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 quantities 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 constituted an individual Nation under a written Constitution, 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:

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.

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, Principal 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 Massachusetts 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.

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.

Principal 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.

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 assistance, 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 assembled 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 assistance with some 1,600 mounted Texans and Arkansans, and the combined force closed in upon the Union Indians at Shoal Greek.

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.

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 quantity 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 shining 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 repetition 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.

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.

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 assert 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 mass 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:

An infinitely harmful part of the proclamation was the following:

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 class 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 God 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 assert and maintain the rights which cannot be surrendered, and defend those principles of everlasting rectitude, pure and high and sacred, like God, 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.

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 passage 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 class 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."

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 passion 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.

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 passing 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.

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.

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 pass 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:

Gen. Ben McCulloch thought best to go on to Richmond to explain his course since Wilson's Creek, and also to look after the very tender subject of his rank and powers. He left Gen. James S. Mcintosh in command of his troops. Mcintosh had grievances of his own. He was not being recognized by the Confederate authorities as he thought a man of his abilities and soldierly experience should have been, and he seems to have liked cooperation with Gen. Price very much less even than did Gen. McCulloch. In no very gentlemanly terms he repelled Price's proposition to combine their forces and push forward to the Missouri River. The best that Price could get out of him was the assurance that if the Federals advanced upon him at Springfield he, Mcintosh, would come forward to his assistance.

Price had greatly underestimated Gen. Halleck's energy and aggressiveness. Gen. Halleck was the first of our commanders to really rise to the level of the occasion and take a comprehensive grasp upon affairs. Unlike some others, he wasted no time in sounding proclamations or in lengthy letters of advice to the Administration as to the political conduct of the war. He was a soldier, proud of his profession, true to his traditions, and possibly had ambition to be reckoned among the great commanders. He had been noted for high administrative ability, and this trait was well illustrated in his grasp of the situation in Missouri and on the borders of the State. His main communications to the people were orders, plain, practical, and to the point. Whatever he did was on the highest plane of the science of warfare as he understood it.

Proper military discipline and subordination were introduced everywhere and a rigid system of accountability. He had troubles with his own men to add to his difficulties with the enemy. We find the most note of this with reference to the Germans.

The Missouri Germans were a splendid lot of men, taken as a whole, and had an unusual number of officers who were trained soldiers of considerable military experience. At the head of this class was Gen. Peter J. Osterhaus, who had been a private soldier under Lyon in securing the Arsenal, and had commanded a battalion with high credit to himself at Wilson's Creek. He was now a Colonel commanding a brigade.

With this excellent material there was a large per cent that ranged from worthless to actually criminal. Many adventurers from the European armies had hastened to this country to sell their swords to the best advantage, and many black sheep, who had been forced out of their armies, sought in our troubles and our ignorance of military matters an opportunity for their own exaltation and profit. Halleck dealt with all with a firm, unsparing hand. He began to weed out the worthless officers and to court-martial the rascals. Company, battalion and regimental organizations which he found too mutinous and disorderly for hopeful management, he either disarmed and set to hard labor or discharged from the service.

The raids of the vengeful Kansans across the Missouri borders gave him excessive annoyance, and he issued orders that all Kansas parties entering the State should be arrested and disarmed. That he might have more complete control of them, however, he recommended that the Department of Kansas be merged with his command, and as this was in had mony with Gen. Hunter's ideas, it was subsequently done. In the meanwhile he had to look out for the Mississippi River and the highly important point of, Cairo. He started to construct a fleet of gunboats to help control the river and assist the Army in its operations.

His next neighbor to the eastward was Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell, commanding the Department of the Ohio, which extended from the Cumberland River to the Allegheny Mountains. Gen. Buell's complete cooperation was necessary to the management of affairs in the Mississippi Valley, but this seems to have been difficult to secure. Buell had his own ideas, and they frequently did not harmonize with those of Gen. Halleck. Halleck recommended that Buell's Department be put under his own command, which was also done later.

Bridge-burning and other outrages by straggling bands claiming to be Confederates seriously disturbed the peace, embarrassed operations, and worried the Commanding General. Halleck reported that within 10 days prior to Jan. 1, 1862, these bridge-burners had destroyed $150,000 worth of railroad property and that they had concocted a plan to burn, simultaneously, every railroad bridge in the State, and set fire to the city of St. Louis in a number of places. In his comprehensive order advising summary and severe punishment against these marauders he took careful guards against such being made the pretext for any private vengeance or official malice, and instituted Military Commissions of not less than three responsible officers, acting under the solemnity of an oath, and making written reports of their proceedings. This order brought down a storm of abuse from the Secessionist and semi-Secessionist press, which Halleck calmly disregarded.

