178

SPIRIT OF THE LOYAL AND DISLOYAL.

and not compel us to resort further to the force under our control. The Government asks only that its authority may be recognized; and, we repeat, in no manner or way does it desire to interfere with your laws, constitutionally established, your institutions of any kind whatever, your property of any sort, or your usages in any respect."

a

1862.

This appeal alarmed the Confederate leaders in that State, and the Governor, Henry T. Clark, issued a counter-proclamation a few days Feb. 22, afterward, in which he denounced the expedition as an attempt to deprive the inhabitants of liberty, property, and all they held "most dear as a self-governing and free people." He called upon them to supply the requisitions just made by Jefferson Davis for troops to repel the enemy. "We must resist him," he said, "at all hazards, and by every means in our power. He wages a war for our subjugation-a war forced upon us in wrong, and prosecuted without right, and in a spirit of vengeful wickedness, without a parallel in the history of warfare among civilized nations." He assured them that the Government was increasing its efforts "and straining every nerve" not to regain its rightful authority, but to overrun the country and subjugate the people to its domination, its "avarice and ambition." "I call upon the brave and patriotic men of our State to volunteer," he said, "from the mountains to the sea."

Such was the opposing spirit of the Government, and the conspirators against its life. The former was anxious for peace, the latter were zealous for war. The former, battling for right, justice, and the perpetuity of free institutions, and conscious of the righteousness of its cause, was firm but mild, patient, and persuasive; the latter, battling for wrong, injustice, and the perpetuation of slavery for the negro, and serfdom for the poor white man, with no warrant for their acts but selfishness, were bitter, vehement, and uncompromising; continually appealing to the passions of the people rather than to their reason and judgment, and by fraud and violence dragging them into the vortex of rebellion, in which their prosperity and happiness were sadly wrecked.

Here we will leave the National forces for a while in the waters of North Carolina, preparing for another important victory, which they achieved a month later, and observe the progress of military events westward of the Alleghanies during the later days of autumn, and the winter of 1861-62.

WESTERN MILITARY DIVISIONS.

179

CHAPTER VII.

MILITARY OPERATIONS IN MISSOURI, NEW MEXICO, AND EASTERN KENTUCKY-CAPTURE OF FORT HENRY.

OWARD the close of the autumn of 1861, the attitude of the contending parties, civil and military, in the great basin of the central Mississippi Valley was exceedingly interesting. We left the National army in Southern Missouri, at the middle of November, dispirited by the removal of their favorite leader, slowly making their way toward St. Louis under their temporary commander, General Hunter, while the energetic Confederate leader, General Price, was advancing, and reoccupying the region which the Nationals abandoned.' We left Southern Kentucky, from the mountains to the Mississippi River, in possession of the Confederates. Polk was holding the western portion, with his head-quarters at Columbus; General Buckner, with a strongly intrenched camp at Bowling Green, was holding the center; and Generals Zollicoffer and Marshall and others were keeping watch and ward on its mountain flanks. Back of these, and between them and the region where the rebellion had no serious opposition, was Tennessee, firmly held by the Confederates, excepting in its mountain region, where the most determined loyalty still prevailed.

a Nov., 1861.

On the 9th of November, 1861, General Henry Wager Halleck, who had been called from California by the President to take an active part in the war, was appointed to the command of the new Department of Missouri. He had arrived in Washington on the 5th," and on the 19th took the command, with Brigadier-General George W. Cullum, an eminent engineer officer, as his chief of staff, and Brigadier-General Schuyler Hamilton as assistant chief. Both officers had been on the staff of General Scott. The head-quarters were at St. Louis. General Hunter, whom Halleck superseded, was assigned to the command of the Department of Kansas. General Don Carlos Buell had superseded General Sherman, and was appointed commander of the Department of the Ohio; and the Department of Mexico, which included only the territory of New Mexico, was intrusted to Colonel E. R. S. Canby. Such was the arrangement of the military divisions of the territory westward of the Alleghanies late in 1861.

3

* It included Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Arkansas, and that portion of Kentucky lying west of the Cumberland River.

