Charles Carleton Coffin Part 4

[Ill.u.s.tration: Yours truly Charles Carleton Coffin]

CHAPTER VII.

THE WAR CORRESPONDENT.

When the long gathering clouds broke in the storm at Sumter, and war was precipitated in a rain of blood, Charles Carleton Coffin's first question was as to his duty. He was thirty-seven years old, healthy and hearty, though not what men would usually call robust. To him who had long learned to look into the causes of things, who knew well his country's history, and who had been educated to thinking and feeling by the long debate on slavery, the Secession movement was nothing more or less than a slaveholders' conspiracy. His conviction in 1861 was the same as that held by him, when more than thirty years of reflection had pa.s.sed by, that the inaugurators of the Civil War of 1861-65 were guilty of a gigantic crime.

In 1861, with his manhood and his talent, the question was not on which side duty lay, or whether his relation to the question should be active or pa.s.sive, but just how he could most and best give himself to the service of his country. Whether with rifle or pen, he would do nothing less than his best. He inquired first at the recruiting office of the army. He was promptly informed that on no account could he be accepted as an active soldier, whether private or officer, on account of his lame heel. Rejected here, he thought that some other department of public service might be open to him in which he could be more or less directly in touch with the soldiers. While uncertain as to his future course, he was, happily for his country, led to consult his old friend, Senator Henry Wilson, who immediately and strenuously advised him to give up all idea of either the army, the hospital, the clerical, or any other government service, but to enter at once actively upon the work of a war correspondent.

"Your talent," said Wilson, "is with the pen, and you can do the best service by seeing what is going on and reporting it."

The author of the "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America"

intimated that truth, accurately told and published throughout the North, was not only extremely valuable, but absolutely necessary. It would not take long for a thoroughly truthful reporter to make himself a national authority. The sympathizers with disunion would be only too active in spreading rumors to dishearten the upholders of the Union, and there would be need for every honest pen and voice.

After this conversation, Carleton was at peace. He would find his work and ask no other blessedness. But how to find it, and to win his place as a recognized writer on the field was a question. Within our generation, the world has learned the value of the war correspondent.

He has won the spurs of the knighthood of civilization. He wears in life the laurel wreath of fame. He is respected in his calling. He goes forth as an apostle of the printed truth. The resources of wealthy corporations are behind him. His salary is not princely, but it is ample. Though he may lose limb or life, he is honored like the soldier, and after his death, the monument rises to his memory. In the great struggle between France and Germany, between Russia and Turkey, between j.a.pan and China, and in the minor wars of European Powers against inferior civilizations, in Asia and Africa, the "war correspondent" has been a striking figure. He is not the creation of our age; but our half of this century, having greater need of him, has equipped him the most liberally. He has his permanent place of honor.

If the newspaper is the Woden of our century and civilization, the war correspondent and the printer are the twin Ravens that sit upon his shoulder. The one flies afar to gather the news, the other sits at home to scatter the tidings.

In 1861 it was very different. The idea of spending large sums of money, and maintaining a staff-corps of correspondents who on land and sea should follow our armies and fleets, and utilize horse, rail car, and telegraph, boat, yacht, and steamer, without regard to expense, had not seized upon newspaper publishers in the Eastern States. Almost from the first, the great New York journals organized bureaus for the collection of news. With relays of stenographers, telegraphers, and extra printers, they were ready for all emergencies in the home office, besides liberally endowing their agencies at Was.h.i.+ngton and cities near the front, and equipping their correspondent, in camp and on deck. In this, the New England publishers were far behind those on Manhattan Island. Carleton, when in Was.h.i.+ngton, wrote his first letters to the Boston _Journal_ and took the risk of their being accepted for publication. He visited the camps, forts, and places of storage of government material. He described the preparations for war and life in Was.h.i.+ngton with such spirit and graphic power, that from June 15 to July 17, 1861, no fewer than twenty-one of his letters were published in the _Journal_.

