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40

PETTIGRU'S DENUNCIATIONS.

persons, Americans or Europeans, having a domicile in the "Confederate States, and carrying on business or traffic within the States at war with the Confederacy," were alien enemies; that the property, of every kind, of thesepersons should be seized and held, and that the receivers of the same should apply to the clerk of courts for writs of garnishment,' commanding persons suspected of holding in trust the property of an alien enemy to appear and answer such questions, under oath, touching such custody, as might be propounded. The authorized persons making the seizures were furnished with a formula of questions for the garnishees, which implied the establishment of a court of inquisition of the most despotic kind.

The citizen was asked, first, whether he held in trust any property belonging to an alien enemy; secondly, what was the character of such property, and what disposition had been made of any profit, interest, or rent accruing from the use thereof; thirdly, whether the citizen so questioned had, since the 21st day of May, 1861, been indebted to such alien enemy or enemies, and if so to what amount, and to what extent the debts had been discharged, and also to give the names of the creditors; fourthly, whether he knew of any property or interest belonging to such alien enemies, and if so to tell where it might be found. The citizen was warned that it was his duty, according to the law, to answer all of these questions, under penalty of indictment for a high misdemeanor, punishable by heavy fines and imprisonment.

Under this searching sequestration act a vast amount of property belonging to owners in the loyal States was seized, swelling the entire loss to the inhabitants of those States by the repudiation of, or inability to pay, honest debts by the business men of the South, to about three hundred millions of dollars. It was one of the strong arms of the despotism established by the conspirators, and few men had the boldness to oppose its operations. Yet the constitutionality of the act was questioned in the Confederate courts; and in that of the district of Charleston, over which Judge Magrath' presided,

JAMES LOUIS PETTIGRU.

it was opposed in open court by that stanch loyalist J. L. Pettigru, who, from the beginning of the rebellion. until his death, defied the conspirators and their instruments. He was served with a writ of garnishment, and refused to obey it, telling the court plainly that such proceedings were no better than those which made the English Star Chamber and the Spanish Inquisition odious to every lover of liberty. "Was there ever a law like this endured, practiced, or heard of?" he asked. "It certainly is not found among the people from whom we derive the common law. No English monarch or Parliament has ever sanc

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1 A writ of garnishment in English law is a warning or notice for a person to appear in court, or give information of any kind required. The person named was called a garnishee.

2 See page 49, volume I.

THE POWER OF COURAGE AND PRINCIPLE.

41

tioned or undertaken such a thing. It is no more a part of the law of war than it is a part of the law of peace." The inquisitors quailed in the presence of the honest old patriot, and his example and his words blunted the keen edge of the law.' Its enforcement gradually declined, and it became almost a dead letter during the later period of the war.

At the close of August, Congress and the chief council of the conspirators at Richmond had each finished its session, and both parties to the contest were preparing to put forth their utmost strength. Let us leave the consideration of these preparations, and whilst General McClellan is preparing the grand Army of the Potomac for a campaign, let us return to the observation of the performances on the theater of war westward of the Alleghany Mountains.

1 Mr. Pettigru's boldness, and fidelity to principle while the terrible insanity of rebellion afflicted the people of his State, was most remarkable. He never deviated a line, in word or act, from the high stand of opposition to the madmen, which he had taken at the beginning of the raving mania. And the respect which his courage and honesty wrung from those whose course he so pointedly condemned was quite as remarkable. The Legislature of South Carolina, during that period of wild tumult, elected him to the most important trust and the largest salary in their gift, namely, to codify the State laws.

William J. Grayson, a life-long friend of Pettigru, and who died during the siege of Charleston, at the age of seventy-five years, left, in manuscript, an interesting biographical study of his friend. Concerning Mr. Pettigru's action at the period we are considering, he wrote:

"To induce the simple people to plunge into the volcanic fires of the revolution and war, they were told that the act of dissolution would produce no opposition of a serious nature; that not a drop of blood would be spilled; that no man's flocks, or herds, or negroes, or houses, or lands would be plundered or destroyed; that unbroken prosperity would follow the Ordinance of Secession; that cotton would control all Europe, and secure open ports and boundless commerce with the whole world for the Southern States. To such views Mr. Pettigru was unalterably opposed. He was convinced that war, anarchy, military despotism would inevitably follow a dissolution of the Union; that secession would impart to the abolition party a power over slavery that nothing else could give them-a power to make war on Southern institutions, to proclaim freedom to the negroes, to invoke and command the sympathy and aid of the whole world in carrying on a crusade on the Southern States."

