The Struggle for Missouri Part 13

CHAPTER XVI. HUNTER, LANE, MISSOURI AND KANSAS.

Maj.-Gen. David Hunter felt that fortune was not smiling on him according to his deserts. He had graduated from West Point in 1822, and had been in the Army 39 years, or longer than any but few of the officers then in active employment. He was a thorough soldier, devoted to his profession, highly capable, inflexibly upright, strongly loyal, an old-time friend of President Lincoln, and enjoyed his full confidence. He had done a very painful piece of necessary work for the Administration in investigating the conditions in Gen. John C. Fremont's command, faithfully reporting them, and in relieving that officer, thereby incurring the enmity of all his partisans. Then he had handed the command over to Maj.-Gen. H. W. Hal-leck, who had graduated 17 years later than he, and who had been seven years out of the Army.

Gen. Hunter had been a.s.signed to Kansas, which was created a Department for him, but it had few troops, and was remote from the scene of important operations. He was particularly hurt that Brig.-Gen. Don Carlos Buell, 19 years his junior, should be a.s.signed to the command of a splendid army of 100,000 men in Kentucky; and Brig.-Gen. Thos. W. Sherman, 14 years his junior, should be selected to lead an important expedition to the coast of South Carolina and Georgia.

{272} Like the faithful soldier he was, however, he made little plaint of his own grievances, but addressed himself earnestly to the work to which he was a.s.signed. He soon had other troubles enough to make him forget his own. His hardest work was to keep the Kansans off the Missourians. In the strained and wavering conditions of public opinion, every effort had to be made to prevent any pretext or incentive to take the young men of Missouri into the ranks of Price's army. Gen. Halleck estimated that indignation at the border raids of Lane, Jennison and Montgomery had given Price fully 20,000 men. The years of strife along the borders had arrayed the people in both States against one another. Every Kansan considered every Missourian the enemy of himself and the State, and the feeling was reciprocated by the Missourians.

For years Kansas had been inflicted with raids by the "Poor White Trash," "Border Ruffians," and "Bald k.n.o.bbers," who had, beside committing other outrages, carried off into Missouri horses, cattle, furniture, farm implements, and other portable property.

The Kansans held all Missourians responsible for these crimes by the worser element, and the war seemed a chance to get even. When opportunity offered, Kansas parties invaded Missouri, bringing back with them everything which they could load on wagons or drive along the road.

{273} The great ma.s.s of the Missourians still held aloof from both sides, remaining as neutral as they would be allowed. Douglas Democrats, Bell-and-Everett Old-Line Whigs, two-thirds of the entire population, were yet halting between their attachment for the Union and their political and social affiliations. It was all-important that they should be kept loyal, or at least out of the Confederate camps, hence the stringency of Halleck's orders against any spoliations or depredations by Union troops, and hence his orders that the negroes should be kept out of the camps, and their owners.h.i.+p settled by the civil courts. Every offense by Union soldiers was made the most of by Price's recruiting agents to bring into their ranks the young men for the "defense of the State."

At the head of the vengeful Kansas element was the meteoric James H. Lane, who had for years ridden the whirlwind in the agitation following the pa.s.sage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and the rush of settlers into those Territories. Volumes have been written about "Jim Lane," but the last definitive word as to his character is yet to be uttered. Arch demagogue he certainly was, but demagogues have their great uses in periods of storm and stress. We usually term "demagogues" those men active against us, while those who are rousing the people on our own side are "patriotic leaders." No man had more enemies nor more enthusiastic friends than "Jim Lane."

As with all real leaders of men, the source of his power was a mystery. Tall, thin, bent, with red hair, a rugged countenance and rasping voice, he had little oratorical attractiveness, and what he said never read convincingly in print. No man, however, ever excelled him before an audience, and he swayed men as the winds do the sea.

