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HUNTER SUCCEEDS FREMONT.

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CHAPTER LXIII.

Successor of General Fremont in Missouri.-General Hunter.-His opinions of Fremont.-New masters, new laws.-A Veteran.-Reluctant obedience.--Change of plans.-Life of Hunter.-Military experience.-Attached to Lincoln. -Misfortunes of a Presidential Tour.-Rewards for personal service -The Army in Missouri ordered to retreat.Direction of the Retreat.-Return of the Enemy under Price and McCulloch.--Checked by the Unionists.Lexington and Springfield re-occupied by the Enemy.-General Hunter makes way for a Successor.-Major-General Halleck succeeds Hunter.-Hunter sent to Kansas.-Life of Halleck.-Military education.-A Lieutenant of Engineers.--Scientific studies.-A writer and lecturer.-Promotion.-Secretary of State of California. - Member of the Convention.-Assists in drafting the Constitution.--Resignation in the Army.-Settles in California. -A Lawyer in San Francisco.-Made a Major-General.-Appointed to the command of the West.-Character. -Great Expectations. -Halleck's first occupation.-Thwarting the machinations of the Rebellious. -Organizing and Disciplining. -Halleck's famous order, excluding Fugitive Slaves from the Camps. -Denounced by the Anti-Slavery Party.-The order explained by Halleck.-Stringent measures at St. Louis.-Expedition of General Pope.-Pope's success.— Its wondrous effects.-Halleck on bridge-burning.-Guerrilla warfare in Missouri.-A grand effort to clear Missouri of the Enemy.-Movements against Price.-Skirmishing before Springfield.—A Battle expected.-Disappointment.-Price retreats from Springfield.—Pursuit of Price.-The Enemy followed into Arkansas.--Hoisting the American Flag on the soil of Arkansas.-The Enemy make a stand at Sugar Creek.-Enemy defeated.

1861.

WHEN Fremont was suddenly arrested | ity, should at once revise the plans of in his hopeful career of conquest Fremont, was consistent with his want in Missouri, General Hunter, as the of reverence for a commander in whose next in rank, succeeded to the chief com- reputed genius he could find no compen

norance of the military art.

Nov. mand. The old proverb, "New mas-sation for his comparative youth and ig5. ters, new laws," found another illustration in the complete change, by General Hunter, of the plan of campaign. The new leader had not concealed, even while serving under Fremont, his disagreement with his superior, whom he did not hesitate to denounce as incapable.

Hunter, a man of three-score years of age, a veteran officer and a rigid stickler for the formalities of the military art, forced to yield a reluctant obedience to a comparatively young and inexperienced chief, had been not unnaturally disposed to question the irregular vigor of the impulsive Fremont, while under his command. That the veteran Hunter, now being free to act on his own responsibil

In

Hunter himself had been schooled in the rigid discipline of the regular officer. Educated at West Point, he graduated in 1822, the twenty-fifth in a class of forty. He was immediately commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry, and rose to the rank of first lieutenant and captain of cavalry, when he resigned. 1842 he re-entered the army as a paymaster, and was in this position with the rank of major when the present civil war began. Attaching himself to Mr. Lincoln, he accompanied him on his way to Washington, but having met with an accident at Buffalo, where he was so hustled by the crowd that his collar-bone

became dislocated, he was unable to complete that eventful journey. On the accession of President Lincoln, Hunter was rewarded with a colonelcy of cavalry, and subsequently with a brigadier-generalship, in which rank he commanded a division of the advance at Bull Run, where he was wounded at the beginning of the battle.

As soon as Hunter assumed the command of the army in Missouri, he ordered it to fall back from the advanced position to which it had been led by the hopeful Fremont. Hunter's own division and the divisions of Generals Pope and Sturgis, retired by the way of Warsaw, while those of Generals Sigel and Asboth, in advance, after moving a short distance to the south, for the purpose of covering the retirement of the main body from Springfield, returned to that place and thence fell back to Rolla.

The enemy, under Price and McCulloch, who had discreetly fled before Fremont toward the borders of Arkansas, now emboldened by the retreat of General Hunter, retraced their steps, and again occupying Lexington and Springfield, penetrated into the centre of Missouri and resumed their ravages in that afflicted State. They were, however, checked by occasional spirited attacks of the Federal forces. Colonel Greensle drove the enemy out of Hinton, Texas County, and planted the national flag on the court-house. A detachment of a hundred and ten of the First Kansas cavalry, under Colonel Anthony, Nov. charged an encampment at Little 10. Blue, in Western Missouri, and dis

persed it. A party of the enemy, under Colonel Gordon, attacked the train Nov. on the Platte County Railroad, 30. when an escort of Missouri cavalry, under Major Hugh, came to the rescue. The enemy were routed, leaving behind them seventeen killed and wounded and five prisoners. Five only of the Unionists were slightly wounded. The Federal troops, under Colonel Bowman, again put the enemy to flight at Salem. Fifteen were killed and wounded on our side, but the enemy lost thirty-nine in all. Other spirited skirmishes occurred, which rendered the enemy more cautious in their advance. No effectual attempt, however, was immediately made to prevent them resuming their former positions in the south-western part of the State.

General Hunter, after holding the chief command but a few days, was obliged to make way for a successor. This was Major-General Halleck, who had been appointed by the Presi- Nov. dent to the command of the Western 10. Department, while to his predecessor, Hunter, was given the command of Kansas. General Halleck reached St. Louis on the 18th of November, and at Nov. once began with great energy to 18. organize the army, and rigorously to prosecute the military administration of his department.

Henry Wager Halleck was born in the State of New York in the year 1818. He entered the Military Academy at West Point in the year 1835, and graduated in 1839, ranking the second of his class. Brigadier-General Stevens, of Oregon, was the competitor who

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resigned in August of the succeeding year.

He now determined to settle permanently in California, where he established himself as a lawyer, and became partner in the well-known legal firm of Halleck, Billings & Co., of San Francisco. He was engaged in the successful prosecution of his new profession when he re

won the first place. In accordance with his high position at the academy, young Halleck was brevetted a second lieutenant of the corps d'élite of engineers, and retained at West Point as an assistant professor of engineering for a engineering for a year. In 1841 he gave to the world the result of his scientific studies in a work on "Bitumen-its Uses." In January, 1845, he was promoted to a first lieu-ceived the appointment to a major-gentenantcy; and in the same year, such was his repute as an accomplished student of his art, that he was selected by the committee of the Lowell Institute, at Boston, as one of its annual lecturers. The subject of his course was "military science and art." These lectures were subsequently published, with the addition of a long essay on the "Justifiableness of War." This work is considered a creditable proof of his knowledge and research. It contains much useful information on the military art, and is replete with historical illustrations.

During the Mexican war, Halleck was rewarded for his services with the brevet rank of captain. From 1847 to the close of 1849 he was secretary of state of the newly conquered territory of California, while under military administration. He also served as chief of the staff of Commodore Shubrick during his operations on the Pacific coast in 1847 and 1848. In 1849 he was elected a member of the convention which met at Monterey to form a constitution for the proposed State of California, and was appointed one of the committee to draft that paper. In July, 1853, he was promoted to the full rank of captain of engineers, but

eralship in the army. His commission dates from August 1, 1854, though Congress did not bestow it upon him until November, 1860, when he was selected to take the chief command of the Department of the West.

General Halleck is in the vigor of life, being forty-three years of age. With his military knowledge and practical acquaintance with public as well as private business, he was singularly well adapted to the command of a department which required the skill of a strategist combined with the ability of a statesman. He possesses great energy of body and mind with remarkable promptitude in action and perseverance of effort. From a leader possessed of such qualities, the country naturally expects much, and it has an assurance in the good service General Halleck has already rendered, that its expectations will not be disappointed.

The chief occupation of Halleck, when he first assumed the command in Missouri, was to thwart the machinations of the rebellious, by some of whom he was surrounded in St. Louis, to discipline the troops under his command, enforce a stricter police within the camps, and

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