Gen. Sterling Price on Jan. 12 wrote Gen. Halleck a strong letter protesting against the order and asking the question whether "individuals and parties of men specially appointed and instructed by me to destroy railroads, culverts, bridges, etc." were, if captured, to be regarded as deserving of death.

Gen. Halleck in reply said:

An examination of the correspondence leads to the conclusion that Halleck possessed very superior talents as a letter writer.

Contrasted with Fremont, McClellan, Buell and others, Halleck gave great satisfaction in Washington, and Secretary Stanton telegraphed him as follows:

Your energy and ability receive the strongest commendation of this Department You have my perfect confidence, and may rely upon the utmost support in your undertakings. The pressure of my engagements have prevented me from writing, but I shall do so fully in a day or two.

Though he made the most of every resource, Halleck was sorely pressed for money and supplies for his force. His letters and messages mention the shipment of pantaloons to this one, shoes to another, blankets to a third, as he could get hold of articles to supply present wants, and of counsels of patience as to delays in paying off, since the Paymasters were far behind in their work. Jan. 17 he telegraphed to Gen. Curtis:

General: Yours of yesterday received. I regret to inform you that neither the Pay nor Quartermaster's Departments have any money. Troops are sent from here to Cairo without pay. I can do no better for you. The moment money is received the forces under your command shall be supplied. They were all paid to the 31st of October. Some here and in north Missouri are not paid for September and October. I have done everything in my power for the troops at Rolla, and they have no cause to complain of me.

The truth is that Congress is so busy discussing the eternal nigger question that they fail to make any appropriations, and the financial departments are dead broke. No requisitions for money are filled.

The extra-duty pay will be forthcoming as soon as we get any money. Assure these men that they will be paid, but they must have patience. I am doing everything in my power for them.

We must all do the best we can to make the men comfortable and contented till we get more means. I rely upon you to use all your powers of conciliation, especially with the German troops. You told me you could manage them, and I rely upon you to do it At present we have more difficulties to conquer with our own men than with the enemy.

While engaged in these numberless activities Gen. Halleck came down with a severe attack of measles, and was confined to his room for two weeks, but there does not appear to have been any intermittence in his energy.

Gen. Halleck's plans contemplated sending forward a column sufficient to crush Price, if he could be brought to battle, and drive him out of the State anyway. Another column was to advance from Ironton or Fredericktown and interpose between Polk at Columbus and Price, to prevent the former from assisting the latter. In the meanwhile Gen. Polk would have sufficient to occupy his attention in his "Gibraltar," as Gen. Grant would make a flank movement up the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. Halleck had come to the conclusion that Columbus would cost too much in life and blood to be taken by a direct assault, and it would be better therefore to turn it.

This plan was an excellent one, as Halleck's plans usually were, at that time, and it was subsequently carried out substantially as conceived.

There were the most conflicting reports as to the number of men Price had with him at Springfield at that time, but it was supposed all the way from 25,-000 to 50,000, with rather the stronger emphasis on the greater number. The Secessionists insisted upon the immensity of the army which had flocked to Price encouraged by the events untoward to the Union cause of the last half of 1861 and the indignation aroused by the invasion and depredations of the Kansas Jayhawkers and the "St. Louis Dutch."

It was reasonable to suppose, from the state of feeling in Missouri, that Price might have from 40,000 to 50,000 men, but Halleck, who was unusually well-informed for our Generals at that period of the war, decided that a column of about 10,000 men would be sufficient for the work. In this he was at a disagreement with Gen. Curtis and others in nearer contact with Price, who estimated the Secessionist force at Springfield in the neighborhood of 20,000 or 25,000. Yielding to their urgent representations, he increased his force to about 15,000, of which 3,000 were required to guard the lengthening line of communications, leaving a movable column of 12,000 to move directly against Price. This force was officially designated the "Army of the Southwest," and there was assigned to its command our old acquaintance, Brig.-Gen. Samuel R. Curtis, West Point graduate, lawyer, Mexican veteran, railroad engineer, and Congressman. This made more or less heart-burning among Brig.-Gens. Franz Sigel, B. M. Prentiss, S. A. Hurlbut, S. D. Sturgis and others who had hopes in that direction. Sigel stood no chance for the place, however, for Halleck had conceived a strong distrust of him growing out of his action at Wilson's Creek, and also because he was a leader among the radical Germans who wanted to pull slavery up by the roots. Sturgis felt that more consideration should have been given to him as commander of the army at Wilson's Creek after Lyon fell. Curtis, in turn, gave strong dissatisfaction to some of the brigade commanders by selecting Jeff C. Davis, a Captain in the Regular Army and Colonel of the 22d Ind., and Eugene A. Carr, also a Captain in the Regular Army and Colonel of the 3d Ill. Cav., to command two of his four divisions.