{274} Lane was born in Lawrenceburg, Ind., in 1814, and was therefore 47 years of age. His father was Amos Lane, a lawyer of great ability, a member of Congress, and conspicuous in Indiana. James H. Lane went into politics at an early age, and entered the Mexican War as Colonel of the 3d Ind., distinguis.h.i.+ng himself at Buena Vista, where he was wounded. Upon the expiration of the term of service of his regiment he raised the 5th Ind., and became its Colonel. This gave him quite a prestige in politics, and he was elected Lieutenant-Governor, and Representative in Congress. The atmosphere of Indiana was, however, too quiet for his turbulent spirit. He broke with his party, joined in the rush to Kansas, and speedily became the leader of the out-and-out Free State men. On the strength of his Mexican War reputation these elected him Major-General of their troops, in the troubles they were having with the Pro-Slavery men and the United State troops sent to a.s.sist in making the Territory a Slave State. When the Free State men gained control of the Territory, he was made Major-General of the Territorial troops. His princ.i.p.al lieutenants were James Montgomery and Dr. Charles R. Jenni-son, brave, daring men, colleagues of "Old Osawatomie Brown," entertaining the same opinions as he with regard to slavery, and with even fewer scruples than he as to other forms of property.

{275} When the United States troops were a.s.sisting the Pro-Slavery men, Montgomery and Jennison went into active rebellion at the head of some hundreds of bold, fighting men-"Jayhawkers"-who carried terror into the ranks of their adversaries. They insisted that they were acting according to the light of their own consciences and the laws of G.o.d. So terrible did they become that, Nov. 26, 1860, Geo. M. Beebe, Acting Governor of the Territory, reported to President Buchanan that Montgomery and Jennison, at the head of between 300 and 500 "well-disciplined and desperate Jayhawkers," equipped with "arms of the latest and most deadly character," had hung two citizens of Linn County, and frightened 500 citizens of that County into flight from the Territory. One of their number having been captured, was about to be brought to trial before the United States District Court at Fort Scott, and what they alleged was a packed jury. They had proceeded to so frighten the court that the Judge and Marshals incontinently fled to Missouri, leaving a notice on the door that there would be no session of the court. Therefore Gov. Beebe humanely recommended to the President that Montgomery and Jennison be immediately killed, as there would be no peace in the Territory until they were.

In spite of Lane's constant prominence, there was always a faction in Kansas as bitterly his enemies as his friends were enthusiastic for him, and it was ever a question which of the two were the stronger. It demanded his utmost activity and cunning to keep himself on top. Upon the admission of the State, Lane succeeded in having himself elected Senator, but the legality of the proceeding was questioned and this called for more activity to keep himself at the front.

{276} When the Union army retreated after the battle of Wilson's Creek, Aug. 10, there went back with it the 1st and 2d Kan.-all the organized troops the State had in the field. This left the border exposed to the vengeance of Price's on-sweeping hordes, who made loud threats of what they proposed to do. Lane sounded the trumpet. Wilson's Creek with Bull Run had awakened the people to the stern realities of the contest, and there speedily gathered into camp the men who formed the 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Kan., Montgomery becoming Colonel of the 3d Kan.; Jennison of the 7th (Jennison's Jayhawkers). Lane took command of the troops a.s.sembled at Fort Scott, moved out aggressively on Price's flank, gave Rains, who was in command there, a sharp skirmish at Dry Wood, and his manuvers were so menacing that Price called Rains back when within five miles of the Kansas line, relinquis.h.i.+ng his cherished idea of "scourging the Abolitionist nest," and pushed on to Lexington. Lane then made a dash into Missouri in Price's rear, fought a lively skirmish at Papinsville, and followed up the retreating Confederates, capturing Osceola, as has been previously stated.

After Gen. Hunter a.s.sumed command Lane reappeared with a commission as Brigadier-General of Volunteers, of which he had beguiled President Lincoln, and began playing a game which gave intense annoyance to the bluff, straightforward old soldier. To Hunter he represented that he was there merely as a Senator and a member of the Senate Military Committee, which latter he was not. To the President and War Department he represented that he and Hunter were in brotherly sympathy and confidence, and planning a movement of mighty importance. The "sympathy" and "confidence" part were believed so completely, that the War Department did not take the trouble to communicate with Hunter in regard to the details of the proposed movement.

{277} To his friends and to the press he talked magniloquently about a grand "Southern expedition" to be made up of 8,000 or 10,000 Kansas troops, 4,000 Indians, seven regiments of cavalry, three batteries of artillery, and four regiments of infantry from Minnesota and Wisconsin, which he would command. It would move from Kansas down into Texas, and there meet an expedition coming up from the Gulf of Mexico. The War Department seems to have been impressed with the feasibility of this, and began ordering troops, officers and supplies to Fort Leavenworth to report to "Brig.-Gen. James H. Lane."

