USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. I > Part 16
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The road was smooth, the sky was clear, and Major Zago- nyi's three hundred and thirty men trotted along briskly and merrily. But Zagonyi found, as they approached Springfield, that he had been misinformed, the Rebel troops were at least two thousand, a large number having arrived the day before on their way to reinforce Price. General Fremont had directed him not to be rash. General Sigel had sent a note after him
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"FREMONT AND THE UNION!"
with advice to the same effect, and urging him to make no attack until the main army was near, but promising at the same time to send forward his own cavalry, which consisted of but one or two saberless companies. Accordingly Za- gonyi reported the number of the enemy to the guards, stated the danger, and gave permission to any who chose to turn back.
Seven days, with no food but saltless meat, they had been scouring the country for the foe. In the last seventeen hours they had ridden fifty miles. Here was the foe before them. Since the day they enlisted, now six weeks, they had been taunted, and jeered, and scoffed by newspaper writers in every part of the country as ornamental soldiers, holiday sol- diers, fit for show, unfit for fight. The hour for self-assertion, for vindication had come. "Every eye," says Zagonyi, "was a fist big." Faces were pale, and teeth were set, and hearts beat high ; but no one among those proud youth turned his horse's head.
It was their first battle, and their leader gave a few direc- tions. " Use only right cut and thrust. Never defend your- selves. Better make your enemy defend himself, and you go in. Take for your battle-cry 'Fremont and the Union!'- CHARGE!"
Charge they did, with clatter and clang and shout, sparks flying from the flinty road, a fence laid low by swift hands under a deadly fire, with comrades reeling and horses falling.
Like the roar of a tempest was the rebel fire, but it went over their heads. Up the hill, on whose crest a thousand foot, on whose sides a thousand foot and five hundred horse were posted, up the hill they sped. They broke through the first line of horse and foot. The boldest Rebel Captains could not form that line again. They broke through the second line, and drove the enemy back into Springfield.
Not two hours after the first onset, a fierce, running fight filled the streets of the town. Women stood in their garden gates and waved little Union flags, which they had long kept hidden. Street by street, house by house, the fight went on. The Guards lost their caps; they tore their clothes ; their
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
horses were shot under them, but they utterly routed the Rebels.
The Prairie Scouts, by some strange mistake, were sepa- rated from Zagonyi just before the charge. They tried to follow, and many were wounded in the effort; but they knew not in which way to move, or where to strike. Zagonyi's men, therefore made the charge alone.
The next day in the hospital fourteen of the Guards, still clothed in their dark blue, lay side by side in narrow, rough, plank coffins. One of the dead was John Morrison, an In- dianian. While Fremont stood looking at their young faces, another was brought in who had been taken prisoner, and had apparently been beaten to death with muskets.
They were buried with military honors. A procession of Union women, grateful and weeping, walked beside the train to the grave. One of these mourners moved on crutches. She had been wounded by guerrillas, who, at the same time, had killed her husband and her son.
The loss of the Guards was fifty-two killed, wounded and missing. More than half the horses were killed, and nearly all were wounded.
The day after Zagonyi's charge General Sigel entered Springfield. He was received with mingled smiles and tears by men, women and children, who rushed down to the road- sides. Once before a Union army had been here, and twice Confederate armies had occupied the place. After the defeat of General Lyon hundreds of citizens were obliged to fly towards the North and East, or to seek hiding places among the hills and the prairies around. But there were still enough brave men in the town to hoist the American flag on the court house two or three days before' Zagonyi's dashing en- trance, though they had to fly for their lives on the night in which they accomplished the deed.
ยท Daily mails were re-established, and Springfield was at once put in connection with St. Louis. General Fremont made an agreement with General Price by which hostilities were to be confined to regular armies in the field, and guerrilla parties were to be suppressed.
After a little rest General Sigel pressed on. The other
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A NEW COMMANDER.
divisions came up rapidly. General Asboth came in on the 30th. General Jim Lane, with his Kansas brigade, the 31st. About two hundred mounted and armed contrabands accom- panied Lane. Their appearance was approved by Fremont's army, which, even before the obnoxious proclamation, ex- pressed without reserve the belief that slavery once abolished, secession would be killed. Negroes thronged the camp, and General Fremont never allowed one to be returned. One day a slave appeared riding bare-backed a horse which he guided by a rope about the nose. He had traveled in this way eighty miles in eighteen hours.