"Mr. Pettigru saw that bankruptcy would follow war; that public fraud would find advocates in Richmond as well as in Washington. He opposed these schemes of disorder which have desolated the South. Their projectors professed to protect her from possible evils, and involved her in present and terrible disasters. The people were discontented at seeing rats infesting the granaries of Southern industry, and were urged to set fire to the four corners of every Southern barn to get rid of the vermin. They were alarmed at attacks on slavery by such men as John Brown and his banditti, and proposed as a remedy to rush into war with the armed hordes of the whole world. For a bare future contingency, they proposed to encounter an enormous immediate evil."

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POSITION OF NATIONAL TROOPS IN MISSOURI.

CHAPTER II.

CIVIL AND MILITARY OPERATIONS IN MISSOURI

a 1861.

E left General Lyon in possession of Booneville, Missouri,' from which he had driven the Confederates under Price and Jackson, on the 18th of June." These leaders, as we have observed, were satisfied that the northern part of the State was lost to the cause of Secession, for the time, and they endeavored to concentrate their troops with Ben McCulloch's more southern men, in the southwestern part of the Commonwealth. We also left Colonel Franz Sigel in the vicinity of Rolla, pushing with eager Missouri loyalists toward the Confederate camps, on the borders of Kansas and Arkansas.

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2

Colonel Sigel arrived at Springfield on the 23d of June, where he was informed that the Confederates, under Governor Jackson, were making their way from the Osage River in a southwesterly direction. He pushed on to Sarcoxie, a post-village in Jackson County, where he arrived toward the evening of the 28th, and learned that General Price, with about nine hundred troops, was encamped at Pool's Prairie, a few miles north of Neosho, the capital of Newton County, and that other State troops, under Jackson and Rains, were making their way in the same direction. It was important to prevent their junction. Sigel resolved to march first on Price, and capture or disperse his force, and then, turning northward, attack the other troops, and so open a communication with General Lyon, who, he had been informed (but incorrectly), had been fighting with the Confederates on the banks of the Little Osage.

Sigel's march from Sarcoxie had just commenced, when a scout brought him word that Price had fled from Pool's Prairie to Elk Mills, thirty miles south of Neosho. He at once turned his attention to the troops north of him, who he supposed were endeavoring to make their way into Arkansas. He sent forward a detachment of two companies, under Captain Grone, with two field-pieces, toward Cedar Creek and Grand Falls, on the Neosho, to occupy a road in this supposed route of the Confederates, and to gain information, while he pushed on with the remainder of his command to Neosho, receiving greetings of welcome from the inhabitants on the way, who had been pillaged by the insurgents. He had already summoned Colonel Salomon, with his Missouri battalion, to join him at Neosho, and with this addi

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BATTLE NEAR CARTHAGE.

43

tion to his force, he went forward to meet his foe, leaving a single rifle company, under Captain Conrad, to protect the loyal inhabitants there, with orders to retreat to Sarcoxie if necessary.

Sigel encamped close by the south fork of the Spring River, southeast of Carthage, the capital of Jasper County, on the evening of the 4th of July, after a march of twenty-five miles, where he was informed that Jackson was nine or ten miles distant, in the direction of Lamar, the county seat of Barton County, with four or five thousand men. Sigel's force consisted of about five hundred and fifty men of the Third (his own) Missouri Regiment, and four hundred of the Fifth (Salomon's) Regiment, with two batteries of artillery, each consisting of four field-pieces-in all about fifteen hundred men. With these troops, and with his baggage-train three miles in the rear, he slowly advanced to find his foe on the morning of the 5th, his skirmishers driving before them large numbers of mounted riflemen, who seemed to be simply gathering information. Six miles northward of Carthage they passed the Dry Fork Creek, and, after a brisk march of three miles farther, they came upon the Confederates, under Governor Jackson, assisted by Brigadier-Generals Rains, Clark, Parsons, and Slack. They had been marching that morning in search of Sigel, and were now drawn up in battle order on the crown of a gentle ascent. Sigel was soon convinced that his foe was vastly his superior, not only in numbers, but in cavalry, but was deficient in artillery. They had but a few old pieces, which were charged with trace-chains, bits of iron, and other missiles. Sigel therefore determined to make his own cannon play an important part, for they were his chief reliance for success.