Lane's enemies as well as his friends in Kansas heartily approved of this, as it would take him away from Kansas, and the Kansas Legislature united in a request to have him appointed a Major-General, as that would vacate his seat in the Senate.

General-in-Chief McClellan "invited" Gen. Hunter's attention to the proposed expedition, and suggested that he prepare for it and report what might be necessary. Gen. Hunter replied that he had had no official information as to the expedition, and gently complained that the War Department seemed entirely unmindful of the Commander of the Department, and had consistently ignored him. As to the expedition, he regarded it as impracticable. It was 440 miles from Leavenworth to the nearest point in Texas, and the road was over a wild, barren country, which would require an immense train of supplies for the troops. He had in the Department only about 3,000 men, entirely too few to successfully defend Fort Leavenworth and its valuable supplies against a raid such as Price and McCulloch were continually threatening. He said he knew no such person as "Brig.-Gen. J. H. Lane," to whom so many came with orders to report. He also said that Lane himself now saw that he had raised expectations which he could not fulfill, and that he was seeking to pick a quarrel with the Department Commander to give him an excuse for dropping the whole business, and was making himself very annoying in a thousand ways.

{278} Secretary Stanton was profoundly distrustful of Lane, and said that he would leave the Cabinet rather than put him in independent command. Finally the matter came to President Lincoln, who wrote the following characteristic letter: Executive Mansion, Was.h.i.+ngton, Feb. 10. Maj.-Gen. Hunter and Brig.-Gen. Lane, Leavenworth, Kan.:

My wish has been and is to avail the Government of the services of both Gen. Hunter and Gen. Lane, and, so far as possible, to personally oblige both. Gen. Hunter is the senior officer, and must command when they serve together; tho in so far as he can, consistently with the public service and his own honor, oblige Gen. Lane, he will also oblige me. If they cannot come to an amicable understanding, Gen. Lane must report to Gen. Hunter for duty, according to the rules, or decline the service.

A. LINCOLN.

Lane, who then thought his seat in the Senate safe, decided that he would rather serve his country in the forum than in the field, and his commission was cancelled. Five years later, dismayed to find he had lost his hold on the people of Kansas by his support of Andrew Johnson, he ended his strange, eventful history with a pistol-shot from his own hand.

Gen. Hunter having reported that the division of Kansas from Missouri was unwise, the Department was merged into Gen. Halleck's command, and Gen. Hunter a.s.signed to duty in South Carolina.

{279} Gen. Halleck's laboriously elaborate system received a little shock so ludicrous as to be almost incredible were it not solemnly told in an official communication by himself to Gen. Sterling Price: St Louis, Jan. 27, 1862. Maj.-Gen. Sterling Price, Commanding, etc., Springfield, Mo. General: A man calling himself L. V. Nichols came to my headquarters a day or two since, with a duplicate of your letter of the 12th instant.

On being questioned, he admitted that he belonged to your service; that he had come in citizen's dress from Springfield, avoiding some of our military posts and pa.s.sing through others in disguise, and without reporting himself to the Commander. He said that he had done this by your direction. On being asked for his flag of truce, he pulled from his pocket a dirty pocket-handkerchief, with a short stick tied to one corner.

Gen. Halleck then proceeded to read Gen. Price a lecture on the etiquette of flags of truce.

A feature of peculiar pathos was the war storms' reaching and rending of the haven of refuge which the Government had provided for its wards in the Indian Territory. More than a century of bitter struggling between the Creeks, Seminoles, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, and the Carolinians, Georgians, Floridians, Alabamians, and Mississippians, marked by murderous ma.s.sacres and b.l.o.o.d.y retaliations, had culminated in the Indians being removed in a body from their tribal domains, and resettled hundreds of miles west of the Mississippi, where it was confidently hoped they would be out of the way of the advancing wave of settlement and out of the reach of the land-hungry whites. Their mills, churches, and school houses were reerected there, and the devoted missionaries, the Congregationalists, Methodists, Baptists, Moravians and Jesuits resumed with increased zeal the work of converting them to Christianity and civilization, which had been so far prosecuted with gratifying success.