General Pope's division began to come in the night of No- vember 1st, having marched seventy miles in two days. Gen- eral McKinstry arrived the next day.
The condition of the army in point of comfort was not sat- isfactory. General Fremont had repeatedly entreated the authorities for transportation; but he never received means to get even blankets enough for his men. The nights werc now frosty and chill. Yet such inspiration was drawn from the massing of the forces, from the nearness of the enemy, from the fact that the army was further South than any army in the Union, from the wonderful spirit and success of Zago- nyi's charge, which was read as the harbinger of glorious victory, and from the belief that all was ready for the grand, finishing blow to Missouri secession, that the men were strong and well, eager, animated and full of hope.
Just then, November 2d, an order came from General Scott removing General Fremont from his command, and putting in his place General Hunter, who had not yet reached Spring- field. A council was immediately held, and, as it was offi- cially reported, by the Colonel at the head of the scouts that the whole Rebel army was within eleven miles, it was deter- mined to march out the next morning and fight .* But Gen- eral Hunter came up that night. His command had marched two days and nights without rest, and at daylight had waded an ice-cold stream, nearly waist deep. Utterly worn out it halted a few miles above Springfield, while the General hastened into the town.
* The report was incorrect. It was, however, believed at the time.
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
The next morning before daylight, that his appearance might not excite the indignation of the troops, General Fre- mont in silent anguish turned his back on the ardently sought goal, the battle and the victory, which he believed just before him. With his body-guard, and all of his staff except Colonel Lovejoy, Colonel Shanks and Colonel Hudson, he moved rapidly towards St. Louis.
Major Zagonyi says: "Our band played its gayest music as we followed our leader past the outside pickets round Springfield, but to me it was like a funeral dirge. And it was a funeral-there were buried the fruits of three months' labor of the General-the aspirations of thousands of ambi- tious men who followed his standard, and gone, too, the hopes of patriots that the war in Missouiri was ended."
" We met Fremont," wrote a young privave in the Twenty- Fifth, "before we entered Springfield, and presented arms. He has gray hair, a keen dark eye, and a bold, daring look, like a true General. He rode by waving his cap. It was enough to make the hair stand on any true soldier's head to see him leave the field in the midst of his work, just as he was going to leap on the enemy, and for nothing but to an- swer charges which might be from some mean, plotting man."
A sharper trial Fremont had yet to endure in his reception at St. Louis. While stung to the quick by the public affront that had been put upon him, and wounded almost to the death by the disappointment he had borne, he was softened to weakness by the weeping sympathy and homage of a vast multitude. He turned upon his flower-carpeted threshold to speak his thanks. His words were few, broken and bitter. Now, if never before, that noble heart failed. He uttered a doubt of his country, a distrust of Republican institutions.
One more thrust was given to the unhappy Western Com- mander before he was left to the inaction he abhorred. His beloved Guards were treated with singular indignity. Forage, rations, pay and clothing were denied them, and at last, by order of General McClellan, they were dismissed the service. All this because, when they heard the order for General Fre- mont's removal, some high-spirited and hot-headed young men had thoughtlessly expressed their indignation.
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SPRINGFIELD ABANDONED.
At a later day President Lincoln interfered, and directed that full payment should be made.
General Hunter, after Fremont's departure, re-called Gen- eral Sigel, who was forty miles in advance, and without waiting for him, abandoned loyal Springfield, and left the frightened and broken army of Price to recruit and return.
The troops, so wrote soldiers in the different Indiana regi- ments, were "sulky and crest-fallen to turn round and come back without whipping the old Serpent they had been so long chasing."
But stern, old General Hunter made them march. They were just half the time in returning to the line of the railroad that they had occupied in advancing from it to Springfield, notwithstanding that they were incumbered on their return by a long train of emigrants -- weeping women and children and wretched men, whose homes were no longer safe.
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE FIRST CAVALRY.
