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despotic ruler, the measure of whose power will be the hatred he bears his subjects. Will the thirty thousand freemen, capable of bearing arms, yet in Arkansas, look listlessly on, while chains are being riveted upon their limbs by a few thousand Hessians from the North-hirelings, mercenary cowards as they are, seeking to enslave us, that they may grow rich upon our substance, and divide us and our children as conquered subjects! This cannot, will not be. I call upon every man capable of bearing arms to prepare at once to meet the enemy."

But not only the movement of the National army, to save the Union from dismemberment, roused the ire of the rebel governor; but, if possible, his wrath was still more aroused by what he considered the apathy of the rebel Government, in neglecting to send a sufficient army to maintain in the State the rebel cause.

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If the arteries of the Confederate heart," said he with eloquence characteristic of that latitude, "do not permeate beyond the east bank of the Mississippi, let Southern Missourians, Arkansians, Texans, and the great West know it, and prepare for the future. Arkansas lost, abandoned, subjugated, is not Arkansas as she entered the Confederate Government. Nor will she remain Arkansas, a Confederate State, desolated as a wilderness. Her children, fleeing from the wrath to come, will build them a new ark, and launch it on new waters, seeking a haven somewhere, of equality, safety, and rest. Be of good cheer, my countrymen. There is still a balm in Gilead. The good Samaritan will be found."

Then descending from a flight so lofty, in the most moderate of prosaic terms he said, "It is, by the Military Board of the State of Arkansas, deemed essential for the public safety that four thousand five hundred men be called as volunteers from the militia of the State, to serve for twelve months in the State service, unless sooner discharged."

This urgent appeal met with very little response from the people of the State. The ringleaders of the rebellion, wealthy slaveholders, looked with even more contempt upon the "poor whites" than upon the negroes. The poor whites were only a nuisance. The negroes could be made serviceable. But ignorant as the "poor whites" were, deprived by the institution of slavery of all the means of education and advancement, they had, throughout the whole conflict, faint glimmerings of the truth that they had been cheated into fighting, merely to rivet the chains of their own degradation. General Curtis was annoyed, in his march, by the burning of bridges and by the mosquito buzzings and stingings of guerrillas. His scouting and foraging parties were engaged in incessant skirmishes with small bands of the rebels. But the advance of the army was not opposed by any considerable armed force. The National troops crossed the White River, and, entering Searcy, were within fifty miles of Little Rock. The capital was just within his grasp, and thus the object of his movement was almost consummated, when he was diverted, of necessity, from his purpose, by other and more important movements in Tennessee.

CHAPTER XX.

THE REDEMPTION OF MISSOURI.

(June 1, 1862, to September 1, 1863.)

LONG AND PERILOUS MARCH OF GENERAL CURTIS.-REBEL FORT ON WHITE RIVER.-DISASTER TO THE MOUND CITY.-REBEL BARBARITY.-REBEL ATTEMPT TO RECOVER MISSOURI.-BATTLES OF MAYSVILLE AND CROSS HOLLOWS.-BATTLE OF CANE HILL.-HEROIC DECISION of GenERAL HERRON.-MURDEROUS RAID OF QUANTREL

In April, 1862, the battle of Pittsburg Landing, which we have already described, had been fought. The siege of Corinth had commenced. General Halleck decided to concentrate all his forces at that point. General Pope received an order to hasten with his army from the banks of the Mississippi, to aid in the great campaign now in progress in the heart of Tennessee. Under the same pressure, General Curtis received a dispatch directing him to send ten regiments by a forced march to Cape Girardeau, and thence to Corinth. Without hesitation he obeyed the order, necessarily so disastrous to his own plans. It left him with a force too small to march upon Little Rock, and that enterprise had to be abandoned. Bitterly disappointed in relinquishing the prize just within his grasp, he fell back to Batesville.

The feeble band of patriot troops, thus weakened, found itself not only in an enemy's country, but also in the midst of a wide and almost pathless wilderness. The army, already exhausted by long marches, and shorn of its strength by the loss of ten regiments, was many a weary league from its base of supplies at Springfield. It was exceedingly difficult to maintain this long line of communication. General Curtis,

therefore, soon decided to abandon his position at Batesville, and to move his army across the State to Helena, on the Mississippi. He could thus make that river his line of communication with the North.

Memphis, to which we shall more particularly refer in the next chapter, was at this time in the possession of the Union troops. Between that important city and Helena no rebel stronghold intervened. The flotilla of gunboats could easily keep the river open, and thus easy communication with the North could be maintained. The proposed march, however, was an undertaking full of peril; it was to be conducted through an unknown country, infested with guerrillas; it was necessary for the army to carry most of its provisions with it, as but little dependence could be placed upon opportunities for forage; and yet they had no adequate means for transporting their supplies. Indeed, before the arrangements for the movement were completed, the army suffered not a little from inability to obtain a sufficient supply of food.

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Though these difficulties and dangers were thoroughly comprehended, they did not deter General Curtis from embarking in his bold enterprise. He abandoned his communications with Springfield, called in his guards, concentrated his little force, and commenced his journey. The wearisome experiences which ensued cannot be well described. Such marches as that from Forsyth to Searcy, and from Batesville to Helena, test courage not much less, and patience and endurance even more, than the field of battle. Indeed, the soldier prefers the exciting perils of the conflict, to the hardships, toils, and unintermitted dangers of such a march. And still these unattractive campaigns, oppressed with hunger, prostrate with weariness, and exposed to the bullet of an unseen foe, present few events to be perpetuated on the page of history; no halo of military glory surrounds the scene, and those who perish by the way, and they are many, victims of exposure, fatigue, and disease, are buried in the wilderness, their graves unknown, and their names unwritten. May God reward these forgotten heroes, who have thus patiently suffered and died for their country, uninspired by the excitement of battle!

The long journey was commenced about the first of June. Its montoony was broken by frequent skirmishings, and by one rather serious engagement. There was, however, no pitched battle of any considerable magnitude. While General Curtis was pushing his way slowly through the country to the Mississippi, an expedition was sent out from Memphis to his assistance. On the 5th day of June Memphis had been surrendered to the National flotilla. In less than a week from that time a fleet, consisting of four gunboats, with transports containing a regiment of infantry, under Colonel Fitch, left the city, and sailed down the Mississippi to the mouth of the White River, for the purpose of ascending that stream and meeting the army of General Curtis, who was marching down its bank.

About eighty miles above the mouth of the river the rebels had erected an extensive fort, which was not, however, completed. Opposite this fort obstructions had been sunk in the channel. The works were somewhat formidable in front, but had, as yet, no defence in the rear. Colonel Fitch landed his force at a point two or three miles down the river, below the fort. The gunboats, led by the Mound City, and followed by the St. Louis and the Conestoga, moved up to attack the enemy in front. They opened a very vigorous fire, which was replied to with spirit from the fort. But the fire from the boats was so accurate that they soon silenced several of the enemy's guns, when a forty-two-pound shot struck the Mound City and pierced its steam-drum. In an instant the vessel was full of the scalding steam. It enveloped the whole boat as in a fiery cloud, and burst in billows out of the port-holes. The shrieks of the suffering victims were heart-rending. Many were scalded to death. Many succeeded in leaping into the river. Small boats immediately pushed out from the rest of the fleet for the rescue of the sufferers. In that terrible hour all the gunboats ceased fighting, their energies and sympathies being entirely engrossed by the awful sufferings before them.

But the rebels had no mercy. With barbarity which would almost

have disgraced the savages whom they had called to their alliance, they depressed their guns, and deliberately and repeatedly fired with grape and canister upon the sufferers struggling in agony in the water, and upon the boats humanely hastening to their aid. This statement, so disgraceful to men assuming to be civilized, is not made without the most ample evidence. It is alike corroborated by the official and unofficial testimony of eye-witnesses. It has never been denied. Prisoners who were taken declared that they were ordered by the commander of the fort, Colonel Fry, to fire upon these scalded men, drowning in the river. Indelible infamy will surely be the doom of that man who has no instinct to enable him to discriminate between courageous battle and cold-blooded murder.

By this terrible disaster one hundred and twenty out of a crew, officers and men, of one hundred and seventy-five, were killed or mortally wounded. The gunboats were withdrawn from the conflict. Meanwhile, Colonel Fitch had reached, by a somewhat circuitous route, the rear of the enemy's works. Gallantly the men rushed to the charge. Resistlessly they swept over the ramparts. The struggle was short, desperate, decisive. The flag of rebellion and disunion was trampled indignantly in the dust, and the National banner again waved proudly over those distant waters. Nearly all the garrison of the fort, with its commander, were taken prisoners. In justice to the commander, it should be stated that he denied having given orders to his soldiers to fire upon the men who were scalded and drowning in the river. None denied that they were fired upon. The only question was, whence the order came.

For some reason, unexplained, but probably inevitable, General Curtis was left to march all the long distance from Batesville to Helena unassisted by any reënforcements or supplies. The most bold and energetic foraging was necessary for the subsistence of his army. Early in July he reached Helena. Here the distinctive history of this campaign terminates. Though expeditions into the surrounding country were several times undertaken, yet henceforth this army became merged, with other armies, in varied and remote enterprises. The battle of Pea Ridge really decided the fate of Missouri and Arkansas. Still, one or two attempts were made by the rebels to recover their lost ground, only one of which, however, was of a serious character. The first of these attempts was made in the fall of 1862. The southern frontier was guarded chiefly by regiments of Kansas troops, under Brigadier-General James D. Blunt, and of Mississippi and Iowa troops, under Brigadier-General F. J. Herron. The rebel forces were distributed throughout various parts of Arkansas, under Generals Hindman, Roan, Rains, and Marmaduke. In October an attempt was made by these forces, united, to reënter the State of Missouri.

The rebels advanced in separate parties of considerable force. Seven thousand of them, under General Cooper, encamped near Maysville. Four thousand, chiefly Texans, were under Marmaduke at Cross Hollows. A nearly simultaneous attack was made upon both of these parties. On the 20th of October, General Blunt broke camp at Pea Ridge and moved upon Maysville. After a difficult march through the night, he reached the neighborhood of the enemy early in the morning, attacked him with a

single regiment, the rest of his command having been halted, by mistake, several miles back, fought them under great peril until the rest of his forces came up, when the rebels beat a hasty retreat, leaving their cannon behind them.

At the same time, General Herron, with a force of nine hundred cav alry, marched to coöperate with an infantry force upon the rebel camp at Cross Hollows. Arriving there, he found himself alone, the infantry not having arrived. Not feeling disposed to return without a fight, he attacked the rebels, who, though largely outnumbering their assailants, fled after a short engagement, leaving their camp and all its furniture in their hands.

These trivial successes were not of much permanent value. The rebels, driven from one camp, gathered at another, or even returned to their old camp as soon as they could do so in safety. On the 26th of November, General Blunt received information that General Marmaduke was at Cane Hill with eight thousand rebels; and that he was only waiting for the remainder of General Hindman's army to arrive, when they would assume the offensive. General Blunt resolved to attack them before their reënforcements could arrive, and to drive them from the rich country where they were gathering abundant supplies.

Apprised of his approach, the rebels took a commanding position, from which they were dislodged after a brisk engagement. They retreated to another hill a little farther south; and thus they were steadily driven all day long, until night put an end to what was partly a battle, and partly a stubbornly resisted pursuit. Four days later, General Grant received information that General Hindman had joined General Marmaduke, and that their united forces amounted to over twenty thousand men. With this formidable army he had undertaken to invade Missouri, and recover the territory wrested from the rebels by the battle of Pea Ridge. General Blunt immediately telegraphed to General Herron, who was one hundred and twenty miles north, at Wilson's Creek, Missouri, to come to his assistance. General Hindman, by making a feint, succeeded in slipping by to the east of General Blunt, and thus interposed his army between the divided Union forces. His purpose was first to rush north and crush General Herron, advancing with his reënforcements, and then to turn and destroy General Blunt's army. The success of this well-devised plan

would give Missouri back to rebeldom.

In three hours after General Herron had received his dispatches his troops were on the move to join General Blunt. He had already marched one hundred and ten miles in three days, and had sent forward the bulk of his cavalry, which had reached General Blunt, when he found himself suddenly and unexpectedly in the presence of the foe. They had taken a commanding position on the road, and, with their batteries planted, they were prepared for battle. If General Herron attempted to retreat, his wagon-trains would inevitably fall into the hands of the rebels; while at the same time every retrograde step he took increased the distance between himself and the force he was hastening to relieve.

To fight an army of twenty-five thousand men with four thousand seems indeed a bold undertaking. But General Herron believed the

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