{280} In their new home they had prospered wonderfully. Their numbers increased until they were estimated from 100,000 to 120,000. Many of them lived in comfortable houses, wore white men's clothes, and tilled fields on which were raised in the aggregate great quant.i.ties of wheat, corn, cotton and potatoes. They had herds of horses, cattle, sheep and swine large beyond any precedent among the whites. It was common for an Indian to number his horses and cattle by the thousands, while the poorest of them owned scores which foraged in the plenty of limitless rich prairies and bottom land. Churches, school houses and mills abounded, and they had even a printing press, from which they issued a paper and many religious and educational works in an alphabet invented by a full-blood Cherokee. Each tribe const.i.tuted an individual Nation under a written Const.i.tution, with a full set of elective officers. Slavery had been introduced by the half-breeds, and the census of 1860 shows the following number of slaves and slave-owners in the five Nations: Owners. Slaves.

Choctaws..........................385 2,297

Cherokees.........................384 2,604

Creeks............................287 1,661

Chickasaws........................118 917

Semlnoles..................... ....- ---.

One Choctaw owned 227 negroes.

Into the Territory the Government also gathered other tribes and remnants of tribes, Quapaws, Kiowas, Senecas, Comanches, etc., mostly in the "blanket" stage of savagery.

{281} The dominant sentiment in the civilized tribes was strongly averse to the war and in favor of peace. The memories and traditions as to the meaning of war were too fresh and grievous. The object lessons as to the advantage of peace were everywhere striking and overwhelming. They hoped to maintain a complete neutrality in the struggle, and pleaded to be allowed to do so. June 17, 1861, John Ross, Princ.i.p.al Chief of the Cherokees, wrote a long official letter to Gen. Ben. McCulloch, in which he said that his people had done nothing to bring about the war, were friends to both sides, and only desired to live in peace.

As in the rest of the South, the Confederates were not listening to any talk of neutrality, and they proceeded as energetically to stifle it as they had the Union and peace advocates in the several Southern States. All the Indian Agents and officials were ardent Secessionists, and at the head of them was Superintendent Albert Pike, originally a Ma.s.sachusetts Yankee, and the son of a poor shoemaker. He had gone South as one of the numerous "Yankee schoolmasters" who invaded that section in search of a livelihood, had become a States Rights Democrat, and, as usual with proselytes, was the most zealous of believers. He was a lawyer of some ability, a successful politician, an active worker in Masonry, and made much pretense as a poet. Nothing that he ever wrote survives today.

Each of the Indian Agents began enlisting men into the Confederate service and using them to impose Secession ideas upon their fellow-tribesmen who were either indifferent or actually hostile.

{282} The missionaries, being mostly from the North, were strongly for the Union, and their influence had to be encountered and broken down.

The Indian Agents were commissioned Colonels in the Confederate service, and were expected to raise regiments, with the Chiefs as subordinate officers. The leader among the Agents was Douglas H. Cooper, Agent for the Choctaws, a man of courage, decision and enterprise, who raised a regiment mainly of the half-breeds of the Choctaws and Chickasaws.

The Cherokee regiment was almost wholly half-breeds, with Stand Waitie, a half-breed, courageous, implacable, merciless, as its Colonel. Albert Pike was rewarded for his great service in bringing the Indians into line with a commission of Brigadier-General, C. S. A., and placed in command of the whole force.

Princ.i.p.al Chief John Ross temporarily bowed to superior force and gave his adhesion to the Southern Confederacy. A large portion of his people would not do this. They, with a similar element in the other Nations, gathered around the venerable Chief Hopoeithleyohola, nearly 100 years old, and whose span of life began before the Revolutionary War. He had been a dreaded young war leader against Gen. Jackson in the sanguinary scenes at Fort Mimms, Tallapoosa, and Red Sticks in 1813-14. When he was a boy his people were allied with the Spaniards in Florida to resist the British encroachments upon their tribal empire in Georgia. When he was a War Chief, the British at Pensacola and Mobile had put muskets and ammunition into his hands for his men to resist the North Carolinians, Georgians, Tennesseeans and Kentuckians. In every decade he had fought and treated with the grandfathers and fathers of the same men who were trying to coerce him.

{283} Every battle and every treaty had ended in a further spoliation of the "hunting grounds" of his people. He was now to end his career as he began, and consistently pursued it, in stern resistance to his hereditary enemies. He calculated that he could put into the field about 1,500 reliable, well-armed warriors, who would be more than a match for the Indians who had entered into the Confederate service. If the white Confederates came to their a.s.sistance, he could make an orderly retreat into Kansas, where he hoped to receive help from Union troops, if they should not have advanced before then.

Col. Douglas H. Cooper was sent against him, and at first tried diplomacy, but the wily old Hopoeithleyohola had seen the results of too many conferences, and refused to be drawn into one. Cooper then a.s.sembled a force of 1,400 men, consisting of some companies of white Texas cavalry and the Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole regiments, under their War Chiefs, D. N. Mcintosh and John Jumper, and moved out to attack Hopoeithleyohola, who beat them back with considerable loss.

The advance of Gen. Fremont called for the concentration of every available man to oppose him, so Hopoeithleyohola was given a few weeks' respite. As soon, however, as the Union army retreated to Rolla and Sedalia, Col. Cooper resumed his operations against Hopoeithleyohola, who at Chusto-Talasah, Dec. 9, inflicted such a severe defeat upon him that Cooper retreated in a crippled condition to Fort Gibson. There Col. James Mcintosh, commanding the Confederate forces at Van Buren, Ark., went to his a.s.sistance with some 1,600 mounted Texans and Arkansans, and the combined force closed in upon the Union Indians at Shoal Greek.

{284} Hopoeithleyohola and his Lieutenant, Haleck-Tustenugge, handled their men with the greatest skill and courage in an obstinate battle, but after four hours of resistance the overpowered Union Indians were driven, pursued by Stand Waitie's murderous half-breeds, who took no men and but few women and children prisoners. Back over the wide, shelterless prairie, bitten by the cruel cold and pelted by the storms of an unusually severe Midwinter, Hopoeithleyohola led his defeated band to a refuge in far-away Kansas. The weather was so severe that Col. Cooper reports some his men as frozen to death as they rode along, but the scent of blood was in the half-breed Stand Waitie's nostrils, and he pressed onward remorselessly.

More than 1,000 men, women and children of Hopoeithleyohola's band left their homes to whiten and mark the dismal trail, and the aged Chief himself died shortly after reaching Fort Scott, where he was buried with all the honors of war.

Upon the fertile Indian Territory descended the war storm which blighted the work of the missionaries, and completely ruined the fairest prospects in our history for civilizing and Christianizing the aborigines. When the storm ended, one-quarter of the people had perished, the fences, houses, mills, schoolhouses and churches were all burnt, and the hundreds of thousands of horses, cattle, sheep and hogs had disappeared so completely that the Government was compelled to furnish the Indians with animals to stock their farms anew.

{285} Sterling Price had reached his zenith in the capture of Lexington, Sept 20, 1861. In substantial results it was the biggest achievement of the war that far. Bull Run had been, indeed, a much larger battle, but at Lexington Price had captured 3,000 prisoners, including five Colonels and 120 other commissioned officers; 1,000 horses and mules; 100 wagons; seven pieces of artillery; 3,000 stands of arms; $900,000 in money, and a very large quant.i.ty of Commissary and Quartermaster's supplies.

Though he was to fight nearly four years longer with the greatest enterprise and determination, though he was to command vastly stronger forces, and though he was to be followed by myriads of Missourians with unfaltering courage and enthusiasm, he was never to approach a parallel to this s.h.i.+ning achievement.

It was felt that Lexington was only the earnest of incomparably greater things he was going to do in delivering Missouri from the hated Yankees, and making hers the brightest star in the Southern Confederacy, paling with her military glory even historic Virginia. Then McCulloch would come up with his Texans, Louisianians and Arkansans, and Albert Pike with his horde of Indians. There would be such an overthrow and annihilation of their enemies as the world had never before seen, followed by a race to get to St. Louis before Polk, Pillow and M. Jeff Thompson could reach her from down the Mississippi.