WHILE General Fremont was in pursuit of General Price, several little skirmishes occurred in the southeastern part of Missouri, and one quite important affair. At two in the afternoon of the 20th of October, an infantry force and Col- onel Baker's cavalry started from Pilot Knob to make a night attack on Fredericktown, where General Jeff. Thompson was with a large Rebel force. As usual with night marches, much more time was consumed than had been anticipated. It was eight before the Federal troops arrived, and then the town was deserted. About eleven another force, sent by General Grant from Cape Girardeau, to cut off General Thompson, came up.
Eight colonels were now on the field, with about five thou- sand men. Some dispute as to precedence rose, and it was only settled by a compromise between Colonel Carlin and Colonel Plummer, who had the best claims. Colonel Carlin was to remain with one half in the town, and Colonel Plum- mer was to engage in the pursuit with the other half of the troops.
The pursuers found one division of the enemy a mile from the town, and put it to rout, after killing the commander, Colonel Lowe. By the gleam of bayonets Captain Stewart, one of Colonel Baker's officers, discovered another body of troops, which was under General Thompson, and was far along the road. Colonel Plummer ordered Colonel Baker to send forward a battalion to charge upon them.
No sooner was the order understood than the two cavalry Majors, Gavitt and Wood, fell into a warm altercation for the honor of leading the charge. Colonel Baker inteprosed
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REBELS BEATEN AT FREDERICKTOWN.
in favor of Major Gavitt, who at once dashed forward. But as soon as the battalion was gone, Colonel Baker felt con- vinced that the movement was premature, and hastened to follow. He was just in time to see his men fall into an am- buscade, the Rebels having hid themselves behind a fence on one side of the road, and behind trees on the other. Major Gavitt and Captain Highman were shot at the moment Colonel Baker gave his order to fall back. General Thomp- son immediately resumed his retreat. It soon became a rout, and his men were driven in wild confusion twenty miles, when they were scattered in every direction.
The Indiana cavalry suffered no loss except in the two offi- cers, who fell at the first fire. Falling in the foremost ranks of our country's defenders, their names are honored by their death.
Although there was a respectable number of infantry at Pilot Knob, Colonel Baker's was the only cavalry there. From September until February his men scoured a district extend- ing eighty miles in every direction. They were constantly on the alert, unresting, but also unwearied and uncomplaining. The commanding officer forbade the sale or giving away of liquor to soldiers anywhere within five miles of headquarters, consequently his men were always sober and reliable.
The antipathies and attachments of regiments are said to be unaccountable. Between two which march days together, or which lie side by side for weeks, there may exist a feeling of indifference, but there is more likely to be a cordial hate or a hearty love. A simple explanation may be traced to the character and deportment of officers. While at Pilot Knob a warm attachment sprang up between the Twenty-First Illi- nois infantry and the First Indiana cavalry, and it continued during the war. The commanding officers, the genial Colonel Baker and the gentle, generous Colonel Alexander, loved each other no less.
The regimental affection, on one occasion, displayed itself in such a way as to cause the Indiana colonel not a little em- barrassment. In the latter part of the winter the cavalry was sent from Pilot Knob to Reeve's Station, where, after a long
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
separation, it was joined by Alexander's infantry. The latter had a splendid band, and to show their pleasure in a reunion they serenaded their old friends.
Colonel Baker's quartermaster, in the excess of his delight and gratitude, exclaimed, " Let's give them a salute!"
"O, no," said the Colonel, "we might alarm the troops on the other side of the river."
His no, however, was so good humored, that it had no force, and the quartermaster forthwith fired a rousing salute with the three little cannon in possession of the regiment.
As the sound died away Colonel Baker's anxious ears heard the long roll beat on the other side of the river. Colonel Carlin, as he had feared, was calling his men to arms. In less than a half hour one of Carlin's aids entered with a de- mand for the arrest of the officer who had ordered the salute.
"I am responsible," said Colonel Baker, delivering his sabre with no little chagrin. The aid received it with polite surprise. He had not expected to find so respectable an offender. After the lapse of an hour or two he returned with the sabre, and Colonel Baker was released from his first and last arrest.
