this palpable trap,
the girl told him frankly that <em>she</em> was sent by Price to visit
our forces, and obtain information. She was taken immediately to
Fremont's head-quarters. Her terror was very great on finding herself
betrayed. She told all she knew about the Rebels, and was finally
allowed to depart in peace. The employment of female spies was very
common upon both sides. </p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote">Fremont's Farewell to his Army.</div>
<p>On the 2d of November our whole army was at Springfield. Fremont
had progressed farther south than any other Union commander, from
the Atlantic to the Rio Grande. Detachments of Rebels were within
ten miles of our camps. Emphatic, but entirely false reports from
the colonel at the head of Fremont's scouts,<SPAN name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14" href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">14</SPAN>
had given the impression that Price's entire command was very near
us; and a great battle was hourly expected.</p>
<p>Fremont was in the midst of an important campaign. His army was most
patriotic, enthusiastic, and promising. His personal popularity among
his troops was without parallel.</p>
<p>At this moment the official ax fell. He received an order to
turn over his command to Hunter. It was a trying ordeal, but he
did a soldier's duty, obeying silently and instantly. The first
intelligence which the army received was conveyed by this touching
farewell:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p><span class="smcap">Soldiers of the Mississippi Army</span>:
Agreeably to orders this day received, I take leave of you. Although
our army has been of sudden growth, we have grown up together, and
I have become familiar with the brave and generous spirit which you
bring to the defense of your country, and which makes me anticipate
for you a brilliant career.</p>
<p>Continue as you have begun, and give to my successor the same
cordial and enthusiastic support with which you have encouraged me.
Emulate the splendid example already before you, and let me remain,
as I am, proud of the noble army which I have thus far labored to
bring together.</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote">Disaffection among the Soldiers.</div>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>Soldiers! I regret to leave you. Sincerely I thank you for the
regard and confidence you have invariably shown me. I deeply regret
that I shall not have the honor to lead you to the victory which you
are just about to win, but I shall claim to share with you in the joy
of every triumph, and trust always to be fraternally remembered by my
companions in arms.</p>
</div>
<p>Fremont's name had been the rallying-point of the volunteers.
Officers and entire regiments had come from distant parts of the
country to serve under him. All felt the impropriety and cruelty
of his removal at this time. Many officers at once wrote their
resignations. Whole battalions were reported laying down their arms.
The Germans were specially indignant, and among the Body Guard there
was much bitterness.</p>
<p>The slightest encouragement or tolerance from the General would
have produced wide-spread mutiny; but he expostulated with the
malcontents, reminding them that their first duty was to the country;
and, after Hunter's arrival, left the camp before daylight, lest
his appearance among the soldiers, as he rode away, should excite
improper demonstrations.</p>
<p>A few days moderated the feeling of the troops; for, like all our
volunteers, they were wedded not to any man, but to the Cause.</p>
<p>In St. Louis, Fremont was received more like a conquering hero
than a retiring general. An immense assembly greeted him. In their
enthusiasm, the people even carpeted his door-step with flowers.</p>
<p>For weeks before his removal the air had been filled with clamors,
charging him with incompetency, extravagance, and giving Government
contracts to corrupt men. The first attacks upon him immediately
followed his Emancipation Proclamation, issued August 31, 1861.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Spurious Missouri Unionists.</div>
<p>There were many half-hearted Unionists in Missouri.
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</SPAN></span>
For example, shortly after the capture of Sumter, General Robert
Wilson, of Andrew County, in a public meeting, served upon the
committee on resolutions reporting the following:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>"<em>Resolved</em>, That we condemn as inhuman and diabolical the war
being waged by the Government against the South."</p>
</div>
<p>Eight months after, this same Wilson claimed to be a Union leader,
and, as such, was sent to represent Missouri in the Senate of the
United States! Of course all men of this class waged unrelenting war
upon Fremont. Afterward there was a rupture among the really loyal
men; a fierce quarrel, in which the able but unscrupulous Blairs
headed the opposition, and some zealous and patriotic Unionists
co-operated with them. The President, always conscientious, was
persuaded to remove the General; but afterward tacitly admitted its
injustice by giving him another command.</p>
<p>Mr. Lincoln also countermanded the Emancipation Proclamation, which
was a little ahead of the times. Still it gratified the plain
people, even then. Tired of the tender and delicate terms in which
our authorities were wont to speak of "domestic institutions" and
"systems of labor," they were delighted to read the announcement in
honest Saxon:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>"The property of active Rebels is confiscated for the
public use; and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby
declared Free Men."</p>
</div>
<p>It was a new and pure leaf in the history of the war.</p>
<p>Of course Fremont made mistakes, though the abuses in his department
were infinitely less than those which disgraced Washington, and which
in some degree are inseparable from large, unusual disbursements of
public money. </p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote">Conduct of Cameron and Thomas.</div>
<p>But he was very earnest. He was quite ignorant of How Not to Do it.
