gathering provisions and forage, casting shot, making ammunition for his guns, and inclosing the college building and the hill on which it stood, an area of some fifteen acres, with a strong line of breast works. Price began his attack on the 18th, but for two days made little headway. Slowly, however, he gained favorable positions; his sharp-shooters, skilled riflemen of the frontier, drove the Federals into their principal redan, cut off their water supply by gaining and occupying the river shore, and finally adopted the novel and effective expedient of using movable breastworks, by gradually rolling forward bales of wet hemp. On September 20, after fifty-two hours of gallant defense, Mulligan's position became untenable. The reënforcements he had a right to expect did not come, his water cisterns were exhausted, the stench from dead animals burdened the air about his fort. Some one at length, without authority, displayed a white flag, and Price sent a note which asked, "Colonel, what has caused the cessation of the fight?" Mulligan's Irish wit was equal to the occasion, and he wrote on the back of it, "General, I hardly know, unless you have surrendered." The pleasantry led to a formal parley; and Mulligan, with the advice of his officers, surrendered.*

The uncertainty which for several days hung over the fate of Lexington, and the dramatic incidents of the fight, excited the liveliest interest throughout the West. Newspaper discussion soon made it evident that this new Union loss might have been avoided by reasonable prudence and energy on the part of Frémont, as there were plenty of disposable troops at various points, which, during the slow approach and long-deferred attack of Price, could have been hurried to Mulligan's support. There were universal outcry and pressure that at least the disaster should be retrieved by a prompt movement to intercept and capture Price on his retreat. Frémont himself seems to have felt the sting of the disgrace, for, reporting the surrender, he added:

"I am taking the field myself, and hope to destroy the enemy, either before or after the junction of forces under McCulloch. Please notify the President immediately."

"Your dispatch of this day is received," responded General Scott. "The President is glad you are hastening to the scene of action; his words are, he expects you to repair the disaster at Lexington without loss of time.""

This hope was not destined to reach a fulfillment. Price almost immediately retreated southward from Lexington with his captured booty, among which the pretentious great seal

Rebellion Record."

of the State figures as a conspicuous item in his report. On September 24 Frémont published his order, organizing his army of five divisions, under Pope at Boonville, McKinstry at Syracuse, Hunter at Versailles, Sigel at Georgetown, Asboth at Tipton. On paper it formed a respectable show of force, figuring as an aggregate of nearly 39,000; in reality it was at the moment well-nigh powerless, being scattered and totally unprepared for the field. Frémont's chronic inattention to details, and his entire lack of methodical administration, now fully revealed themselves. Even under the imperative orders of the general, nearly a month elapsed before the various divisions could be concentrated at Springfield; and they were generally in miserable plight as to transportation, supplies, and ammunition. Amidst a succession of sanguine newspaper reports setting forth the incidents and great expectations of Frémont's campaign, the convincing evidence could not be disguised that the whole movement would finally prove worthless and barren.

Meanwhile, acting on his growing solicitude, President Lincoln directed special inquiry, and about the 13th of October the Secretary of War, accompanied by the Adjutant-General of the Army, reached Frémont's camp at Tipton. His immediate report to the President confirmed his apprehension. Secretary Cameron wrote:

I returned to this place last night from the headquarters of General Frémont at Tipton. I found there and in the immediate neighborhood some 40,000 troops, with I brigade (General McKinstry's) in good condition for the field and well provided; others not exhibiting good care, and but poorly supplied with munitions, arms, and clothing. I had an interview with General Frémont, and in conversation with him much mortified, pained, and, I thought, humiliated. showed him an order for his removal. He was very He made an earnest appeal to me, saying that he had come to Missouri, at the request of the Government, to assume a very responsible command, and that when he without any preparation for an army; that he had exreached this State he found himself without troops and erted himself, as he believed, with great energy, and had now around him a fine army, with everything to make success certain; that he was now in pursuit of reach; and that to recall him at this moment world the enemy, whom he believed were now within his not only destroy him, but render his whole expenditure useless. In reply to this appeal, I told him that I would withhold the order until my return to Washhis hopes as to reaching and capturing the enemy, ington, giving him the interim to prove the reality of giving him to understand that, should he fail, he must give place to some other officer. He assured me that, should he fail, he would resign at once.