Late in the winter the men folded their tents and went into quarters. The Colonel took possession of a double log cabin, which a vender of pies had lately vacated. One night as he lay in his bunk reading, his candle on a camp-stool beside him, he was disturbed by a knock at the door. He opened the door, and a soldier standing there, asked him with a drunken air, if he kept pies for sale. An answer in the negative seemed to offend the man, and he said, roughly: "Stranger, you oughtn't to keep your light burning way in the night, making folks believe you have pies, when you haven't. The old woman that used to sell pies here never took a hungry feller in that bad! You mind your business, stranger, and another time either blow out your candle or have some pies."
Muttering angrily he turned away, but readily gave his name as William N. Jackson when the Colonel asked it, with his regiment and company.
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THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR.
As the reputation of being a pieman was not desirable to an officer who liked retirement, Colonel Baker searched the muster-roll of the company designated, but he was not able to find his visitor's name.
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
CHAPTER XVII.
WINTER.
"The good soldier is he who nobly discharges his duty, and his musket, regardless of kicks."
After a fatiguing and uninterrupted march of an entire week, General Hunter reached the Pacific railroad. With General Pope, he there awaited the orders of General Halleck, lately arrived at St. Louis to take command of the Western Department. Generals Sturgis and Wyman, Sigel and As- both went on to St. Louis. Lane returned to Fort Scott in Kansas.
The Twenty-Fourth Indiana went into an encampment near Tipton. The Eighth and Eighteenth encamped in Ot- terville, but moved shortly to Syracuse. The Twenty-Fifth encamped near Otterville. The Twenty-Sixth near Sedalia.
None of these were permanent stations, and the regiments were almost constantly changing their quarters. Late in December the Twenty-Sixth had not been two weeks in one place since it left Indianapolis. A force, however, always remained in charge of La Mine bridge. The Twenty-Second for several weeks did little but march from Syracuse to Otter- ville, and from Otterville back to Syracuse. The road ac- quired the name of "the old beat."
" Very ingenious devices were resorted to for warmth and comfort in the canvass dwellings. Some excavated the entire space within their tents, about eighteen inches deep, then dug a sort of furnace on one side, communicating with a sod, mud or stick chimney on the outside, which, when properly constructed, worked admirably. Others contented themselves with simply sinking a fire-place and flue at the side of the tent with a similar outside arrangement."*
*A. M. Sandford.
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SUFFERING.
After the laborious march from Springfield there was much sickness among the men. Beside the illness incident to ex- posure and fatigue, the measles came back, and attacked with virulence all who had escaped in St. Louis. During the latter part of the returning march every regiment was followed by a long train of wagons, loaded with sick. The Eighth regi- ment alone hauled in its rear one hundred and forty who were afflicted with measles. At that early period of the war little was known to the soldier of the means necessary to preserve health in camp; the facilities of the medical depart- ment were still few; and many who had been used to the comforts of happy homes yielded up their lives for their coun- try in Missouri hospitals before they had trodden a single battle-field.
Often then in the cold tent, or the rough hospital, as often afterwards on the hungry march, the soldier recalled the grasp of friendly hands, the kind faces and the pleasant gifts of the country visitors in "old Camp Knox" or Camp Jefferson. The remembrance of the great amount of sickness in the fall and winter of 'Sixty-one in the encampments along the Pacific railroad, still saddens the veteran soldier long used to privation and suffering.
After the withdrawal of the army to the line of the rail- road, guerrillas again infested almost every part of the State of Missouri, or " Misery," as our soldiers liked to call it. Again Union men were hunted like wild beasts. Jeff. Thompson again advanced up the western bank of the Mississippi. Price returned to Springfield. McCulloch moved up out of Arkansas. Incendiaries burned Warsaw to prevent its being occupied by Union troops.
The first man of the Eighteenth who lost his life by the enemy was private James Fox. He had been left sick in the hospital at Syracuse, and having recovered enough to walk about, was shot through the head by a guerrilla while gath- ering nuts near the hospital.
General Pope, who was assigned to the command of all the forces in Central Missouri, received intelligence from his scouts, about the first of December, that Price was moving from Springfield towards Osceola, and that recruits and sup-
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
plies were moving down from the northern part of the State towards General Price.
He made arrangements to intercept and capture recruits and supplies.