He took grave responsibilities. When red tape hampered him, he cut
it. Unable to obtain arms at Washington—which, in those days, knew
only Virginia—he ransacked the markets of the world for them. When
a paymaster refused to liquidate one of his bills, on the ground of
irregularity, he arrested him, and threatened to have him shot if he
persisted. Able to leave but few troops in St. Louis, he fortified
the city in thirty days, employing five thousand laborers.</p>
<p>Secretary Cameron and Adjutant-General Thomas visited Missouri,
after Fremont started upon his Springfield campaign. General Thomas
did not hesitate, in railway cars and hotels, to condemn him
violently—a gross breach of official propriety, and clearly tending
to excite insubordination among the soldiers. Cameron dictated a
letter, ordering Fremont to discontinue the St. Louis fortifications
as unnecessary, informing him that his official debts would not
be discharged till investigated, his contracts recognized, or the
officers paid whom he had appointed under the written authority of
the President.</p>
<p>In due time they <em>were</em> recognized and paid. The St. Louis
fortifications proved needful, and were afterward finished. Yet
Cameron permitted the contents of this letter to be telegraphed
all over the country four days before Fremont received it. It
seemed designed to impugn his integrity, destroy his credit,
promote disaffection in his camps, and prevent his contractors from
fulfilling their engagements. Thomas officially reported that Fremont
would not be able to move his army for lack of transportation. Before
the report could reach Washington, the army had advanced more than a
hundred miles! </p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="sidenote">Disregard of the Army Regulations.</div>
<p>Time, which at last makes all things even, vindicated Fremont's
leading measures in Missouri. His subsequent withdrawal from the
field, in Virginia, was doubtless unwise. It was hard to be placed
under a junior and hostile general; but private wrongs must wait in
war, and resignation proves quite as inadequate a remedy for the
grievances of an officer, as Secession for the fancied wrongs of the
Slaveholders.</p>
<p>Brigadier-General Justus McKinstry, ex-Quartermaster of the
Western Department, was arrested, and closely confined in the
St. Louis arsenal for many months. His repeated demands for the
charges and specifications against him were disregarded. He was at
last court-martialed and dismissed the service, on the charge of
malfeasance in office. Brigadier-General Charles P. Stone was for a
long time kept under arrest in the same manner. These proceedings
flagrantly violated both the Army Regulation, entitling officers to
know the charges and witnesses against them, within ten days after
arrest, and the spirit of the Constitution itself, which guarantees
to every man a speedy public trial in the presence of his accusers.</p>
<p>Equally reprehensible was the arrest and long confinement of many
civilians without formal charges or trial. States where actual
war existed, and even the debatable ground which bordered them,
might be proper fields for this exercise of the Military Power.
But the friends of the Union, holding Congress, and nearly every
State Legislature by overwhelming majorities, could make whatever
laws they pleased; therefore, these measures were unnecessary and
unjustifiable in the North, hundreds of miles from the seat of war.