Sterling Price was eager to fight Fremont among the rough, high lands south of Springfield, and his ardent followers wanted a repet.i.tion of the triumph of Lexington; but McCulloch would not come up from his fastness at Cross Hollows. Without him Sterling Price, his strength depleted by defections on his long retreat, did not feel warranted in offering battle, even with the advantage of the defensive hills.

{286} McCulloch was importuned to come forward without success. The best comfort he could give Sterling Price was to destroy that part of Missouri and make it worthless to the enemy. McCulloch wanted to advance into Kansas, however, and utterly destroy that Territory, to strike terror to the Abolitionists. It speaks very badly for their intelligence system that both Price and McCulloch maintained, that neither of them was aware for days that the Union army had left Springfield, Nov. 8, on its retreat to Rolla and Sedalia. Although their camps were only some 70 miles from Springfield, they did not learn of the retreat until Nov. 16, when McCulloch, seized at last with a sudden desire to enter Missouri, rushed all his mounted men forward in hopes to capture trains and detachments. They were disgusted to find upon arriving at Springfield that the last Union soldier and wagon had left there more than a week previous.

After some destruction of property, McCulloch sullenly returned to his old position in Arkansas, where, leaving his command to Col. James Mcintosh, lately Captain in the United States Army, he departed for Richmond to give the Confederate War Department his version of the occurrences in his territory.

Sterling Price had learned the same day, Nov. 16, of the departure of the Union army, and set his columns in motion northward, announcing that he was going to winter on the Missouri River. Again he sent an appeal to McCulloch to cooperate, but Col. Mcintosh declined, on the ground that the troops were not properly clad for the rigorous weather so far north, and, besides, he did not think that the expedition would do any good.

{287} Sterling Price simply let loose his army on the country evacuated by the Union troops, and a reign of indescribable misery ensued for the Union people and those who were vainly trying to keep the neutral middle of the road. The army was spread out as much as possible in order to gather in recruits and supplies and a.s.sert its influence most widely.

From Marshall, in Saline Co., Sterling Price issued a most remarkable proclamation to the people, calling for 50,000 volunteers. He reminded them that their harvests had been reaped, their preparation for Winter had been made, and now they had leisure to do something to relieve the people from the "inflictions of a foe marked with all the characteristics of barbarian warfare." He admitted that the great ma.s.s of the people were not in the war, and especially the substantial portion of the population, for, he said, "boys and small property-holders have in the main fought the battles." He begged, he implored that the herdsman should leave his folds, the lawyer his office, and come into camp to win the victory. He even dropped into poetry in his tearful earnestness, quoting the school boy's declamation from Marco Bozarris: Strike, till the last armed foe expires; Strike, for your altars and your fires! Strike for the green graves of your sires, G.o.d, and your native land!

An infinitely harmful part of the proclamation was the following: Leave your property at home. What if it be taken-all taken?

We have $200,000,000 worth of Northern means in Missouri which cannot be removed. When we are once free the State will indemnify every citizen who may have lost a dollar by adhesion to the cause of his country. We shall have our property, or its value, with interest.

{288} This was naturally interpreted as meaning that all those not distinctly favorable to Secession forfeited their property to those who were.

This seemed ample warrant to the Poor White Trash banditti for seizure of the property of any man whose principles might not be of exactly the right shade.

Experience teaches us that that cla.s.s of people are pretty certain to find heterodox the opinions of any man who has something they may want. It certainly made a very dark outlook for anybody in Missouri to hold moveable property.

The turbid thrasonics of the proclamation shows that it was not written by Price's Adjutant-General, Thomas L. Snead, who was a literary man. He was then absent at Richmond looking after the fences of his General. The proclamation sounds the more as if it came from the pen of our poetical acquaintance, M. Jeff Thompson, the "Swamp Fox" of the Mississippi. It concluded in this perfervid style: But, in the name of G.o.d and the attributes of manhood, let me appeal to you by considerations infinitely higher than money! Are we a generation of driveling, sniveling, degraded slaves? Or are we men who dare a.s.sert and maintain the rights which cannot be surrendered, and defend those principles of everlasting rect.i.tude, pure and high and sacred, like G.o.d, their author? Be yours the office to choose between the glory of a free country and a just Government, and the bondage of your children! I will never see the chains fastened upon my country. I will ask for six and one-half feet of Missouri soil in which to repose, but will not live to see my people enslaved.