The great battle of Bull Run gave him his opportunity. As an eye-witness, his opportunity was one to be coveted. He wrote out so full, so clear, and so interesting an account, that the proprietors of the _Journal_ engaged him as their regular correspondent at a salary of twenty-five dollars a week, with extra allowance for transportation. His instructions were to "keep the _Journal_ at the front. Use all means for obtaining and transmitting important information, regardless of expense." This, however, was not to be interpreted to mean that he should have a.s.sistants or be the head of a bureau or relay of men, as in the case of the chief correspondent of at least three of the New York newspapers. It meant that he was to gather and transmit the news and be the whole bureau and staff in himself. Nevertheless, during most of the war, the Boston _Journal_ was the only New England paper that kept a regular correspondent permanently not only in Was.h.i.+ngton, but at the seat of war. Carleton in several signal instances sent news of most important movements and victories ahead of any other Northern correspondent. He achieved a succession of what newspaper men call "beats." In those days, on account of the great expense, the telegraph was used only for summaries of news, and rarely, if ever, for long despatches or letters. The ideas and practice of newspaper managers have greatly enlarged since 1865. Entering upon his work at the very beginning of the war, he was, we believe, almost the only field correspondent who continued steadily to the end, coming out of it with unbroken health of body and mind.

How he managed to preserve his strength and enthusiasm, and to excel where so many others did well and n.o.bly, is an open secret. In the first place, he was a man of profoundest religious faith in the Heavenly Father. Prayer was his refreshment. He renewed his strength by waiting upon G.o.d. His spirit never grew weary. In the darkest days he was able to cheer and encourage the desponding. He spoke continually, through the _Journal_, to hundreds of thousands of readers, in tones of cheer. Like a great lighthouse, with its mighty lamps ever burning and its reflectors and lenses kept clean and clear, Carleton, never discouraged, terrified, or tired out, sent across the troubled sea and through the deepest darkness the inspiriting flash of the light of truth and the steady beam of faith in the Right and its ultimate triumph. He was a missionary of cheer among the soldiers in camp and at the front. His reports of battles, and his message of comfort in times of inaction, wilted the hopes of the traitors, copperheads, cowards, and "nightshades" at home, while they put new blood in the veins of the hopeful.

Carleton was always welcome among the commanders and at headquarters.

This was because of his frankness as well as his ability and his genial bonhomie and social qualities. He did not consider himself a critic of generals. He simply described. He took care to tell what he saw, or knew on good authority to be true. He did probe rumors. From the very first he became a higher critic of a.s.sertions and even of doc.u.ments. He quickly learned the value of camp reports and items of news. By and by his skill became the envy of many of less experienced readers of human nature, and judges of talk and despatches. While s.h.i.+rking no hard work in the saddle, on foot, on the rail, or in the boat, he found by experience that by keeping near headquarters he was the better enabled to know the motions of the army as a whole, to divine the plans of the commanding general, and thus test the value of flying rumors. He had a genius for interpreting signs of movement, whether in the loading of a barge, the riding of an orderly, or the nod of a general's head. His previous training as an engineer and surveyor enabled him to foresee the strategic value of a position and to know the general course of a campaign in a particular district of country. With this power of practical foresight, he was often better able even than some of the generals to foresee and appraise results.

This topographical knowledge also gave him that power of wonderful clearness in description which is the first and best quality necessary to the narrator of a series of complex movements. A battle fought in the open, like that at Gettysburg, or one of those which took place during the previous campaigns, on a plain, along the river, and in the Peninsula, is comparatively easy to describe, especially when viewed from an eminence. These battles were like those in ordinary European history; but after Grant took command of the Army of the Potomac, a reversion to something like the American colonial methods in the forest took place. The heaviest fighting was in the woods, behind entrenchments, or in regions where but little of the general scheme, and few of the operations, could be seen at once. In either case, however, as will be seen by reading over the thousand or so letters in Carleton's correspondence, his power of making a modern battle easily understood is, if not unique, at least very remarkable. With his letters often went diagrams which greatly aided his readers.

Carleton's personal courage was always equal to that of the bravest.

Too sincerely appreciative of the gift of life from his Creator, he never needlessly, especially after his first eagerness for experience had been satiated, exposed himself, as the Dutch used to say, with "full-hardiness," or as we, corrupting the word, say, with "foolhardiness." He got out of the line of sh.e.l.ls and bullets where there was no call for his presence, and when the only justification for remaining would be to gratify idle curiosity. Yet, when duty called, when there was need to know both the facts, and the truth to be deduced from the facts, whistling bullets or screeching sh.e.l.ls never sufficed to drive him away. His coolness with pen and pencil, amid the dropping fire of the enemy, made heroes of many a soldier whose nerves were not as strong as was the instinct of his legs to run. The lady librarian of Dover, N. H., thus writes:

"An old soldier whom I was once showing through the library stopped short in front of Coffin's books and looked at them with much interest. He said that at his first battle,--I think it was Fredericksburg, but of this I am not sure,--he was scared almost to death. He was a mere boy, and when his regiment was ordered to the front and the shot was lively around him, he would have run away if he had dared. But a little distance off, he saw a man standing under the lee of a tree and writing away as coolly as if he were standing at a desk. The soldier asked who he was, and was told it was Carleton, of the _Journal_. 'There he stood,' said the man, 'perfectly unconcerned, and I felt easier every time I looked at him. Finally he finished and went off to another place. But that was his reputation among the men all through the war,--perfectly cool, and always at the front.'"