Utterly at variance with personal rights and republican institutions,
they were alarming and dangerous precedents, which any unscrupulous
future
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</SPAN></span>
administration may plausibly cite in defense of the grossest
outrages. President Lincoln was always very chary of this exercise
of arbitrary power; but some of his constitutional advisers were
constantly urging it. Secretary Stanton, in particular, advocated and
committed acts of flagrant despotism. He was a good patent-office
lawyer, but had not the faintest conception of those primary
principles of Civil Liberty which underlie English and American
institutions. Even the Magna Charta, in sonorous Latin, declared:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>"No person shall be apprehended or imprisoned, except by the
legal judgment of his peers, or the law of the land. To none will
we sell, to none will we deny, to none will we <em>delay</em> right or
justice."</p>
</div>
<div class="sidenote">Military Power and the Press.</div>
<p>Kindred questions arose touching the Military Power and the Liberty
of the Press. Each northern city had its daily journal, which, under
thin disguise of loyalty, labored zealously for the Rebels. Soldiers
could not patiently read treasonable sheets. On several occasions
military commanders suppressed them, but the President promptly
removed the disability. The sober second thought of the people
was, that if editors and publishers in the loyal North could not
be convicted and punished in the civil courts, they should not be
molested.</p>
<p>General Hunter, succeeding Fremont, evacuated southwestern Missouri.
Before leaving Springfield, besieged with applications for runaway
slaves, he issued orders to deliver them up; but soldiers and
officers in his camps hid them so safely that they could not be found
by their masters.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Rudeness of General Halleck.</div>
<p>Hunter's little brief authority lasted just fifteen days, when he
was succeeded by General Halleck—a stout, heavy-faced, rather
stupid-looking officer, who wore
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</SPAN></span>
civilian's dress, and resembled a well-to-do tradesman. On the 20th
of November appeared his shameful General Order Number Three:</p>
<div class="blockquot">
<p>"It has been represented that important information respecting
the numbers and condition of our forces is conveyed to the enemy by
means of fugitive slaves who are admitted within our lines. In order
to remedy this evil, it is directed that no such persons be hereafter
permitted to enter the lines of any camp, or of any forces on the
march, and that any now within our lines be immediately excluded
therefrom."</p>
</div>
<p>Its inhumanity outraged the moral sense, and its falsehood the common
sense, of the country. The negroes were uniformly friends to our
soldiers. After diligent inquiry from every leading officer of my
acquaintance, I could not learn a single instance of treachery. To
the cruelty of turning the slave away, Halleck added the dishonesty
of slandering him.</p>
<p>When Charles James Fox was canvassing for Par<del>lia-</del>liament, one of his
auditors said to him:</p>
<p>"Sir, I admire your talents, but d--n your politics!"</p>
<p>Fox retorted: "Sir, I admire your frankness, but d--n your manners!"</p>
<p>Many who had official business with Halleck uttered similar
maledictions. To his visitors he was brusque to surliness. Dr. Holmes
says, with great truth, that all men are bores when we do not want
them. Like all public characters, Halleck was beset by those grievous
dispensations of Providence. But a general in command of half a
continent ought, at least, to have the manners of a gentleman; and he
was sometimes so insulting that his legitimate visitors would have
been justified in kicking him down stairs. None of our high officials
equaled him in rudeness, except Mr. Stanton, Secretary of War.</p>
<p>In January, as a Government steamer approached the
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</SPAN></span>
landing at Commerce, Missouri, two women on shore shouted to the
pilot:</p>
<p>"Don't land! Jeff. Thompson and his soldiers are here waiting for
you."</p>
<p>The redoubtable guerrilla, with fifty men, instantly sprang from
behind a wood-pile and fired a volley. Twenty-six bullets entered
the cabin of the retreating boat; but, thanks to the loyal women, no
person was killed or captured.</p>
<div class="sidenote">A Droll Flag of Truce.</div>
<p>One day, a seedy individual in soiled gray walked into Halleck's
private room at the Planter's House, in St. Louis, and, with the
military salute, thus addressed him:</p>
<p>"Sir, I am an officer of General Price's army, and have brought you a
letter under flag of truce."</p>
<p>"Where's your flag of truce?" growled Halleck.</p>
<p>"Here," was the prompt reply, and the Rebel pulled a dirty white rag
from his pocket!</p>
<p>He had entered our lines, and come one hundred and fifty miles,
without detection, passing pickets, sentinels, guards, and
provost-marshals. Halleck, who plumed himself on his organizing
capacity and rigid police regulations, was not a little chagrined. He
sent back the unique messenger with a letter, assuring Price that he
would shoot as a spy any one repeating the attempt. </p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</SPAN></span></p>
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