Do I hear your shouts? Is that your war-cry which echoes through the land? Are you coming? Fifty thousand men! Missouri shall move to victory with the tread of a giant! Come on, my brave boys, 50,000 heroic, gallant, unconquerable Southern men! We await your coming.

{289} Sterling Price established his headquarters again at Osceola, on the banks of the Osage, but sent forward Gens. Rains and Steen to Lexington, the best point on the Missouri to hold the river and afford a pa.s.sage for recruits coming in from the northern part of the State.

The results of the proclamation were not commensurate with the desperate urgency of the appeal. Large parties of recruits, it is true, tried to make their way toward Price's camp, but many of them were intercepted, and dispersed; strong blows were delivered against Price's outlying detachments, driving them in from all sides. Meanwhile those he had in camp were melting away faster than hew ones were coming in.

Sterling Price had other troubles. He was not a favorite in Richmond. Jefferson Davis was a man never doubtful as to the correctness of his own ideas, and he was most certain of those relating to military men and affairs. He had had extraordinary opportunities for familiarizing himself with all the fighting men, and possible fighting men, in the country. He graduated from West Point in 1828, 23d in a cla.s.s of 33; none of whom, besides himself, became prominent. He had served seven years as a Lieutenant in the Regular Army on frontier duty, and as Colonel of a regiment in the Mexican War, where he achieved flattering distinction. He had been four years Chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, and four years Secretary of War. It must be admitted that his judgment with regard to officers was very often correct; yet he was a man of strong likes and dislikes. His reputation was that of "having the most quarrels and the fewest fights of any man in the Army."

{290} Undoubtedly his partialities drew several men into the Confederate army who would otherwise have remained loyal, and his antipathies retained some men in the Union army who would otherwise have gone South. His reasons for disliking Price are obscure, further than that Price was a civilian, who had had no Regular Army training or experience, and that he believed Price to be in conspiracy to set up a Trans-Mississippi Confederacy. But little evidence of such intention is to be found anywhere, yet that little was sufficient for a man of Davis's jealous, suspicious nature. Repeatedly, at the mere mention of Price's name, he flew into an undignified pa.s.sion and denounced him unsparingly.

Price's men were carrying havoc as far as they could reach. Nov. 19 they burned the important little town of Warsaw, the County seat of Benton County and a Union stronghold. In 1860 the people of Benton County had cast but 74 votes for Lincoln and but 100 for Breckinridge, while they gave Bell and Everett 306 votes and Douglas 574. Dec 16 Platte City, County seat of Piatt County, was nearly destroyed by them. This was another Union community, and a large majority of the people were Bell-and-Everett Unionists or Douglas Democrats. Dec. 20 a concerted foray of guerrillas and bushwhackers burnt the bridges and otherwise crippled nearly 100 miles of Northern Railroad. But Halleck's splendid systematizing had begun to tell.

{291} The northern part of Missouri was made unbearably hot for bridge-burners and other depredators by the swift execution of a number of "peaceful citizens" caught red-handed, and the probability that others would be caught and served in the same way. Gen. John Pope, commanding in Central Missouri, began at last to show the stuff that was in him, and by a skillful movement got into the rear of Bains and Steen, compelling them to hurriedly abandon the line of the Missouri River, and striking them so sharply in their flight as to capture 300 prisoners, 70 wagons, with loads of supplies for Price's army, and much other valuable booty. Another of Pope's columns, under Col. Jeff C. Davis, surprised a camp at Mil-ford, Dec. 18, and forced its unconditional surrender, capturing three Colonels (one of whom was a brother of Gov. Magoffin, of Kentucky), 17 Captains, and over 1,000 prisoners, 1,000 stands of arms, 1,000 horses and mules, and a great amount of supplies, tents, baggage, and ammunition. In a couple of weeks Gen. Pope, with a loss of about 100 men, captured 2,500 prisoners.

Jan. 2 Gen. Fred Steele, commanding at Sedalia, and a level-minded man, who kept himself well informed, telegraphed to Gen. Halleck: Price's whole force not over 16,000. In all 63 pieces of artillery, none rifled. Horses very poor. Price says he is going to Jefferson City as soon as they are organized. At present he has no discipline; no sentinels or picket to prevent pa.s.sing in and out. Rains drinking all the time. Price also drinking too much.

Clearly Price had in him none of the startling aggressiveness which distinguished Lyon and Stonewall Jackson. He made no effort to suddenly collect his forces and inflict an overwhelming blow upon one after another of the columns converging upon him and defeat them in detail. Instead, he lost heart, and, abandoning the strong lines of the Osage and the Pomme de Terre, fell back to Springfield, where comfortable quarters were built for his men, and he gathered in an abundance of supplies from the Union farmers of the surrounding country, expecting that he would be left undisturbed until Spring.

{292} Thus the year 1861 ended with some 61 battles and considerable skirmishes having been fought on the soil of Missouri, with a loss to the Union side of between 500 and 600 killed, treble that number wounded, and about 3,600 prisoners.

The Confederate loss was probably in excess in most of the engagements. Besides, they had lost fully four-fifths of the State, and were in imminent danger of being driven from the restricted foothold they still retained in the southwestern corner.

The Union State Government, with the conservative, able Hamilton R. Gamble at the head, was running with tolerable smoothness. Courts were sitting in most of the Counties to administer justice. Under Halleck's orders Judges, Sheriffs, Clerks, jurors, parties and witnesses had to take the oath of allegiance. Gen. Schofield was rapidly organizing his 13,000 Missouri Militia to maintain peace in the State, and incidentally to keep many of the men enrolled out of the rebel army.

{293}

CHAPTER XVII. PRICE DRIVEN OUT OF THE STATE.

When he abandoned the strong line of the Osage and took up his position at Springfield, Gen. Sterling Price, like the Russians against Napoleon, relied upon his powerful allies, Gens. January, February and March. At that time the roads in Missouri were merely rough trails, running over hills and deep-soiled valleys of fertile loam, cut every few miles by rapid streams. The storms of Winter quickly converted the hills into icy precipices, the valleys into quagmires, and the streams into raging torrents. The Winters were never severe enough to give steady cold weather, and allow operations over a firmly-frozen footing. Rain, sleet and snow, hard frosts and warm thaws alternated with each other so frequently as to keep the roads in a condition of what the country people call a "breakup," when travel is very difficult for the individual and next to impossible for an army.

When, therefore, at the last of December, Gen. Price returned to Springfield, in the heart of the rich farming district of southwest Missouri, and 125 miles or more distant from the Union bases-Rolla and Sedalia, at the ends of the railroads, he had much reason for believing he would be left undisturbed for at least two months, which rest he very much needed to prepare for the strenuous campaign that he knew the industrious Halleck was organizing against him. He wanted the rest for many reasons. Yielding to the strong pressure of Missourians, Jefferson Davis had agreed to appoint Price a Major-General, C. S. A., but upon the condition that he bring in the Confederate service a full division of Missouri troops.

{294} With his towering influence in Misssouri this would not have been a difficult thing to do with the whole State to draw from. It was quite otherwise with three-fourths of Missouri held by the Union troops and Halleck's well-laid nets everywhere to catch parties of recruits trying to make their way to Price.

Still, Price was justified in his confidence that the Union troops would be satisfied with holding northern and central Missouri during the Winter, and would not venture far from their base of supplies on the Missouri River and the termini of the railroads at Rolla and Sedalia.

Whatever aggressive disposition they might have which the condition of the roads would not dampen would be quelled by the knowledge that McCulloch's army of Texans, Louisianians, Arkansans and Indians lay at Cross Hollow, within easy supporting distance of him.

Therefore, Price settled down at Springfield, and his men built comfortable cabins in which to pa.s.s the time until Spring. The Union farmers in the country roundabout were stripped of their grain and cattle for supplies, and Price proceeded with the organization of his Confederate division.

Jefferson Davis's feelings toward Price and Missouri are in a measure revealed in the following querulous letter, which also indicates Mr. Davis's tendencies to pose as a much-enduring, martyr-like man: {295} Hon. W. P. Harris, Confederate States Congress.