This included the State of Kansas, the Indian Territory, west of Arkansas, and the Territories of Nebraska, Colorado, and Dakota.

This included the State of Ohio, and the portion of Kentucky lying eastward of the Cumberland River, which had formed a part of Sherman's Department of the Cumberland.

180

HALLECK'S TREATMENT OF SECESSIONISTS.

General Halleck was then in the prime of life, and he entered upon his duties with zeal and vigor. He was possessed of large mental and physical energy, and much was expected of him. He carefully considered the plan ar ranged by Fremont for clearing the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas of armed insurgents, and securing the navigation of the Mississippi by sweeping its banks of obstructions, from Cairo to New Orleans. Approving of it in general, he pushed on the great enterprise with strong hopes of success.

HENRY WAGER HALLECK.

Halleck's first care was to establish the most perfect discipline in his army, to overawe the secessionists, and to relieve the loyal people of Missouri of the effects of the dreadful tyranny in

flicted by the latter, many of whom were engaged in armed bands in plundering the inhabitants, desolating the property of Union men, and destroying railways and bridges. Refugees were then crowding into the Union lines by thousands. Their miseries cannot be described. Men, women, and children were stripped, plundered, and made homeless. Naked and starving, they sought refuge and relief in St. Louis. Seeing this, the commander determined to apply an effectual remedy. In a general order, he directed the Provost-Marshal of St. Louis (Brigadier-General Curtis) to inquire into the condition of these refugees, and to take measures for quartering them "in the houses of avowed secessionists," and for feeding and clothing them at the expense of that class of citizens, or others known to have been guilty of giving "assistance and encouragement to the enemy." a Dec. 12, He also further ordered" wealthy secessionists to contribute for the support of these refugees, and that all who should not voluntarily do so should be subjected to a levy, either in money, food, clothing, or quarters, to the amount of ten thousand dollars each. This order was rigidly enforced, and many wealthy citizens were made to pay liberal sums. One prominent merchant, named Engel, who ventured to resist the order by appealing to the civil courts, was ordered out of the Department. This was the last appeal of that kind.

1861.

6 Nov. 20.

Determined to put a stop to the continual outflowing of information to the Confederates from within his lines, Halleck issued some very stringent orders. The earliest of these was Order No. 3, which forbade fugitives entering or remaining within his lines, it having been represented to him that they conveyed contraband information out of them.' This order was a subject of much comment, because of its seeming tenderness for the rebellious slaveholder, and cruelty toward the bondman seeking

1 See page 79.

"In order to remedy this evil," ran the order, "it is directed that no such person be hereafter permitted to enter the lines of any camp, or of any forces on the march, and that any now within such lines be immediately excluded therefrom."

POPE IN MISSOURI.-PRICE'S APPEAL.

181

freedom. That it was a mistake, subsequent experience fully demonstrated; for throughout the war the negro, whether bond or free, was uniformly the friend and helper of the National cause. General Halleck had been misinformed, and upon that misinformation he acted with the best intentions, one of which was to prevent the betrayal of the secret of his camps, and another that he might keep clear of the questions relating to masters and slaves,' in which Fremont had been entangled, to his hurt.

In the order of the 4th of December, concerning the treatment of avowed secessionists, Halleck further directed that all rebels found within his lines in the disguise of pretended loyalty, or other false pretenses, or found giving information to the insurgents, should be "arrested, tried, and, if condemned, shot as spies." This and all other orders, concerning the disloyalists by whom he was surrounded, were enforced; and he directed that any one attempting to resist the execution of them should be arrested and imprisoned, to be tried by a military commission. Many offenders being women, it was declared that "the laws of war make no distinction of sex."

To enforce these laws, it was necessary to use military power, especially in the suppression of the bands of marauders who were then sweeping over the country. He accordingly sent General John Pope, who, as we have already observed, had been active in that Department, to disperse the encampments of these guerrillas in Western Missouri. Pope had been acting with vigor during the latter part of summer and the early autumn. The people of a district where outrages were committed had been held responsible for them. He had quartered his troops on such inhabitants, and required from them contributions of horses, mules, provisions, and other necessaries. He had organized Committees of Safety, on which were placed prominent secessionists, charged to preserve the peace; and in a short time comparative good order was restored. Now Pope was charged with similar duties. On the 7th of December, he was assigned to the command of all the National troops between the Missouri and Osage Rivers, which included a considerable portion of Fremont's army that fell back from Springfield. Price was advancing. He had made a most stirring appeal by proclamation to the Missourians to come and help him, and so help themselves to freedom and independence. The Governor (Jackson), he said, had called for fifty thousand men, but only five thousand had responded. "Where are those fifty thousand men ?" he asked. "Are Missourians no longer true to themselves? Are they a timid, time-serving race, fit only for subjugation to a despot? Awake! my countrymen," he cried, "to a sense of what constitutes the dignity of the true greatness of a people. Come to us, brave sons of the Mis souri Valley! Rally to our standard! I must have the fifty thousand men. Do you stay at home for protection? More men have been murdered at home than I have lost in five successive battles. Do you stay at home to secure terms with the enemy? Then I warn you the day soon may come when you will be surrendered to the mercies of that enemy, and your substance given to the Hessians and the Jayhawkers.' . . Leave

1 Letter of General Halleck to General Asboth, December 20, 1861.

* A name given to certain rangers or guerrilla bands of Kansas and especially those under Colonel Jenni son, who was active against the insurgents.

182

BATTLE ON THE BLACK WATER.

your property to take care of itself. Come to the Army of Missouri, not for a week or a month, but to free your country.

Strike till each armed foe expires!
Strike for your country's altar fires!
Strike for the green graves of your sires,
God and your native land!'

Be yours the office to choose between the glory of a free country and a just government, or the bondage of your children. I, at least, will never see the chains fastened upon my country. I will ask for six and a half feet of Missouri soil in which to repose, for I will not live to see my people enslaved."

This appeal aroused the disaffected Missourians, and at the time when Pope was ordered to his new field of operations, about five thousand recruits, it was said, were marching from the Missouri River and beyond to join Price. To prevent this combination was Pope's chief desire. He encamped thirty or forty miles southwest from Booneville, at the middle of December, and after sending out some of the First Missouri cavalry, under Major Hubbard, to watch Price, who was then at Osceola with about eight thousand men, and to prevent a reconnoissance of the main column of the Nationals, he moved his whole body westward and took position in the country between Clinton and Warrensburg, in Henry and Johnson counties. There were two thousand Confederates then near his lines, and against these Lieutenant-Colonel Brown, of the Seventh Missouri, was sent with a considerable cavalry force that scattered them. Having accomplished this, Brown returned to the main army,' b Dec. 18. which was moving on Warrensburg.

a Dec. 16, 1861

Informed that a Confederate force was on the Blackwater, at or near Milford, North of him, Pope sent Colonel Jefferson C. Davis and Major Merrill to flank them, while the main body should be in a position to give immediate aid, if necessary. Davis found them in a wooded bottom on the west side of the Blackwater, opposite the mouth of Clear Creek.

His forces were

on the east side, and a bridge that spanned the Blackwater between them was strongly guarded. This was carried by assault, by two companies of the Fourth Regular Cavalry, under Lieutenants Gordon and Amory, supported by five companies of the First Iowa cavalry. Gordon led the charge in person, and received several balls through his cap. The Confederates were driven, the bridge was crossed, and a pursuit was pressed. Unable to escape, the fugitives, commanded by Colonels Robinson, Alexander, and Magoffin (the latter a brother of the Governor of Kentucky), surrendered. The captives were one thousand three hundred in number, infantry and cavalry; and with them the Nationals gained as spoils about eight hundred horses and mules, a thousand stand of arms, and over seventy wagons loaded with tents, baggage, ammunition, and supplies of every kind.

At about midnight the prisoners and spoils were taken into Pope's camp, and the next day the victors and the vanquished moved back in the direction of Sedalia, Pope's starting-place. In the space of five days the infantry had marched more than one hundred miles, and the cavalry double that distance. During that time they had captured nearly fifteen hundred prisoners, with the arms and supplies just mentioned. They had swept the