USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. I > Part 15
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The offense, however, was not confined to Rebels. Loyal Missourians felt outraged by the stringency of Fremont's order. The two members of the Cabinet from Missouri were loud and warm in their expressions of displeasure. Kentucky was also indignant. Ohio, Indiana and Illinois stood aghast, confounded by the boldness which so roughly handled the sacred and delicate institution of slavery. Even the good President disapproved.
It was soon seen that, if not he, the members of his Cabi- net looked upon the Western General as a dangerous man. A latent feeling of suspicion was roused in them. Perhaps they recalled in those deep, restless cyes, set so close together, a something which had baffled their scrutiny, and interpreted it ambition. The words "ambition," "dictator," "despot," began to be whispered about. Men's minds were unsettled.
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THE STAFF AND BODY-GUARD.
Now that the great fact of rebellion was proved, they were ready to doubt a deviation from any trodden path.
Fremont from this time worked under a cloud, and against a current. . In every quarter he met opposition. In every direction his purposes were thwarted. He went on, however, laying plans and preparing for their execution with an inde- pendence and vigor which were very near audacity. The for- tificationsof St. Louis were continued on the same magnificent scale. Five thousand laborers were employed, and in thirty days the works were so far complete as to render the city safe in the care of a small force.
As General Fremont was almost the only military man in America who had a European reputation, he attracted foreigners to his standard. These were generally men of culture and force of character, and men who had struggled and suffered for liberty in their own country. His life of adventure, danger and toil had endeared him to the noble American youth, and he gathered about him, in various capacities, hosts of generous young men. He formed his staff, it is said, with less reference to moral character than to ability. However that may be, two of Indiana's sons were members of this singularly gifted staff, and Indiana claims Hudson and Shanks as good and true men. Illinois, also, Joves few names more than that of the warm-hearted and righteous Lovejoy, who was one of the number.
To Zagonyi, a Hungarian exile of much military expe- rience, permission was given to raise a cavalry company to form the General's Body-Guard. Applications for a place in the Guard were received from almost every loyal Statc. Numbers were refused, and the Guard was formed of only three hundred, one hundred of whom were from Kentucky, the others chiefly from Missouri, although among them were representatives of other Western States.
Early in September, the Western Army numbered fifty- five thousand six hundred and ninety-three men, and was dispersed over the entire department-eleven thousand at Fort Holt and Paducah, guarding St. Louis from an advance up the river; ten thousand at Cairo and in its vicinity ; five thousand five hundred in Northern Missouri under General
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
Pope; nine thousand six hundred at Jefferson City under Colonel Jeff. C. Davis, who was now Acting Brigadier- General; four thousand seven hundred at Rolla; three thousand at Ironton; two thousand two hundred on the frontier of Kansas under General Lane, and the remainder, less than seven thousand, in St. Louis. At that time it was the opinion in the city that Fremont had there twenty thousand men; and only this opinion kept the city from the Rebels.
The District of Jefferson City included Lexington, at which place was a part of Colonel Davis' force. Before nearly every one of these points Rebel troops were assem- bled in large numbers. Price's army, especially formidable in numbers, was swinging about with the evident intention of dealing a heavy blow somewhere.
After the battle of Springfield, Price and McCulloch, a Rebel General of the ficrcest stamp, who had united with Price just before the battle, disagreed and separated, with the loss to Price of more than half his army. But, in no wise discouraged, he recruited vigorously in the western part of the State, and soon had a force ten thousand strong- Fremont was aware of his movements in general, but trusted him to Davis, Lane and Pope, who could send parts of their respective commands to Lexington, or any other point, in the centre and west, threatened with attack.
In the middle of September, the demands for troops in nearly every portion of the Department were urgent. Gen- eral Robert Anderson, then commanding Kentucky, declared that Louisville would be lost unless reinforcements were sent to him immediately. General Grant, in command at Cairo, was cqually pressing. Colonel Mulligan, who had just gone to Lexington, with a Chicago Irish battalion, to reinforce the small body of troops there, represented his danger to be extreme and imminent. At the same time, General Scott, who seemed to repent his late generosity, gave peremptory orders to General Fremont to send five thousand well-armed infantry, without delay, to Washington.