Carleton was able to withstand four years of mental strain and physical exposure because he knew and put in practice the right laws of life. His temperance in eating and drinking was habitual. Often dependent with the private soldier, while on the march and in camp, on raw pork and hardtack; helped out in emergencies with food and victuals, by the quartermaster or his a.s.sistants; not infrequently reaching the verge of starvation, he did not, when reaching city or home, play the gourmand. He drank no intoxicating liquor, always politely waving aside the social gla.s.s. He was true to his principles of total abstinence which had been formed in boyhood. It would have been easy for him to become intemperate, since in early boyhood he acquired a fondness for liquors, through being allowed to drink what might remain in the gla.s.s after his sick mother had partaken of her tonic. He demonstrated that man has no necessity for alcoholic drinks, however much he may enjoy them.

Only on one occasion was he known to taste strong liquor. In the Wilderness, when in a company of officers on horseback, the bloodcurdling Confederate yells were heard but a short distance off, and it seemed as though our line had been broken and the day was lost for the Union army. At that dark moment, one of the officers on General Meade's staff produced a flask of brandy, and remarking--with inherited English prejudice--that he would fortify his nerves with "Dutch courage," to tide over the emergency, he quaffed, and then handed the refreshment to his companion. In the momentary and infectious need for stimulant of some sort, Mr. Coffin took a sip and handed it on. Though himself having no need of and very rarely making use of spirits, even medicinally, he was yet kindly charitable towards his weaker brethren. It is too sadly true that many of the military officers, who yielded to the temptation of temporarily bracing their nerves at critical moments, became slaves to the bottle, and afterwards confirmed drunkards. Carleton made no use of tobacco in any form.

Carleton's wonderful prescience of coming events, and his decisions rightly made as to his own whereabouts in crises, enabled him to concentrate without wasting his powers. He then gave himself to his work with all ardor, and without sparing brain or muscle, risking limb and life at Bull Run, on the Mississippi, at Fort Donelson, at Antietam and Gettysburg, in the Wilderness, at Savannah, and in Richmond. His powers in toil were prodigious. He could turn off an immense amount of work, and keep it up. When the lull followed the agony, he went home to rest and recruit, spending the time with his wife and friends, everywhere diffusing the suns.h.i.+ne of hope and faith. When rested and refreshed, he hied again to the front and the conflict. The careers of most army correspondents in the field were short. Carleton's race was long. His was the promise of the prophet's glorious burden in Isaiah xl. 28-31.

It was between his thirty-eighth and forty-second year, when in the high tide of his manly strength, that Carleton pursued the profession of letters amid the din of arms. His pictures show him a handsome man, with broad, open forehead and sunny complexion, standing nearly six feet high, his feet cased in the broad and comfortable boots which he always wore. Over his ordinary suit of clothing was a long and comfortable overcoat with a cape, around which was a belt, to which hung a spy-gla.s.s. Later in the war he bought a fine binocular marine gla.s.s. He gave the old "historic spy-gla.s.s" to his nephew Edmund, from under whose head it was stolen by some camp thief. In his numerous and capacious pockets, besides a watch and a pocket compa.s.s, was a store of note-books, in which he was accustomed to jot his rapid, lightning-like notes, which meant "reading without tears" for him, but woe and sorrow to those who had to knit their brows in trying to decipher his "crow-tracks." During the first part of the war he bought horses as often as he needed them, and these were not always of the first quality as to flesh or character. He usually found it difficult to recover his beast after having been away home. In the later campaigns he possessed finer animals for longer s.p.a.ces of time, taking more pains, and spending more money to recover them on his return from absences North.

Nevertheless, in order to beat other correspondents, to be at the front, in the right moment, in order to satisfy the need for news, he counted neither the life nor the owners.h.i.+p of his horse as worth a moment's consideration. In comparison with the idea of stilling the public anxiety, and giving the news of victory, he acted upon the principle of his Master,--"Ye are of more value than many sparrows."

One man, using plain English, says, "Uncle Carleton got the news, goodness knows how, but he got it always and truly. He was the cheekiest man on earth for the sake of the _Journal_, and the people of New England. He used to ask for and give news even to the commander-in-chief. Often the staff officers would be amazed at the cheek of Carleton in suggesting what should be done. His b.u.mp of locality and topography was well developed, and he read the face of the country as by intuition. He would talk to the commander as no civilian could or would, but Meade usually took it pleasantly, and Grant always welcomed it, and seemed glad to get it. I have seen him (Grant) in long conversations with Mr. Coffin, when no others were near."

CHAPTER VIII.

WITH THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.

Carleton's account of the battle of Bull Run, where the Union forces first won the day, and then lost it through a panic, was so graphic, accurate, and comprehensive, that the readers of the Boston _Journal_ at once poured in their requests that the same writer should continue his work and reports.

From his position with the Union batteries he had a fine view of the whole engagement. Many of the statements which he made were, as to their accuracy, perfect. For example, when the Confederates fired continuous volleys, making one long roll of musketry, mingled with screams, yells, and cheers, while their batteries sent a rain of sh.e.l.l and round shot, grape and canister, upon a body of three companies of Ma.s.sachusetts men, Carleton stood with his watch in his hand to see how long these raw troops could stand such a fire. It is wonderful to read to-day his volume of "Army Correspondence," and find so little to correct.

Besides letters written on the field during the first of four battles, he wrote from Was.h.i.+ngton in review of the whole movement. He was not at all discouraged by what had happened, believing that the bitter experience, though valuable, was worth its cost. He does not seem to have been among the number of those who expected that the great insurrection would be put down in a few months. Like every one else, he was at first smitten with that glamour which the Western soldiers, led by Grant, soon learned to call "McClellanism." It was with genuine admiration that he noticed the untiring industry and superb organizing powers of "Little Mac;" who, whatever his later faults may have been, was the man who transformed a mob of militia into that splendid machine animated by an unquailing soul, "The Army of the Potomac." Yet in the cool light of history, we must rate Gen. George B. McClellan as the military Erasmus of this war of national reformation, while Grant was its Luther.

Late in August, after ten days' rest at home to recruit exhausted energies, Carleton was once more at his post in the "City of Magnificent Distances--and big lies," attempting to draw out the truth from whole maelstroms of falsehood. He writes: "Truly this is a city given to lying." He had a habit of hunting down falsehoods, of tracing rumors to their holes. Many an hour in the blazing sun, consuming his strength, did this hater of lies spend in chasing empty breaths. Once he rode forty miles on horseback, simply to confirm or reject an a.s.sertion. Very early, however, he learned to put every report upon the touchstone, and under the nitric acid of criticism. He quickly gained experience, and saved much vexation to himself and his readers.

In this way his letters became what they are, like coins put in the pyx, and mintage that survives the best of the goldsmiths. When read thirty-five years after the first drying of the ink, we have a standard of truth, needing correction, for the most part, only here and there, in such details as men clearly discern only in the perspective of time.

Under McClellan's strict orders, Was.h.i.+ngton became less of a national bar-room. The camps were made models of cleanliness, hygiene, and comfort, and schools of strict preparation for the stern work ahead.

Carleton often rode through them, and out on the picket-line. Among his other studies, being a musician, he soon learned the various notes and tones of round and conical bullet, of globular and case shot, of sh.e.l.l and rocket, as an Indian learns the various sounds and calls of birds and beasts. Never wearing eye-gla.s.ses, until very late in life, and then only for reading, he was able, when standing behind or directly before a cannon, to see the missile moving as a black spot on the invisible air, and from a side view to perceive the short plug of condensed air in front of a ball, which is now clearly revealed by instantaneous photography. He soon noted how the variation in the charge of powder, and the curve of the rifle, changed the pitch of the ball, and how and why certain sh.e.l.ls with ragged edges of lead scream like demons, and work upon the nerves by their sound and fury rather than their total of results. He soon discovered that in a battle the artillery, except at short ranges, and in the open, bears no comparison in its killing power to the rifles of the infantry. Like an old soldier, he soon came to look with something like contempt upon the ponderous cannon and mortars, and to admire the low firing of the old veteran musket-men.

During those humiliating days, when the stars and bars waved upon Munson's Hill within sight of the Capitol, Carleton saw much of the Confederates through his gla.s.s. Picket-firing, though irregular and, probably, from a European point of view, unmilitary, trained the troops to steadiness of nerve. Many things in the first part of the war were done which were probably not afterwards often repeated; for example, the meeting of officers on the picket-lines, who had communications with each other, because they were freemasons. In September, the Confederates fell back from Munson's Hill, and on October 21st the battle at Poolsville, or Ball's Bluff, took place, in which, out of 1,800 Federals engaged, over one-third were killed, wounded or missing. The Fifteenth Ma.s.sachusetts regiment suffered heavily. Colonel Devens, afterwards major-general and attorney-general, covered himself with glory, but the brave Colonel Baker lost his life.

Edward d.i.c.kinson Baker, born in England, had come to the United States in his youth. Between his thirtieth and fortieth year he had served in Congress as representative from Illinois. Then removing to California, he became a popular orator of the Republican party. In 1860 he was elected United States Senator from Oregon. I remember reading with a thrill his speech in the Senate, and his rebuke of Breckinridge. A few days later he was in Philadelphia holding a commission as colonel. He visited in their different halls the volunteer fire companies of our Quaker City. In torrents of overwhelming eloquence, he called on them to enlist in his famous "California Regiment," which was quickly clothed, equipped, and given the first rudiments of military instruction. I remember his superb, manly figure, in the very prime of life, his rosy English face set in a glory of hair just turning to silver. With hat off, he rode up and down the line, as the regiment stood in "company front" on Federal Street, between the old Cooper Shop (which was destined later to be the great Volunteers'

Refreshment Saloon) and the Baltimore Depot, where they were to take cars for the seat of war. Like the "ten thousand" with Klearchos, foreigner, but also friend and commander, of whom Xenophon in the "Anabasis" speaks, it was already uncertain whether the Philadelphia men most feared or loved their lion-hearted leader. A few weeks went by, the tragedy of Ball's Bluff took place, and in Independence Hall I saw the brave Colonel Baker's body lying in state. In that hall of heroes, it seemed to my imagination as though the painted eyes of the Revolutionary heroes looked down in sympathy and approval. There, if not already among them, soon hung also the picture of Lieutenant Henry Greble, friend and neighbor, killed at Big Bethel, and the first officer in the regular army slain during the war. Colonel, afterwards General, Charles Devens, Jr., whose acquaintance Mr. Coffin made about this time, distinguished himself from this early engagement at Ball's Bluff throughout the war, and until the closing scene at Appomattox Court House, rising to the rank of brevet major-general. Long afterwards, in Boston, having been attorney-general of the United States, I knew him as the judge of the Supreme Court of Ma.s.sachusetts, meeting him socially more than once, and noticing the warm friends.h.i.+p between the famous war correspondent and this dignified interpreter of law.

After the battle of Ball's Bluff, seeing in detail the other and the hideous side of war in the mutilation of the human frame, and the awful horror of wounds, Carleton took a long ride through Eastern Maryland to look at the rebel batteries along the lower Potomac and to study the roads, the food products, and the black and white humanity of the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac regions, besides informing himself as to the Union flotilla. In the absence of active military operations, he wrote of the religious life of the soldiers. He was appalled at the awful profanity around him, and his constant prayer to G.o.d was for strength to resist the demoralizing influences around him, which seemed to him a h.e.l.l on earth. His wife's words followed him "like a strain of music," and "the infinite purity of Jesus" was his inspiring influence.

He made himself thoroughly acquainted with the New England regiments, and studied the details in the "mosaic of the army." He became so expert in studying the general composition of the regiments, their physical appearance, and ways of life, peculiarities of thought, speech, and action, that usually within five minutes he could tell from what State, and usually from what locality a regiment had come.

He writes:

"A regiment from Vermont is as unlike a regiment from Pennsylvania almost as a pea from a pumpkin. Both are excellent. Both are brave.

Both will fight well; but in the habits of life, in modes of doing a thing, they are widely different."

"Just look at the division that crosses the Potomac, and see the mosaic of McClellan's army. Commencing on the right there is McCall's division, one grand lump of Pennsylvania coal and iron. There is Smith's division, containing a block of Vermont marble; then Porter's tough conglomerate of Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Ma.s.sachusetts, Maine, and Rhode Island; then McDowell's, a splendid specimen of New York; then Blenker's, a magnificent contribution from Germany, with such names as Stahl, Wurnhe, Amsburg, Bushbeck, Bahler, Steinwick, Saest, Betje, Cultes D'Uta.s.sy, Von Gilsa, and Schimmelpfennig, who talk the language of their Fatherland, sing the Rhine songs, and drink a deluge of lager beer,--slow, sure, reliable men, of the stock that stood undismayed when all things were against them, in the times of Frederick the Great, who lost everything except courage, and, that being invincible, regained all they had lost. Then there are the Irish brigades and regiments from a stock which needs no words of praise, for their deeds are written in history. Without enumerating all the divisions, we see Yankees, Germans, Irish, Scotch, Italians, Frenchmen, Norwegians, and Dutchmen,--all in one army; and, grandest spectacle of all, moved by one common impulse to put down this rebellion, and to save for all future time the principle upon which this government is founded."

Weeks and months pa.s.sed, and Carleton became acquainted with all the minutiae of camp life. He studied the peculiarities of the sutler, the army mule, the government rations, and the pies concocted in New York.

He enjoyed the grand reviews, noting with his quick eye the difference, in the great host, between the volunteers and the regulars. Of the type of that n.o.ble band of officers and men, none the less patriotic because more thoroughly educated in drills than the volunteers, he wrote: "His steps are regulated,--his motions, his manners,--he is a _regular_ in all these. The volunteer stoops beneath the load on his back. He is far more like Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress,' with his burden of sin, than the regular. His steps are uneven, his legs are more unsteady. He carries his gun at a different angle. He lacks the finish which is obtained only by hard drill, and exact discipline." He closed this letter with a tribute of praise to Tidball's superb battery of artillery.

At this time the cavalry were not in good repute, General Scott not being in favor of any hors.e.m.e.n, except for scouting purposes. In this arm of the service the Confederates were far ahead of the Union soldiers. Grant, Sheridan, and Ronald McKenzie had not yet transformed our Northern hors.e.m.e.n into whirlwinds of fire. After various other experiences, including a long ride through Western Maryland, Carleton, within a few days before Christmas, was called by his employers to leave the Army of the Potomac, to go west to the prospective battle-field, where the heavy blows were soon to be struck. He was succeeded in Was.h.i.+ngton by Mr. Benjamin Perley Poore. A few n.o.ble words of farewell in his 109th letter, dated Was.h.i.+ngton, December 21, 1861, closed Carleton's first campaign in the East, his acquaintance with the Army of the Potomac having begun on the 12th of June. Having won the hearts of the soldiers in camp, and their friends at home, he left for "the next great battle-field" in the West, where, as he said, "history will soon be written in blood." He would see how the navy, as well as the army, was to bring peace by its men of valor, and its heavy guns,--"preachers against treason." His experience was to be of war on the waters, as well as on land.

CHAPTER IX.

"HO, FOR THE GUNBOATS, HO!"

His first letter from the Army of the West, he dated, Cincinnati, December 28, 1861. Instead of a comparatively circ.u.mscribed Utica (on the Potomac), to confine his powers, our modern Ulysses had a line a thousand miles long, and a territory larger than several New Englands to look over. His first work, therefore, was to invite his readers to a panorama of Kentucky and the Mississippi Valley. Thus far in the war there had been no masterly moves, but, on the contrary, masterly inactivity. With such splendid chances for heroes, who would improve them? Neither Wolfe nor Was.h.i.+ngton had played Micawber, but had created opportunities. Carleton wrote, "Now is the time for the highest order of military genius.... We wait for him who shall improve the propitious hours." So in waiting went out the gloomy year of 1861. At Louisville, Ky., Carleton made the acquaintance in detail of General Buell's army. The commander, Don Carlos Buell, did not enjoy the presence of correspondents, and those from Cincinnati and New York papers had been expelled from the camp; nor was Carleton's letter from the Secretary of War, asking that "facilities consistent with public interests" be granted him, of any avail. He wrote on New Year's day, "No more troops are needed here, or on the Potomac at present; what is wanted is _activity_,--activity,--activity."

Following Horace Greeley's advice, Carleton went West. On January 4th, having surveyed the land and people, he sent home two letters, then moved on to Rolla, in the heart of Missouri, and, having got out of St. Louis with his pa.s.ses, he found himself, January 11th, at Cairo.