GENERAL ROSECRANS' PROCLAMATION. 577 urged the necessity of a serious, earnest prosecution of the work before them, concealing neither its responsibilities nor difficulties" Officers and soldiers of the Department of Western Virginia: You have closed an arduous campaign with honor to yourselves and satisfaction to the country. None but those who have been with you, as I have, can fully take them to Gauley; though I will, if possible, place the body there in a box with salt, to preserve it for his friends. It will be subject to the order from General H.S. Rosecrans. And now, having for the third time the opportunity of extending courtesies somewhat of this character to your officers-as first, in returning the baggage, uniform, etc., of Colonel Porterfield, at Philippa, and afterward of pre-appreciate your trials and privations. serving the sword, effects, and body of General Garnett at Carrick's Ford-I trust your officers will appreciate the desire, thus exhibited, of mitigating in every way the horrors of this fratricidal strife, as I think you yourself will do me the justice to believe that I most earnestly wish it." Your triumph has been threefold-over your own inexperience, the obstacles of nature, and the rebel forces. When our gallant young commander was called from us, after the disaster of Bull Run, this department was left with less than 15,000 men to guard 300 miles of railroad and 300 miles of frontier, exposed to bushwhackers, and the forces of Generals Floyd, Wise and Jackson. The north-western pass into it was fortified and held, Cheat Mountain secured, the rebel assaults there victoriously repelled, and the Kanawha Valley occupied. A march of 112 miles, over bad roads, brought you upon Floyd's intrenched position, whence the rebels were dislodged and chased to Sewell. Finally, your patience and watchings put the traitor Floyd within your reach, and though by a precipitate retreat he escaped your grasp, you have the substantial fruits of victory. Western Virginia belongs to herself, and the invader is expelled from her soil. In the name of our In December General Floyd, putting the best face on the matter, took leave of his army of Kanawha in a vigorous proclamation. He recalled the five months' contest with the enemy, and his successful endeavor to obstruct his march into the interior of the State, in which "hard contested battles and skirmishes were matters of almost daily occurrence." He He complimented his men on their cheerful, uncomplaining endurance of hardships and privations for which the government had reason to be grateful, and closed by inviting them to a new field of service in Kentucky. So ended the operations of the season. As an aggressive movement the advance of Floyd had failed of success, while he Commander-in-Chief, and in my own, I had reason to congratulate himself on his thank you. But the country will expect escape from capture. The Union army-your Commanding General expectswas left in full possession of Western still more from you. A campaign withVirginia. out a defeat, without even a check, must be eclipsed by deeds of greater lustre. To this end I now call upon you, for your own future honor, to devote yourselves with energy and zeal to perfect General Rosecrans also closed the campaign with an address to his troops, in which, while he complimented them on the successes they had achieved, he hatred of you; there is no measure of falsehood to which they have not resorted to blacken your good name; and their leaders, Beauregard and Jeff. Davis, have dared, even in solemn proclamation, to calumniate you, charging you with crimes which you abhor. From these men you have nothing to expect. You must prepare to teach them, not only lessons of magnanimity and forbearance toward the unarmed and defenceless, but to thrust their calumnies and their boastings down their own traitorous throats. Let not a moment be lost in yourselves in all that pertains to drill, Your enemies are implacable in their instruction and discipline. Let every officer and every soldier be emulous to teach and learn the firings, light infantry drill, guard duty, company discipline and police. Your Commanding General proposes to procure for you everything necessary to prepare you for your coming work, and will soon organize boards of examiners, who will rid the service of the disgrace, and soldiers of the incubus, of incompetent and worthless officers, who hold the positions and receive the pay without having the will or capacity to perform the duties of their positions. Remember, you are fighting for your your preparations for the task before country, for your flag, for your homes. you." their heights upon an uncultivated wilderness where now flourished a golden empire. The Republican creed which he had been chosen to represent, the promise of which had been symbolized in the freshness and purity of his fame, his youth and gallantry in the free mountain air among free men-the social and political hope of the people—was now a living, active policy, invigorating and directing the energies of the nation. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that when the arm of rebellion was raised against the State, and the Government was looking everywhere for representative men to sustain its authority, Fre AFTER the fall of Lyon, the interest in military affairs in Missouri centres in the movements of General Fremont. It is not necessary here to repeat the circumstances in his previous history which gave to his name a peculiar prestige in the West, which identified him with the exploration and settlement, the conquest of arms and civilization of the mighty region stretching from the Missouri to the Pacific; nor need we refer to the national importance of a name which, in the preceding Presidential election, had been familiar in every home and household in the land. The two ideas to which he had devoted his youth and early manhood were now incorporated in sub-mont should not be forgotten. He had, stantial realities of world-wide fame. When he first threaded the passes of the Rocky Mountains he had looked from indeed, no established military reputation as a great commander, for he had conducted no great military operations GENERAL FREMONT. in war; but as it was very evident that the choice of our Major-Generals was very limited if that qualification should be insisted upon, no one felt disposed to press the point in view of the many advantages which he possessed by the side of the crowd of civilians of no experience at all, who stood eager for promotion on the army list. It was, in fact, considered quite as a matter of course that Fremont should be invited to some distinguished military command. It would have been, in the opinion of many, the height of political ingratitude in the administration to pass him by. At the breaking out of the war he was on a visit to Europe. We have, on a previous page, recorded the temperate and patriotic speech in which, at Paris in the month of May, in company with the American ministers, newly arrived at that capital, he pledged himself to the cause of the Union. He had, in fact, already been recalled to his country, and the short time which elapsed before setting out on his return was given by him to preparations for the now imminent conflict. Having made large purchases of arms in Belgium for the United States Government, he left England for America, arriving at Boston on the 27th of June. Speedily reporting himself at Washington, he was, on the 6th of July, appointed, with the rank of Major-General, to the command of a vast military district, now first constituted into a separate organization as the Western Department. It embraced the State of Illinois and the States and Territories west of the Mississippi and east of the Rocky Mountains, including New Mexico. The headquarters of the department were at St. Louis. Ante, p. 447. 579 It might have been thought that, on receiving so extensive a command, a particular line of policy or strategy would have been marked out by the administration. But nothing of the kind was prescribed. It was characteristic of the early period of the war that no very definite course of action could be laid down. The army had yet to be formed, and its employment determined by future events. There were discussions at Washington on the subject, and it was understood that the great object in view was the descent of the Mississippi, and that, for its accomplishment, General Fremont was to raise and organize an army, and, when he was ready to descend the river, inform the President of the fact.* With no more precise instructions-with none whatever in writing-General Fremont, the day after the battle of Bull Run, having made such arrangements as he could in the fortnight for the equipment of an army corps of twenty-three thousand men, set off for St. Louis, which he reached on the 25th of July. The political and military condition in which he found Missouri on his arrival he has himself thus described: "The State was throughout rebellious. A rebel faction in every county, at least equal to the loyal population in numbers, and excelling it in vindictiveness and energy. The local government was in confusion and unable to aid. St. Louis itself was a rebel city, and, as a rule, the influential and wealthy citizens were friendly to secession. the new levies of the Federal troops, few were in the field-the term of enlistment of the three months' men was just expiring--the troops in service had not been paid, were badly equipped and badly Of Statement of General Fremont to the Hon. Mr. Wade, Chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, etc. |