General Fremont immediately started two regiments from Cairo to Washington, and prepared to send the three others
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SURRENDER OF LEXINGTON.
required. For this purpose, he sent down to Carondelet, and ordered the Twenty-Fourth Indiana regiment, one of the only two full regiments he had in St. Louis or its vicin- ity, to proceed to Washington; but the officers of the regi- ment came up to his office and urged him to allow them to remain in Missouri. He then changed the order, and directed Colonel Hovey to move to Jefferson City.
The same day, the fourteenth of September, in which General Fremont received so many demands for troops, he sent urgent dispatches to the Governors of Indiana and Ohio for help. Governor Morton replied: "We have received orders to send all available forces to Washington." The Governor of Ohio answered to the same effect.
Also, on the same day, Fremont telegraphed to Colonel Davis to send two regiments to Lexington, and to move promptly; to General Sturgis, from Pope's command, to go there him- self with his entire force; to General Lane to co-operate with Sturgis. Two days later, General Pope telegraphed to the Commanding General that two regiments of infantry, four pieces of artillery, and one hundred and fifty cavalry would arrive in Lexington by the day following, reinforcements amounting to five thousand.
While Fremont was endeavoring to comply with the various demands, Price was marching straight toward Lex- ington. As early as the eleventh of the month, he drew up before Mulligan's command of not quite three thousand soldiers, with barely forty rounds of ammunition and eight small guns. It was posted on a hill north-east of the town, and surrounded by substantial earth-works. Mulligan was confident of being able to hold the position until the arrival of reinforcements. He did not even haul the ferryboats, by which he might have escaped, out of the reach of the Rebels. His expectations were disappointed. Reinforcements did not come. The Rebels destroyed the boats. On the twen- tieth, having been several days surrounded, deprived of water, suffering from a limited allowance of rations, and from the stench of horses which had been killed within the entrenchments by Rebel cannon, the Union force in Lexing- ton surrendered.
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
On that day several bodies of reinforcements were almost within call. Colonel Davis sent from Jefferson City, on steamers, the Twenty-Sixth Indiana, with a portion of the Twenty-Second. At Booneville, Colonel Wheatley was joined by the Eighteenth, under Lieutenant-Colonel Wash- burn, and by the portion of the Twenty-Second which was there. In four steamers the force then proceeded up the river, and arrived on the night of the nineteenth near the town of Glasgow, where it was supposed the Rebels had planted a battery. The boats landed on the north side of the river at short distances from each other. The Twenty- Sixth first effected a landing. Colonel Wheatley immediately led it into a wood, which was near the shore, and stationed pickets. Shortly after, the regular tramp of soldiers marching was heard. The gleam of arms in the moonlight revealed troops moving along a road which ran between the woods and a corn-field. The sentinels gave the alarm and fired. The fire was returned. A spirited musketry engagement ensued, and lasted until the approaching party, which was no other than a reconnoitring force from the Twenty-Second and Eighteenth, under Major Tanner, turned and retreated slowly toward the river, carrying the leader, who was mortally wounded, and the lifeless bodies of several comrades. By this mistake the three regiments lost thirteen men.
The Twenty-Second and Eighteenth had been ordered by Colonel Davis to accompany the Twenty-Sixth to Glasgow, and return from that point. Accordingly, on the morning of the twentieth, Colonel Hendricks went back to Boone- ville, sending the wounded in the unfortunate engagement of the night before on to Jefferson City. Here, after cleven days of great suffering, Major Tanner died. His early death cut short a military career which the vivacity, dash and force of his character promised to render distinguished and honorable.
The Eighteenth, unwilling to leave the Twenty-Sixtlı to advance alone, went eight miles above Glasgow. But after a consultation with Colonel Wheatley, Lieutenant-Colonel Washburn, who was in command, decided that it was his duty to return. Capturing the steamer Sunshine. which had
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FAILURE OF REINFORCEMENTS.
just carried a Rebel force to General Price, he went back with it to Booneville.
Colonel Wheatley went on alone. At dark he reached Brunswick, where he learned that Mulligan had surrendered a few hours before. Accordingly, he too went down the river.
General Sturgis, from Pope's command, reached the north bank of the Missouri before the surrender, but learning that the ferry-boats had been destroyed, and that it was impossible for him to cross the river, he retired. Troops from Lane also arrived near the ground.