The battle commenced at a little past ten o'clock by Sigel's field-pieces, under Major Bischoff, and, after a desultory contest of over three hours, it was observed that the

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of which were on each flank, and four in the rear, of the little Union army. The retreat was made in perfect order, and was but little interrupted by fighting, excepting at the bluffs at Dry Fork Creek, through which the road passed. There the Confederate cavalry massed on Sigel's front and tried to impede his progress. These were quickly dispersed by his guns, and by a vigorous charge of his infantry.

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RETREAT TO SPRINGFIELD.-LYON IN MOTION.

Finding the presence of an overwhelming force (estimated at full five thousand men, including a heavy reserve) too great to be long borne with safety, Sigel continued his orderly retreat to the heights near Carthage, having been engaged in a running fight nearly all the way. The Confederates still pressed him sorely. He attempted to give his troops rest at the village, but the cavalry of his enemy, crossing Spring River at various points, hung so threateningly on his flank, and so menaced the Springfield road, that he continued his retreat to Sarcoxie without much molestation, the Confederates relinquishing the pursuit a few miles from Carthage. The Nationals had lost in the battle thirteen killed and thirty-one wounded, all of whom were borne away by their friends. They also lost nine horses, a battery of four cannon, and one baggage wagon. In the mean time, Captain Conrad and his company of ninety men, who were left in Neosho, had been captured by the Confederates.' The loss of the insurgents, according to their own account, was from thirty to forty killed, and from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty wounded. They also lost forty-five men made prisoners, eighty horses, and a considerable number of shot-guns, with which Jackson's cavalry were armed.

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◄ July, 1861.

Being outnumbered by the Confederates, more than three to one, Colonel Sigel did not tarry at Sarcoxie, but continued his retreat by Mount Vernon to Springfield, where he was joined by General Lyon on the 13th," who took the chief command. It was a fortunate movement for Sigel; for within twelve hours after the battle, Jackson was re-enforced by Generals Price and Ben McCulloch, who came with several thousand Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas troops.

General Lyon had left Booneville in pursuit of the fugitive Confederates on the 3d of July, with a little army numbering about twenty-seven hundred men, with four pieces of artillery and a long baggage-train. The day was intensely hot. The commander was mounted on an iron-gray horse, accompanied by his body-guard, composed of ten German butchers of St. Louis, who were noted for their size, strength, and horsemanship, and were all well mounted and heavily armed with pistols and sabers. He reached an important ferry on the Grand River, a branch of the Osage, in Henry County, on the 7th, where he was joined by three thousand troops from Kansas, under Major Sturgis. The whole force crossed the river, by means of a single scow, by ten o'clock on the 8th. In the mean time, two companies of cavalry, who crossed on the evening of the 7th, had pushed forward to gain the ferry on the Osage, twenty-two miles ahead. Near that point, in the midst of a dense forest, the main army reached the river in the afternoon of the 9th, when they were stirred by intense excitement, produced by intelligence of Colonel Sigel's fight near Carthage.

July.

Lyon was now eighty miles from Springfield. Satisfied of Sigel's peril, he decided to change his course, and to hasten to the relief of that officer, by forced marches. Early on the morning of the 10th, regardless of the intense heat and lack of sleep, the army moved from the south bank of the

1 Report of Colonel Sigel to Brigadier-General Sweeney, dated Springfield, July 11th, 1861. 'Pollard's First Year of the War, page 133. It is believed that the entire loss of the Confederates was,at Jeast 300 men.

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