ing the enemy as to his real purpose; inducing Fremont. Lane, and Sturgis to believe that he was about to attack each of thein. Each of them fell back, and Fremont commenced ditching.

In the mean time, Price's infantry and artillery were making the best time they could towards the south. They had to encounter a very serious obstacle in crossing streams swollen by the recent rains. The whole command, fifteen thousand strong, crossed the Osage river in two common flat-boats, constructed for the occasion by men who could boast of no previous experience either as graduates of military schools, or even as bridge builders.

Subsequently, General Fremont was fifteen days engaged in crossing at the same place, upon his pontoon bridges. The superiority of the practical man of business, over the scientific engineer and "pathfinder," was demonstrated to the great satisfaction of the Missourians.

Gen. Price continued his retreat to Neosho, at which place the Legislature had assembled, under a proclamation from Governor Jackson.

At Neosho, Gen. Price again formed a junction with Gen. McCulloch, at the head of five thousand men. The Legislature had passed the Ordinance of Secession, and elected delegates to the Provisional Congress of the Southern Confederacy; and here Gen. Price had the satisfaction of firing one hundred guns in honor of the formal secession of Missouri from the United States, to which his services in the field had more than any thing else contributed.

Gen. McCulloch remained a day or two in Neosho, and then fell back with his forces to Cassville. Price remained ten days in Neosho, and then retreated also to Cassville, and from Cassville to Pineville, in McDonald county.

Meanwhile, General Fremont, with his grand army of sixty thousand men, equipped in the most splendid and costly manner, had concentrated his forces at Springfield, throwing forward an advance of ten thousand men under Gen. Sigel to Wilson's Creek. The Missouri forces at Springfield, under the command of Col. Taylor, were ordered by General Price to fall back upon the approach of the enemy; but in leaving the town they encountered Frem nt's body-guard, three times

their own number, armed with Colt's rifles and commanded by Coi. Zagonyi. A conflict ensued, in which fifty of the enemy were killed, and twenty-five captured, including a major. The loss of the Missourians was one killed and three wounded.

At Pineville, General Price made preparations to receive Fremont, determined not to abandon Missouri vithout a battle. His troops were enthusiastic and confident of success, notwithstanding the fearful superiority of numbers against them. They were in daily expectation of being led by their commander into the greatest battle of the war, when they received the unexpected intelligence that Fremont had been superseded as commander of the Federal forces. This event had the effect of demoralizing the Federal forces to such an extent, that their numbers would have availed them nothing in a fight with their determined foe. The Dutch, who were greatly attached to Fremont, broke out into open mutiny, and the acting offi cers in command saw that a retreat from Springfield was not only a wise precaution, but an actual necessity. They accord ingly left that town in the direction of Rolla, and were pur sued by Gen. Price to Oceola. From Oceola, Gen. Price fell back to Springfield, to forage his army and obtain supplies and here, for the present, we must leave the history of his cam paign. We have now traced that history to a period about the first of December.

From the 20th of June to the 1st of December, General Price's army marched over 800 miles, averaging ten thousand inen during the time. What they accomplished, the reader will decide for himself, upon the imperfect sketch here given. They fought five battles, and at least thirty skirmishes, in some of which from fifty to hundreds were killed on one side or the other. Not a week elapsed between engagements of some sort. They started without a dollar, without a wagon or team, without a cartridge, without a bayonet-gun. On the first of September, they had about eight thousand bayonet-guns, fifty pieces of cannon, four hundred tents, and many other articles needful in an army; for nearly all of which they were indebted to their own strong arms in battle and to the prodigality of the enemy in providing more than he could take care of in his campaign.

Notwithstanding the great exposure to which the Missouri

troops were subjected, not fifty died of disease during their six months' campaign, and but few were on the sick list at the close of it. The explanation is, that the troops were all the time in motion, and thus escaped the camp fever and other diseases that prove so fatal to armies standing all the time in a de fensive position.

SKETCH OF GENERAL PRICE.

The man who had conducted one of the most wonderful campaigns of the war-Sterling Price-was a native of Vir ginia. He was born about the year 1810 in Prince Edward county, a county which had given birth to two other military notabilities-General John Coffee, the "right-hand man" of General Jackson in his British and Indian campaigns, and General Joseph E. Johnston, already distinguished as one of the heroes of the present war.

Sterling Price emigrated to Missouri, and settled in Charlton county, in the interior of that State, in the year 1830, pursuing the quiet avocations of a farmer.

In the year 1844, Mr. Price was nominated by his party as a candidate for Congress, and was elected by a decided majority. He took his seat in December, 1845; but having failed to receive the party nomination in the following spring, he resigned his seat and returned home. His course in this respect was dictated by that conscientious integrity and high sense of honor which have ever distinguished him in all the relations of life. He argued that his defeat was caused either by dissatisfaction with his course on the part of his constituents, or else by undue influences which had been brought to bear upon the people by ambitious aspirants for the seat, who could labor to a great advantage in their work in supplanting an opponent who was attending to his duties at a distance from them. If the former was the case, he was unwilling to misrepresent his constituents, who, he believed, had the right to instruct him as to the course he should pursue; if the latter, his self-respect would not allow him to serve a people who had rejected him without cause, while he was doing all in his power tc advance their interests.

At the time of M1. Price's retirement from Congress, hostilį.