Still another force was too late. It consisted of farmers, laborers and mechanics from the high prairies of the north- west corner of the State, and numbered some two or three thousand. These volunteers trudged along without uniform or uniformity, without drums and fifes, without flags, without officers, but with a sturdy determination to free the cooped-up Irishman in Lexington from Price's "Border-Ruffians." To their subsequent bitter grief, they were turned back by the reports they everywhere met, of the immense strength of the Union force. With the return of these generous country- people, ended all possibility of relief or escape to the ill-fated Mulligan.
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
CHAPTER XV.
FREMONT'S PURSUIT OF PRICE.
"The noble Brutus Hath told you, Cæsar was ambitious. If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Cæsar answered it."
THE surrender of Mulligan was a severe and unexpected blow to General Fremont. He hastened to retrieve the loss. With everything which he could control progressing accord- ing to his wishes-all the railroads of the State running every mile of their length, and to their full capacity; his garrisons in good hands; reinforcements still coming in to the defense of his Department; the gunboats on the Mississippi rapidly approaching completion; the fortifications of St. Louis pro- gressing-he moved forward on the 27th of September to take the field. Two days later he went into camp in Jefferson City.
Before the arrival of General Fremont, Colonel Davis had begun to move his forces along the Pacific railroad towards the West. The Twenty-Fourth Indiana, scarcely allowed to stop in Jefferson City, was the first to pass over the road, which had been so long unused that it was overgrown with weeds. Forty-eight hours were spent on a railroad journey of one hundred and twenty-five miles, the men being forced to push the engine before them a great part of the way. They encamped near Syracuse, and remained there until required to guard a party of pioneers who were repairing the road, and rebuilding the La Mine bridge, burned by Price. After the bridge was built, the Twenty-Fourth went on to Georgetown, and the Twenty-Second, Eighth, Eighteenth, Twenty-Fifth and Twenty-Sixth and Frybarger's battery followed. During the next two or three weeks almost an army of Indiana sol-
175
PRAIRIE SCOUTS.
diers was encamped in and around Georgetown, Sedalia and Syracuse, small towns near the terminus of the road.
General Fremont hoped to find Price in the center of the State, which was the great slave-holding portion. But the wary Rebel retreated towards the southwest, leaving in Lex- ington only a small guard. Having few guns, little baggage and much cavalry, and living on the country, he moved rap- idly, and reached the Osage without obstruction. His in- fantry crossed in boats, and his cavalry swam their horses, and feeling secure for a time, he rested or moved leisurely, as suited his convenience. Yet he did not neglect to keep a sharp lookout for danger, as his force grew daily smaller from desertions, and from the expiration of terms of service, and his prospect of success, should he be forced to fight, lessened in proportion.
After gathering in the vicinity of Jefferson City, and con- solidating into one army all the troops north of the Missouri, General Fremont started in pursuit of Price, moving along the line of the railroad towards Tipton.
A band of Prairie Scouts, one hundred and fifty in num- ber, under Major White, who scoured the country in advance of the Union army, and in every direction, discovered that Price's rear-guard still held Lexington, and lost no time in moving towards the place. They were in no condition to make an attack. Their horses were all unshod, and their ammunition had been destroyed by rain. But they had the skill and readiness which redeem deficiencies. Blacksmiths from the ranks took two unoccupied shops, and with a few shoes and some old iron, shod two hundred and thirty-two horses and mules. With lead and powder, and with two little bullet-moulds, which they had with them, they went to a carpenter's shop and made two thousand cartridges. Thus prepared, they galloped towards the town. The rebel guard fled without striking a blow, and Major White and his men peacebly entered.
At Tipton General Fremont delayed several days to finish, as far as possible, the organization and equipment of his army, before venturing farther into the enemy's country. While he was there, General Cameron, Secretary of War,
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
and Adjutant General Thomas came to examine into the state of affairs, and to bring an order relieving him of his command. They were to present the order, or not, accord- ing to their own judgment.
They were but lately from heated Cabinet discussions of General Fremont's offending proclamation; and they had just witnessed a review of the grand Army of the Potomac, a magnificent body of men, thoroughly drilled, armed and equipped, encamped in an old and friendly country, with smooth, open, dry roads about them, bright, clear skies above them, abundant transportation, ready means for obtaining all necessary comforts, good hospitals, and excellent 'surgical department.
The Western Army was in sad and striking contrast. The weather was dark and dreary. Rain fell daily in torrents. The grass was beaten down, and the' melancholy, boundless prairie was a sea of black mud. In the direct route lay the broad, deep and unbridged Osage. Fremont's infantry, though generally well armed, was poorly provided with blankets. His cavalry was badly armed. Two or three regiments had no sabres. Several companies carried lances, in lack of some- thing less unwieldy. He had comparatively few wagons, no ambulances, and no surgical conveniences.
To the city gentlemen the prospect was deplorable; and they departed, to predict that the army never would move from Tipton, except as it moved backwards, and still farther to harass and perplex the commander, to whom, however, they had said nothing of the power they had in their hands to dismiss him from his position.
The day after the departure of General Cameron and Gon- eral Thomas, Fremont's army was on the move. It was ar- ranged in five divisions, under Generals Hunter, Pope, Sigel, Mckinstry and Asboth, and numbered about thirty thousand, including over five thousand cavalry, and eighty-six pieces of artillery, a large proportion of which were rifled.
Far in advance went Sigel's division, which took the short- est route. With ox-teams, with horses, oxen and mules hitched together, with army wagons and hay wagons, buggies, barouches, and carts, and with no food but fresh beef and
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MARCHING ON.
what else they could get from the country, General Sigel car- ried his men forward. Fremont, on a black horse, with his body-guard, three hundred beautiful youth, all of nearly the same hight, dressed in unadorned, dark blue uniforms, and mounted on fine bay horses, rode at the head of the main army. Sharp-shooters protected the train. All things seemed auspicious. The sky, so lately wet and lowering, was blue and bright. The autumn sun lighted up the crimson and gold of the forests, and the shadows of chasing clouds skimmed fleetly over the long grass of the prairie. The army-cav- alry, infantry, artillery, wagon trains-stretched along as far as the eye could reach, and, under smiling heavens, made a beautiful and wonderful picture.
The troops were full of hope. On the prairie farms the finest cattle were raised, and could easily be secured. All along the route the forage was in the right state. Corn was getting ripe and hard. Mills were not scarce, and grain could easily be ground. The Sanitary Committee in St. Louis was laboring assiduously for the improvement of the surgical department. Sabres and guns were expected every day. The General had the soldiers drink strong coffee every morning at daylight to warm them up and keep off the ague. What the men lacked to strengthen or to comfort them they expected to receive, or were willing to do without. They were ready to make every sacrifice for success. They felt nothing a sacrifice.
The daily march began at three or four o'clock, but " We never saw the time," wrote a young soldier of the Twenty- Fifth, "when we were too tired, or when our throats were too dusty, to cheer 'Hail Columbia,' or ' Yankee Doodle.'"*
" General Fremont inspired the utmost confidence. His soldiers loved him, and his officers would have died for him. Everything was impressed with activity, and everything moved with a system which bespoke the master-mind controlling all. There was no hurry, but diligence-no rush, but method."+
The Indiana Eighth, Eighteenth and Twenty-Second were
* Ross Jones from Medora.
+ Letter of Colonel Hudson in Indianapolis Journal.
1
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
brigaded together, under Colonel Davis, and were in General Pope's division. The Twenty-Fourth, Twenty-Fifth and Twenty-Sixth were in General Hunter's division. The bat- teries, like the regiments, were separated.
Lane and Sturgis were to come from Kansas, and Wyman from Rolla, and join Fremont on or south of the Osage. The commanders at Paducah, Cairo, Bird's Point, Cape Girardeau and Ironton were directed to engage the hostile forces in their front, as soon as Price should be caught, and to pursue them if they should retreat.
General Fremont was expected, after defeating Price, to go to Bird's Point or to Little Rock, Arkansas, as circumstances at the time should seem to direct. If he should go to Little Rock, the position of the enemy on the Mississippi would be completely turned. He would be forced to retreat or to sur- render, and the gunboats, now in preparation, could descend the river to assist in the attack on Memphis, and afterwards in the attack on New Orleans. The present expedition was thus a part of a combined and extended movement.