About nine o'clock on the night of Sunday, the 15th of December, Colonel Davis, with the Eighth, Eighteenth and Twenty-Second Indiana, and Frybarger's Indiana battery, and with a small force of Iowa and Missouri cavalry, left Otterville. Reaching Sedalia the next morning, he was joined by an equal number of troops, among which were the Twenty- Fourth and Twenty-Fifth Indiana, under Colonel Steele. The whole force was about four thousand, General Pope com- manding in person.
The object of the movement was to get between Price's army, on the Osage, and the recruits, escorts and supplies on their way south from the Missouri river. The troops encamped the first evening fifteen miles west of Sedalia, in the woods, and slept without other covering than what they carried on their shoulders and saddles; but with hundreds of camp fires gleaming bright and warm through the frosty night. To de- ceive the enemy (nearly all the citizens of the region belonged to the enemy,) as to the destination of the expedition, it was given out that Warsaw was the point aimed at, and the force pursued the road towards that place several miles beyond Sedalia.
On the 17th the troops were called at three in the morning, and marched seventeen miles before noon. While Davis' men were resting, and eating their dinner of crackers and cold meat, they were called to "attention,', and informed by their commander, in a short address, that the Rebels were in large force thirteen miles in advance, and were endeavoring to escape; that to intercept them would require a hard and hurricd march added to the already tiresome tramp of the morning, and would insure a fight, but that a fight would give certain victory. A long and loud shout was the soldiers' reply, and officers and men, who, a moment before, could scarcely drag one tired foot after the other, started off with fresh strength. After nine more miles it was discovered that report had deceived them. They encamped in an old field
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STRATEGEM OF COLONEL HOVEY.
on the prairie, and slept on their arms, burning thousands of rails to keep themselves comfortable. The position was be- tween the direct road from Warrensburg and Clinton, and the road by Chilhouwee, the latter being the route usually taken by returning soldiers and recruits.
Shortly after sunset the advance captured the enemy's pickets at Chilhouwee, and learned that he was encamped in force (about two thousand two hundred) six miles north of that town. After resting a few hours, General Pope threw forward ten companies of cavalry and a section of artillery in pursuit, and followed with his whole force, posting the main body between Warrensburg and Rose Hill, to support the pursuing column. The cavalry continued the pursuit all night and part of the next day.
The enemy began to scatter as the pursuit grew close, disappearing in bushes and by-paths, driving the wagons into farm-yards off the road, and throwing out the supplies. When the pursuing force reached Johnstown, the enemy, re- duced to about five hundred, scattered completely.
Sixteen wagons, loaded with tents and supplies, and one hundred and fifty prisoners were captured.
On the morning of the 18th three hundred men, detached equally from the Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth Indiana and the Fifteenth Illinois, were snugly stowed away in about forty wagons, and ordered to keep as still as possible. The covers of these wagons were drawn down. Colonel Hovey and Lieutenant Colonel Gerber, mounted on mules, took the place of wagon-masters, and the train set forth on a foraging expedition.
After a few miles the attractive line of wagons, as had been expected, caught the attention of a small force of Rebels, but when, as the latter approached, armed men came swarming out to meet them, they turned and fled through bush and brush. Nearly all effected their escape. The Colonel, how- ever, succeeded in burning a large mill, used by them, and belonging to a noted Secessionist, and in getting several hun- dred bushels of meal.
The cavalry rejoined the main body, and General Pope continued to move slowly towards Warrensburg. Scouts
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
reported that a large force coming from Waverly and Arrow Rock would encamp that night at the mouth of Clear creek.
General Pope immediately divided his cavalry into two bodies, sending it out to flank the enemy right and left, and placed his main force so that it must intercept the direct march south.
Colonel Davis, with a portion of the cavalry, came upon the enemy late in the day, on the west side of the Black- water, opposite the mouth of Clear creek. The Blackwater is a deep, miry stream, and is spanned by a long, narrow bridge. The bridge was carried by assault, and the Rebels surrendered.
General Pope, gathering up his scouting parties, with pris- oners and supplies, the well-earned reward of the expedition, returned to camp, which he reached on Sunday, just a week after he left.
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