It is proper that I should state that after this conversation I met General Hunter, who, in very distinct terms, told me that his division of the army, although then under orders to march, and a part of his command actually on the road, could not be put in proper condition for marching for a number of days. To a question I put to him, "whether he believed General Fremont fit for the command," he replied that he did not think

that he was; and informed me that though second in command, he knew nothing whatever of the purposes or plans of his chief.*

The opinion of another division commander, General Pope, was freely expressed in a letter of the previous day, which Hunter also exhibited to the Secretary:

a move.

I received at 1 o'clock last night the extraordinary order of General Frémont for a forward movement of his whole force. The wonderful manner in which the actual facts and condition of things here are ignored stupefies me. One would suppose from this order that divisions and brigades are organized, and are under immediate command of their officers; that transportation is in possession of all; that every arrangement of supply trains to follow the army has been made; in fact, that we are in a perfect state of preparation for You know, as well as I do, that the exact reverse is the fact; that neither brigades nor divisions have been brought together, and that if they were there is not transportation enough to move this army one hundred yards; that, in truth, not one solitary preparation of any kind has been made to enable this advance movement to be executed. I have never seen my division, nor do I suppose you have seen yours. I have no cavalry even for a personal escort, and yet this order requires me to send forward companies of pioneers protected by cavalry. Is it intended that this order be obeyed, or rather, that we try to obey it, or is the order only designed for Washington and the papers? I went to Jefferson City, the last time I saw you, for the express purpose of getting transportation for my division, and explained to General Frémont precisely what I have said above. How in the face of the fact that he knew no transportation was furnished, and that Kelton has none, he should coolly order such a movement, and expect it to be made, I cannot understand on any reasonable or common-sense hypothesis.

Another letter to the President from a more cautious and conservative officer, General Curtis, exercising a local command in St. Louis, gave an equally discouraging view of the

situation:

Your Excellency's letter of the 7th inst., desiring me to express my views in regard to General Frémont frankly and confidentially to the Secretary of War, was presented by him yesterday, and I have complied with your Excellency's request. Matters have gone from bad to worse, and I am greatly obliged to your Excellency's letter, which breaks the restraint of military law, and enables me to relieve myself of a painful silence. In my judgment General Frémont lacks the intelligence, the experience, and the sagacity necessary to his command. I have reluctantly and gradually been forced to this conclusion. His reserve evinces vanity or embarrassment, which I never could so far overcome as to fully penetrate his capacity. He would talk of plans, which, being explained, only related to some move of a general or some dash at a shadow, and I am now convinced he has no general plan. Forces are scattered and generally isolated without being in supporting distance or relation to each other, and when I have expressed apprehension as to some, I have seen no particular exertion to repel or relieve, till it was too late. I know the demand made on him for force everywhere is oppressive; but remote posts have improperly stood out, and some still stand, inviting assault, without power to retreat, fortify, or reën

force. Our forces should be concentrated, with the rivers as a base of operation; and these rivers and railroads afford means for sudden and salutary assaults on the enemy. The question you propound, "Ought General Frémont to be relieved from or retained in his present command?' seems easily answered. It is only a question of manner and time. Public opinion is an element of war which must not be neglected. It is not necessary to be precipitate. A few days are not of vast moment, but the pendency of the question and discussion must not be prolonged. Controversies in an army are almost as pernicious as a defeat. †

Thus the opinions of three trained and experienced army officers, who had every means of judging from actual personal observation, coincided with the general drift of evidence which had come to the President from civilian officials and citizens, high and low. Frémont had frittered away his opportunity for usefulness and fame; such an opportunity, indeed, as rarely comes to men. He had taken his command three months before with the universal good-will of almost every individual, every subordinate, every official, every community in his immense department. In his brief incumbency he not only lost the general public confidence, but incurred the special displeasure or direct enmity of those most prominent in influence or command next to him, and without whose friendship and hearty coöperation success was practically impossible.

Waiting and hoping till the last moment, President Lincoln at length felt himself forced to intervene. On the 24th of October, just three months after Frémont had assumed com

mand, he directed an order to be made that Frémont should be relieved and General Hunter be called temporarily to take his command. This order he dispatched by the hand of a personal friend to General Curtis at St. Louis, with the following letter:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24, 1861.

BRIGADIER-GENERAL S. R. CURTIS.

DEAR SIR: On receipt of this, with the accompanying inclosures, you will take safe, certain, and suitable measures to have the inclosure addressed to Majordispatch, subject to these conditions only, that if, when General Frémont delivered to him with all reasonable General Frémont shall be reached by the messenger,yourself or any one sent by you,- he shall then have, in personal command, fought and won a battle, or shall then be actually in a battle, or shall then be in the immediate presence of the enemy in expectation of a battle, it is not to be delivered, but held for further orders. After, and not till after, the delivery to GenHunter be delivered to him. eral Frémont, let the inclosure addressed to General

Your obedient servant,

A. LINCOLN.

It will be seen that the conditions attend

ing the delivery of this order were somewhat peculiar. If General Frémont had just won a battle, or were on the eve of fighting one, + Curtis to Lincoln, Oct. 12, 1861. MS. War Records.

then both justice to himself, and more especially the risk or gain to the Union cause, rendered it inexpedient to make a sudden change in command. But the question also had another and possibly serious aspect. Amid all his loss of prestige and public confidence, Frémont had retained the clamorous adhesion and noisy demonstrative support of three distinct elements. First, a large number of officers to whom he had given irregular commissions, issued by himself, "subject to the approval of the President." These commissions for the moment gave their holders rank, pay, and power; and to some of them he had assigned extraordinary duties and trusts under special instructions, regardless of proper military usage and method. The second class was the large and respectable German population of St. Louis, and other portions of Missouri, forming the nucleus of the radical faction whose cause he had especially espoused. The third class comprised the men of strong antislavery convictions throughout the Union who hailed his act of military emancipation with unbounded approval. The first class composed about his person a clique of active sycophants, wielding power and dispensing patronage in his name; the other two supplied a convenient public echo. Out of such surroundings and conditions there began to come a cry of persecution and a vague hum of insubordination, coupled with adulations of the general. Some of his favorites talked imprudently of defiance and resistance to authority; occasional acts of Frémont himself gave a color of plausibility to these mutterings. He had neglected to discontinue the expensive fortifications and barracks when directed to do so by the Secretary of War. Even since the President ordered him to modify his proclamation, he had on one occasion personally directed the original document to be printed and distributed. Several of his special appointees were stationed about the city of St. Louis, "so they should control every fort, arsenal, and communication, without regard to commanding officers or quartermasters." Suspicions naturally arose, and were publicly expressed, that he would not freely yield up his command; or, if not actually resisting superior authority, that he might at least, upon some pretext, temporarily prolong his power.

There was, of course, no danger that he could successfully defy the orders of the President. The bulk of his army, officers and sol

* To remove Mr. Frémont will be a great wrong, as the necessary investigation following it will prove. It will make immense confusion, and require all his control over his friends and the army to get them to do as he will, accept it as an act of authority, not of justice, but in time of war it is treason to question authority. To leave him here without money, without

diers, would have spurned such a proposition. But the example of delay or doubt, any shadow of insubordination, would have had an extremely pernicious effect upon public opinion. General Curtis therefore sent a trusted bearer of dispatches, who, by an easy stratagem, entered Frémont's camp, gained a personal audience, and delivered the official order of removal. Duplicates of the President's letters were at the same time, and with equal care, dispatched to the camp of General Hunter, at a considerable distance, and he traveled all night to assume his new duties. When he reached Frémont's camp, on the following day, he learned that ostensible preparations had been made and orders issued for a battle, on the assumption that the enemy was at Wilson's Creek advancing to an attack. Taking command, Hunter sent a reconnaissance to Wilson's Creek, and obtained reliable evidence that no enemy whatever was there or expected there. Frémont had been duped by his own scouts; for it is hardly possible to conceive that he deliberately arranged this final bit of theatrical effect.

The actual fact was that while Price, retreating southward, by "slow and easy marches," kept well beyond any successful pursuit, his army of twenty thousand which had captured Lexington dwindled away as rapidly as it had grown. His movement partook more of the nature of a frontier foray than an organized campaign: the squirrel-hunters of western Missouri, whose accurate sharp-shooting drove Mulligan into his intrenchments to starvation or surrender, returned to their farms or their forest haunts to await the occasion of some new and exciting expedition; the whole present effort of General Price, now at the head of only 10,000 or 12,000 men, being to reach an easy junction with McCulloch on the Arkansas border, so that their united force might make a successful stand, or at least insure a safe retreat from the Union army.

President Lincoln, however, did not intend that the campaign to the south-west should be continued. Other plans were being discussed and matured. With the order to supersede Frémont he also sent the following letters, explaining his well-considered views and conveying his express directions:

BRIGADIER-GENERAL S. R. CURTIS.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 24, 1861.

MY DEAR SIR: Herewith is a document - half letter, half order—which, wishing you to see, but not the moral aid of the Government, is treason to the people. I cannot find smoother phrases, for it is the death struggle of our nationality, and no time for fair words. [Mrs. Frémont to Lamon, St. Louis, Oct. 20, 1861. Unpublished MS.]

+ Curtis to Lincoln, Nov. 1, 1861. MS. Price, Official Report. War Records.

to make public, I send unsealed. Please read it, and then inclose it to the officer who may be in command of the Department of the West at the time it reaches him. I cannot now know whether Frémont or Hunter will then be in command. Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.*

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24, 1861. TO THE COMMANDER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE WEST.

SIR: The command of the Department of the West having devolved upon you, I propose to offer you a few suggestions. Knowing how hazardous it is to bind down a distant commander in the field to specific lines and operations, as so much always depends on a knowledge of localities and passing events, it is intended, therefore, to leave a considerable margin for the exercise of your judgment and discretion.

The main rebel army (Price's) west of the Mississippi is believed to have passed Dade County in full retreat upon north-western Arkansas, leaving Missouri almost freed from the enemy, excepting in the southeast of the State. Assuming this basis of fact, it seems desirable, as you are not likely to overtake Price, and are in danger of making too long a line from your own base of supplies and reënforcements, that you should give up the pursuit, halt your main army, divide it into two corps of observation, one occupying Sedalia and the other Rolla, the present termini of railroad; then recruit the condition of both corps by reestablishing and improving their discipline and instructions, perfecting their clothing and equipments, and providing less uncomfortable quarters. Of course both railroads must be guarded and kept open, judiciously employing just so much force as is necessary for this. From these two points, Sedalia and Rolla, and especially in judicious cooperation with Lane on the Kansas border, it would be so easy to concentrate and repel any army of the enemy returning on Missouri from the south-west that it is not probable any such attempt to return will be made before or during the approaching cold weather. Before spring the people of Missouri will probably be in no favorable mood to renew for next year the troubles which have so much afflicted

and impoverished them during this. If you adopt this line of policy, and if, as I anticipate, you will see no enemy in great force approaching, you will have a surplus of force, which you can withdraw from these points and direct to others, as may be needed, the railroads furnishing ready means of reënforcing their main points, if occasion requires. Doubtless local uprisings will for a time continue to occur, but these can be met by detachments and local forces of our own, and will ere long tire out of themselves. While, as stated in the beginning of the letter, a large discretion must be and is left with yourself, I feel sure that an indefinite pursuit of Price, or an attempt by this long and circuitous route to reach Memphis, will be exhaustive beyond endurance, and will end in the loss of the whole force engaged in it.

Your obedient servant,

A. LINCOLN.*

The change of command occasioned neither trouble nor danger. Frémont himself acted with perfect propriety. He took leave of his army in a brief and temperate address, and returned to St. Louis, where he was welcomed by his admirers with a public meeting and eulogistic speeches. The demonstration was harmless and unimportant, though care had been taken to send authority to General Curtis to repress disorder, and specially to look to the safety of the city and the arsenal.t

In accordance with the policy outlined by the President, General Hunter soon drew back the Federal army from Springfield to Rolla, and the greater part of it was transferred to another field of operations. Hearing of this retrograde movement, McCulloch rapidly advanced, and for a season occupied Springfield. One of the distressing effects of these successive movements of contending forces is described in a sentence of his report, "The Union men have nearly all fled with the Federal troops, leaving this place almost deserted." ‡

T was a suggestion of Hawthorne's was it not? that in these more modern days Cupid has no doubt discarded his bow and arrow in favor of a revolver. There are ladies of a beauty so destructive that in their presence the little god would find a Gatling gun his most useful weapon. It is safe to say that the son of Venus does not disdain the latest inventions of Vulcan for the use of Mars, and that he slips off his bandage whenever he goes forth to replenish his armory. Lovers are quick

VOL. XXXVI.- 44.

to follow his example, and the house of love has all the modern improvements. Nowadays the sighing swain may tryst by telegraph and the blushing bride must elope by the lightningexpress; and if ever there were an Orlando in the streets of New York, he would have to carve his Rosalind's name on the telegraph poles.

If the appliances of modern science had been at the command of Cupid in the past as they are in the present, the story of many a pair of famous lovers would be other than it is. Leander surely would not have set out to swim to his mistress had international stormwarnings been sent across the Atlantic, which Hero could have conveyed to him by the

As THE centuries succeed one another, society becomes more complicated and science develops in all directions; thus is an equilibrium maintained, and the modern lover is aided by the appliances of science as he is hampered by the intricacies of society. Even the charity fair, that final triumph of the amateur swindler, and the telephone, that unpoetic adjunct of the shop and the office, can be forced to do love's bidding and to serve as instruments in the cunning hands of Cupid.

When the young ladies who were spending the summer at the seaside hotel at Sandy Beach resolved to get up a fair for the benefit of the Society for the Supply of Missionaries to Cannibal Countries, they had no more hearty helper than Mr. Samuel Brassey, a young gentleman recently graduated from Columbia College. He was alert, energetic, ingenious, and untiring; and when at last the fair was opened the young ladies declared that they did not know what they would have done without him. He it was who helped to decorate the ball-room, and to arrange it as a mart for the vending of unconsidered trifles. He it was who devised the Japanese tea-stall for Mrs. Martin, and suggested that this portly and imposing dame should appear in a Japanese dressing-gown. He it was who aided the three Miss Pettitoes, then under Mrs. Martin's motherly wing, to set up their stands the Well, where Miss Rebecca drew lemonade for every one that thirsted; the Old Curiosity Shop, where Miss Nelly displayed a helterskelter lot of orts and ends; and the Indian Wigwam, in the dark recesses of which Miss Cassandra, in the garb of Pocahontas, told fortunes.

To Miss Cassandra, who was the eldest and most austere of the three Miss Pettitoes, he suggested certain predictions for certain young men and maidens who were sure to apply to the soothsayer,-predictions which seemed to her sufficiently vague and oracular, but

which chanced to be pertinent enough to excite the liveliest emotions when they were imparted to the applicants. For Miss Nelly he wrote out many autographs of many famous persons, from Julius Cæsar and Cleopatra to Queen Elizabeth and George Washington; the signatures of Shakspere, of which there were a dozen, he declared to be eminently characteristic, as no two were spelled alike; and the sign-manual of Confucius he authorized her to proclaim absolutely unique, as he had copied it from the only tea-chest in the hotel. To him also the sirens of the bazar owed their absolute conviction of the necessity of giving no change. Furthermore, he elaborated a novel reversal of the principle of a reduction on taking a quantity: the autographs at the Old Curiosity Shop, the glasses of attenuated lemonade at the well, and the little fans at the Japanese tea-stall were all twenty-five cents each, three for a dollar. This device alone stamped him as a young man with a most promising head for business; and so Mr. Martin declared him, after asking if the autographs were genuine and being promptly offered a "written guarantee from the maker."

From these details it will be seen that Mr. Samuel Brassey was on most friendly terms, not to say familiar, with Mrs. Martin and with her charges, the three Miss Pettitoes. He was equally frank and open with all the other young ladies in the hotel, except, it may be, with Miss Bessy Martin. In his relations with Mrs. Martin's handsome niece a persistent observer might have detected a constraint. often cast aside and often recurring. The rest of the girls met him with the sincerity and the unthinking cordiality which are marked characteristics of the young women of America, especially when they chance to be at a summer hotel. So indeed did Miss Martin.— but to her his bearing was different. Towards the others he was kindly. To her he was devoted and yet reserved at times, as though under duress. The least bashful of young men ordinarily, in her presence he found himself shy and not always able to compel his tongue to do his bidding. If she looked at him — and he was a pleasant-faced young fellow — he found himself wondering whether he was blushing or not. Out of her sight he was often miserable; and under her eyes he suffered an exquisite agony. He hovered about her as though he had words of the deepest import trembling on his tongue, but when he sat by her side on the piazza, or danced a Virginia reel opposite to her of a Saturday night, or walked with her to church of a Sunday morning, he had nothing to say for himself.

Whether or not Miss Martin had noted