General Price stopped at Osceola, as if to await the Union army. He paused again at Stockton, a little town, which was originally called Fremont by some Missouri admirers of the Pathfinder's early career. At Neosho he united with Gen- eral McCulloch, who was there with five thousand Arkansas Rebels. Governor Jackson was also there, with forty-five members of the Legislature. These, assuming the authority of a perfect Legislature, ostentatiously passed an Ordinance of Secession, and took Missouri, by an affectation of legal forms, out of the Union and into the Confederacy. From Neosho General Price went to Pineville, in the extreme south- west corner of the State, and, fearing that the Missourians, who had enlisted with the provision that they were not to fight out of their own State, would consider themselves re- leased from the service if he crossed the line into Arkansas, he determined here to await a battle.
The main body of the Union army was greatly delayed by lack of transportation, and was not able to reach the banks of the Osage until the 17th of October. General Sigel was there, with nearly half his men already transported by means
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CAMERON AND THOMAS FALSE PROPHETS.
of boats to the south side. General Fremont had been as- sured by professed Union men, all along the latter part of the route, of the impracticability of bridging the Osage; but he was convinced by an examination of ten minutes that there was no insuperable difficulty. Quartering on the enemy in that stage of the war, when everywhere there was an extreme anxiety lest somebody, or somebody's feelings, should be hurt, was a very bold thing, nevertheless General Fremont quar- tered his officers in the adjacent town of Warsaw, which was a nest of traitors.
The banks of the Osage are bare, rocky cliffs rising per- pendicularly a hundred feet from the water's edge. The river is broad and swift, and liable to be changed, by a night's rain, into a torrent. The skill of the most efficient engineers, and the labor of the most willing workmen would soon have con- quered the obstacle, aided by tools. But these fingers of civ- ilization were not at once forthcoming. One of General Fremont's aids in a private letter, which was published a year or two later, says: " Armed with the Provost Marshal's pass I had to go into every store, question and cross-question the Secesh owners, who 'didn't care to sell, and didn't know what they'd got,' root and ransack in every corner, trip and stumble through every cellar, over barrels and kegs, until, finally, for my pains, I scraped together a few augurs, one or two sledges, and a half dozen chisels. To get spikes I went to a large forge with four fires, where about fifty horses were waiting, and being shod; and to the infinite disgust of the various regiments whose horses were there, to the surprise of all the smiths, and with some explanation to their independent Western minds that the General's orders must pass over all others, I seized the fires and set the mnen all at hammering out my spikes. The iron I had to find, like the tools, in warehouse, cellar, barn or store."
Ropes, teams and drivers were also impressed when refused by their secession owners.
On the north side of the river empty log houses and stables were pulled down to furnish timber. On the south side the busy ax took from a convenient forest its tribute. On bothı sides hundreds of workmen screamed and bawled at their
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
oxen and mules, chopped and hauled and sawed. The steady creaking, rattling, sawing and vociferation were now and then drowned by long and loud shouts of triumph as a trestle was successfully laid. Labor extended far into every night, until, on the fifth day, the bridge was finished.
General Sigel's division was already over. General As- both's, which came next, was scarcely delayed. General Pope arrived just as Asboth's division crossed, and represented that Mckinstry and Hunter were yet waiting at Tipton for wagons. The commissary stores were also still at Tipton, for want of transportation. General Fremont sent back a long train of wagons with camp-beds and all superfluous baggage.
On leaving the Osage, the whole army was reduced to beef and salt for food, and to straw, or leaves, or corn-stalks, or stones for beds, but it continued its march with fresh vigor, convinced that the Rebel army would soon be out of the State with or without a battle, and that the work of estab- lishing Union and peace in Missouri was on the point of being accomplished.
The General kept his headquarters with the extreme ad- vance, riding almost without attendance, and in his manner showing an enjoyment and an eagerness to which he had hitherto been a stranger.
A day or two after the crossing, at the earnest entreaty of Major Zagonyi, who says, he remarked to the General with respect, that if he could not succeed in getting an order he would run away in the night, General Fremont sent one hun- dred and fifty of the Guards forward to unite with one hun- dred and eighty Prairie Scouts, the boldest of the bold, who were already reconnoitring in the advance, and to drive from Springfield, forty-eight miles distant, three or four hundred Rebels who were reported to be there.
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