In its forward movement the commanders had the benefit of the burning zeal of the young volunteers. These, who had enlisted to put down the rebellion, wanted to lose no time in doing their work. They were not minded to lie around camps, no matter how comfortable, during the long Winter months. In the Northern homes from which they came the Winter had always been a season of great activity. They could not understand why it should not be so in Missouri and they hungered for active employment to the great end of suppressing the rebellion. Their recent successes had inspired them with hopes that they might be able to finish up the work and get back home in time for their Spring duties.

Though the Winter of 1861-'62 was an exceptionally hard, disagreeable one in Missouri, the volunteers left their camps with alacrity, pressing forward through the storms and mud with sanguine hopefulness that they were now about to accomplish their great purpose. Gen. Curtis selected his first base at Lebanon, 55 miles distant from Springfield, and sent forward Col. Carr with about 1,700 infantry and cavalry to occupy that point, gain information as to the condition of things in Price's camp, and to set on foot preparation for supplying the advancing army from the surrounding country.

The Union commanders were to learn a lesson from Price, who did not encumber himself with long trains, but "compelled war to support war" by drawing his supplies from the country through which he operated. Under Halleck's orders Gen. Curtis directed that the cavalry should locate all the mills convenient to the line of march, set them to work grinding grain, and encourage the Union farmers to bring in their grain, hogs and cattle, for which the Quartermaster would pay them fair prices. This work was an admirable education for Halleck's Chief Quartermaster, a young Captain named Philip H. Sheridan, who was to turn the lessons then learned to magnificent account afterwards.

Lebanon was taken possession of without more resistance than a running fight in which a notorious Capt. Tom Craig, of the Confederate army, was killed. Gen. Curtis arrived at Lebanon Jan. 31, leaving Sigel and Asboth at Rolla to follow as fast as the roads would permit. The recent severe storms of sleet and snow had been quite trying to the men and animals, but the columns were pressed forward, and on Feb. 7 Sigel's and Asboth's men were all in Lebanon, where they were joined by Jeff C. Davis's Division marching from Otterville by the way of Linn Creek.

Halleck's orders to Curtis were clear, comprehending and purposeful. Curtis seems to have been not a little apprehensive of the force he might have to encounter, but Halleck constantly urged him forward, at the same time enjoining him to keep his troops well in hand, and not allow Price to attack him in detail. He was to "throw out his cavalry carefully, like fingers to the hands." Most particularly he was not to allow Sigel to go off on any independent expedition and serve him as Sigel had served Lyon at Wilson's Creek. Halleck urged Hunter to advance his Kansas troops down through his department so as to threaten Price's left flank, and he told Curtis that if he, Curtis, would take care of Price, that he himself would look out for Johnson, Polk, Beauregard and Hardee.

The splendid young Missouri, Iowa and Illinois volunteers, welded into superb regiments by months of service, with the worthless of their officers removed by Halleck's rigid pruning, pressed forward with an enthusiasm that no storms could diminish or wretchedness of roads discourage. They forded swollen, icy streams, pulled their wagons up steep hills, or pried them out of quagmires, and bore the fury of the storm with sanguine cheerfulness, believing they were now moving directly forward to the great end of crushing the enemies of the Government and closing the war.

Price's outlying detachments were come up with and struck with a suddenness and vigor that sent them flying in utter rout. It speaks very ill for Price, with all his means for accurate information, that he knew nothing of this rapid advance of the Union army until the heads of Curtis's columns were at his very pickets. He was entirely unready for battle, and could only hastily gather his men together and make a quick retreat to the rough hills south of Springfield, leaving all his stores and his laboriously-constructed cantonments for the Union army. Feb. 13 Curtis had the satisfaction of reporting to Hal-leck as follows:

The Flag of the Union floats over the Court House of Springfield, Mo. The enemy attacked us with small parties at 10:30 o'clock 12 miles out, and my front guards had a running Are with them most of the afternoon. At dusk a regiment of the Confederate cavalry attacked the outer picket, but did not move it. A few shots from a howitzer killed two and wounded several. The regiment retreated to this place, and the enemy immediately commenced the evacuation of the city. I entered the city at 10 a. m. My cavalry is in full pursuit. They say the enemy is making a stand at Wilson's Creek. Forage, flour and other stores in large quantities taken. Shall pursue as fast as the strength of the men will allow.

In Gen. Sheridan's "Memoirs" he gives this sidelight on the advance upon Springfield: