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 Feb. 22,

1862.

This appeal alarmed the Confederate leaders in that State, and the Governor, Henry T. Clark, issued a counter-proclamation a few days 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 แ "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.

C.S.A.

PROCLAMATION,

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.

* 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, most of Arkansas, and the Territories of Nebraska, Colorado, and Dakota.

4 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 arranged 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." 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.

a Dec. 12, 1861.

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.

2 "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 independThe 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 Missouri 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.'

ence.

.

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 Jennison, who was active against the insurgents.

172

BATTLE OF ROANOKE ISLAND.

held out. At length the artillery ammunition of the Nationals began to fail, and they were suffering very severely in killed and wounded. Victory could now be won only by a charge. That movement was resolved upon. Major E. A. Kimball, of Hawkins's (Ninth New York) Zouaves (a hero of the Mexican war, who fought gallantly in every battle, from Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico), perceiving the necessity, and eager to serve his country (for whose cause he finally gave his life), offered to lead the charge across the causeway against the main battery, with the bayonet. The delighted Foster said, "You are the man, the Ninth the regiment, and this is the moment! Zouaves, storm the battery!" he shouted-" Forward!" In

an instant they were on the run across the causeway, yelling fearfully, and cheered by their admiring comrades on every side, who cried out, "Make way for the red-caps! They are the boys!" Colonel Hawkins, who was leading two companies in a flank movement on the left, seeing his men rushing to the perilous performance, could not resist his impulses, and, joining them, pressed forward the whole battalion, shouting, "Zou! Zou! Zou!" and closely followed by the Tenth Connecticut. The frightened Confederates, after firing once, had fled, and into the battery the Zouaves rushed, with none to oppose them, almost simultaneously with the Fifty-first New York and Twenty-first Massachusetts, who had attacked the Confederates on their right. The colors of the Fifty-first, being at the head of the regiment, were first planted on the captured battery, and at the same time the State flag of the Massachusetts Twenty-first was triumphantly displayed. The fugitives, in their haste, had left every thing behind them. There lay their dead and wounded as they had fallen. Their heavy guns were in perfect order, and the knapsacks and blankets of the routed soldiers were strewn about the works.

JOHN G. FOSTER.

General Foster, who had skillfully directed these successful movements in person, now re-formed his brigade, whilst Reno, with the Twenty-first Massachusetts and Ninth New York, started in pursuit. Foster soon followed and overtook Reno, who was maneuvering to cut off the retreat of about eight or nine hundred Confederates on the left, near Weir's Point. With a part of his force, Reno pushed on in that direction. Hawkins, with his Zouaves, hurried toward Shallowbag Bay, where, it was said, the Confederates had a two-gun battery. Foster pressed forward with an adequate force, and was on the heels of the fugitives, after a chase of five or six miles, when he was met by a flag of truce, borne by Colonel Pool, of the Eighth North Carolina, carrying a message from Colonel Shaw, who, as we have observed, was the senior acting officer in command on the Island, asking what terms of capitulation would be granted. "Unconditional surrender!"