Major-General Halleck, Fremont’s successor, appeared among us on November 18th, 1861.[80] He was already famous as the author of “Elements of Military Art and Science.” He was forty-six years old, in the prime of life, in perfect health, and full of vigor. As he peered at us out of his large black eyes underneath dark heavy eyebrows, and a high, massive forehead, he looked wondrous wise. His soldierly bearing, without ostentation, gave us confidence in him as a safe and able leader; nor did he as an administrator disappoint our expectations.
He seemed intuitively and clearly to grasp the situation. He took right hold of his work and did it with a will. He soon brought order out of chaos. To lighten his burden and to secure greater thoroughness in administration, together with promptness and effectiveness in military movements, Kansas was separated from his department and put under the command of Major-General Hunter.
First of all, without neglecting for a moment the movements of the army of Price in the State, he began to disentangle the military snarl in and about St. Louis. One after another, the different divisions of Fremont’s army were returning from their bootless campaign. There was great confusion. All seemed to be at cross-purposes. Each subordinate commander, uncertain as to his duty, was anxiously awaiting orders. But General Halleck, amid the din of conflicting interests from various quarters demanding his immediate attention, never for a moment lost his head. With a masterful hand he reduced to system what, at first blush, seemed an inextricable mass of antagonistic interests. In a comparatively short time every imperative call upon him had been fully met, every subordinate officer had found his place, learned his duties and was efficiently doing them. The internal affairs of his department were at last running as smoothly as the most critical could reasonably expect.
As soon as General Halleck had put things to rights in his military household, he broke up the different secret rendezvous in St. Louis, where the secessionists met to plot against the government, where they stowed their war material, and clandestinely drilled that they might be prepared for open conflict, which they still hoped would soon be precipitated. He did this important work with such downright thoroughness, that so far as could be seen he put an end to these secret rebel gatherings.
He also determined to sustain with all the power at his command the enactments of the sovereign Convention, now the only legislative body of the State. During the preceding month the Convention had once more reassembled in St. Louis and enacted weighty laws to safeguard loyal Missouri. Among other important measures, it prescribed an oath of allegiance to the United States to be taken by all municipal and State officers under pain of deposition.
The general did not permit this requirement to go unheeded. He insisted that all who were amenable to this law should obey it. So from time to time peremptory orders were sent out from his headquarters, commanding all who had been remiss in subscribing to the oath to take it at once or vacate their places. He expressly enjoined the mayor of St. Louis to compel all city officers to take the prescribed oath, and the provost-marshal general to arrest all State officers who had from any cause failed to subscribe to it.[81] As late as January 26th, 1862, he ordered all officers of the St. Louis Mercantile Library Association, and of the St. Louis Chambers of Commerce to take the oath before the provost marshal within ten days, or quit their posts. On February 4th, he issued a similar order, which was a drag-net, in which he tried to catch every disloyal official in Missouri, of whatever grade. He decisively commanded all officials of the University of Missouri, all presidents and directors of railroads, all quartermasters, clerks and agents in the service of the United States to subscribe to the oath or immediately to resign their offices.[82] And at last he evidently considered even this to be inadequate, since, a month later, he ordered all licensed attorneys, counsellors-at-law and proctors, and all jurors to take the oath or at once cease to exercise their public functions;[83] and to make the work complete in every detail, to unearth all rebels in hiding, he ordered every voter in Missouri to take the oath of allegiance to the United States on pain of disfranchisement.[84] Thus did this Union general, with his numerous drastic orders, endeavor to uncover every disloyal man in our commonwealth. Was it wise? He thought it was, else he would not have done it.
But we have not enumerated a tithe of his swarming manifestoes. We soon concluded that his distinguishing characteristic was orders. Orders, orders came in volleys from his headquarters. He was evidently earnestly endeavoring to find out who, in his military department, were for the Union and who were against it. His orders were trumpet-calls to every man to take his stand openly and show his colors. He wished to ascertain who were the enemies of the Union that he might justly deal with them. When, therefore, by the testimony of reliable witnesses, and by his own daily observation, he had gotten a clear view of the state of things that confronted him, the disloyal began to feel the grip of his iron hand. He ordered the arrest of occupants of carriages carrying rebel flags, and the confiscation of the carriages.[85] Rebel flags from all such vehicles disappeared as by magic. Their owners of course had not met with any change of heart, but in order to save their personal property concluded to conduct themselves with outward decency and civility in a loyal city.
The general directed another manifesto against the fair sex, who, having the courage of their convictions, and relying on the courtesy and gallantry universally shown in our country to women, had vauntingly carried the Confederate flag on their persons, and at times had waved it to their rebel friends, who were confined in the Gratiot Street prison. He ordered their arrest. Some of them were apprehended and imprisoned. One, who had been a prominent worker in my own church and congregation, having been found guilty of conveying important information to the enemy, was banished from the city and State. Having acted the part of a spy, her punishment was exceedingly mild. If a man had committed the same crime he would have been shot or hung. In fact General Halleck had already ordered that all persons found within the Federal lines, giving aid to the rebels, be treated as spies, arrested and shot. But previous good character and deference to sex saved the guilty woman from a fate so dire.
Other women of high social position, whose homes were outside the city in the State, had fled from the disorder and violence of their neighborhoods to St. Louis for safety. Generously protected within our gates and by our army, some of them hatched and executed schemes to aid the Southern Confederacy, to overturn the very government under whose sheltering wings they were abiding in security. While the disloyal deeds of many of them remained undiscovered, and they continued during the whole period of the war to dwell unmolested under the flag that they hated and clandestinely plotted to destroy, others, betrayed by their over-bold acts of disloyalty, were by our general remorselessly banished from our city. He sent them back to their homes in the State, around which the swirling tides of war still swept. Some prominent loyal men pleaded for them, but pleaded in vain. The general unflinchingly did his duty as he saw it.
Nor did the disloyal press elude his eye, or escape his retributive hand. By his direction the provost-marshal general ordered all newspapers throughout the State to furnish him a copy of each issue. The penalty for any failure to obey this drastic mandate was suppression or confiscation.
Moreover, every important military movement within the bounds of his department received his thoughtful critical attention. At this time, General Price had returned to the State and was leading his army northward. He wished to destroy the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, and so cut off communication between that part of the State and St. Louis. He also desired to secure recruits for his depleted ranks from the northern counties, especially notorious for their disloyalty. Many of the people of that region hailed his approach and flocked to his standard. But aside from those who enlisted in his army there were various companies of secessionists, that enthusiastically entered into the work of destroying the railroad. At several different points they tore up the tracks, bent the rails, burned depots and bridges, and demolished telegraph-poles. This was a serious blow to us, and men in our city were anxiously asking to what this would lead. But General Halleck was equal to the situation. He regarded such irresponsible bands of rebels, engaged in the wanton destruction of public property, as mere outlaws, having no claim to the immunities accorded to regularly enlisted soldiers. To meet the exigency he ordered that these lawless bridge-burners be forthwith arrested and shot. Scores of them were apprehended; the ringleaders were court-martialed, condemned to be shot, and were long kept in prison awaiting the execution of the sentence, which was afterwards commuted to a period of hard labor.
He also followed up the first manifesto by a second, in which he ordered that, where railroad property had been destroyed, the commanding officer nearest to the scene of devastation should impress the slaves of all secessionists in that neighborhood, and, if need be, also the owners of them, and compel them to do all the menial work required in repairing the damage that had been done. This order was faithfully carried out, and it put an end to the destruction of railroad property in that part of the State. It was a great comfort to us in St. Louis to see that the orders of our general were not mere fulminations, but the immediate precursors of deeds; that they hit hard the things aimed at.
But while he put a stop to the destruction of railroad property, he also organized an effective military campaign before which the ever cautious Price retreated, with his re-enforced army, into the southwest part of the State and finally into Arkansas.
But such a statement of the grand result of this campaign gives no adequate idea of the general condition of the State at that time. There was great confusion throughout all our borders. Confederate troops, coming up from Arkansas, invaded at different points our sacred, sovereign soil. They came to strengthen the hands of the disloyal. Federal soldiers, in detached bands, were endeavoring to defend the loyal. There was a skirmish here, a conflict there. State Guards and Home Guards were in frequent collision. Guerrillas, riding swiftly, suddenly struck unsuspecting neighborhoods and left behind them dying men and flaming dwellings. Bushwhackers, hiding in thickets or behind stone walls, coolly shot down many of the best men of our State. Small towns often changed hands, one week controlled by Confederates, the next by Federals. Halleck, as well as he could, kept all his subordinate officers, in these harried and disordered districts, under his eye. His orders addressed to them flew thick and fast.
These military movements, that we have briefly noted, were of vast importance to us. Our destiny hung upon the turn that they took. Hence they gave us much anxious thought. But while they were transpiring, we were stirred up by startling and significant events within our gates. Foremost among the suggestive incidents that agitated our city was the hand that Halleck took in the negro question. But unlike his predecessor in command, he kept, in what he did, strictly within the limits of his authority as a military officer.
Sixteen fugitive slaves had been thrown into the county jail. They were shut up there, not because they had committed crime, but because that prison was a convenient place to keep securely such lively property,—property that did some thinking, had some ardent desires for freedom, and was blessed with legs. In the latter part of December, 1861, these slaves were advertised for sale, under State laws. The general, satisfied that they were the property of rebels, ordered the provost marshal to take them from jail, turn them over to the chief quartermaster, who was instructed to put them to work for the Federal government.[86] The general, however, declared that by his order he did not contravene any civil enactment, by which they might be legally turned over to their masters. Nevertheless, to their great joy, his move on their behalf made them virtually free. They became the servants of Uncle Sam, a kind and gracious master that fully recognized their manhood. This unexpected act of our general set wagging the tongues of both secessionists and Unionists, the former sharply condemning, the latter warmly applauding. There was very bitter war, waged by tongues on the streets, in the marts of trade and in the parlor, as well as with Minie balls, solid shot and shell in the field.
But without respect to its chronological position among the manifestoes of our general, we have reserved one for more extended comment. It was called forth by events intensely interesting and profoundly significant. We noted in a preceding chapter, that when the army of Fremont, after his removal from its command, fell back from Springfield upon St. Louis, there followed in its train a motley multitude of refugees that, as best they could, found shelter and care within our city. But their number became so great that their wants could not be adequately met by private charity. To keep them from starvation, General Halleck supplied many of them with army rations. Still, such continued use of government stores was of doubtful propriety. In determining his duty in a matter so grave, he could not but reflect that the fruitful cause of all the misery of this unhoused and hungry throng was the rebellion against the government of the United States, and that many of the wealthiest citizens of St. Louis were clandestinely doing what they could to aid this revolt against Federal authority. To his mind they were chiefly responsible for the inflocking of these forlorn and ragged crowds. He therefore decided that they must be compelled to do their part in relieving the wretchedness which they had helped, and were still helping to produce. He wished in carrying out his purpose to avoid if possible all injustice. So he sought for trustworthy information concerning well-to-do secession households. When he had secured it and felt that the way was clear for intelligent action, perhaps falling back for precedent on the searches and seizures of his predecessor, he issued an order assessing the rich secessionists of the city ten thousand dollars for the support of the refugees that had fled for safety to us from the south and west.[87]
No act of any commander, stationed at St. Louis during the war, created more excitement than this. At first both the loyal and disloyal were amazed. Then vengeful resentment and bitterness took possession of the assessed. The order fell chiefly on the “first families,” the bon ton of Southern society, in our city; and was doubly offensive since it both galled their pride and struck at their devotion to the Southern Confederacy. Nevertheless they hardly ventured to protest above their breath, lest their words might justify the general’s order. Most of them having the saving grace of common sense, and regarding discretion as the better part of valor, with compressed and dumb lips quietly paid their assessments. If any hot denunciation clamored for utterance, it was temporarily suppressed and kept for secret fulmination under their own rooftrees. When, however, any one, resenting the exaction, refused to pay his assessment, a sufficient amount of his property to meet this extraordinary military tax was promptly confiscated, and a penalty of twenty-five per cent. was added to the original levy. Mr. Engler, whose tax had been collected in this manner, undertook to recover his confiscated goods through the civil court by a writ of replevin, and was at once apprehended and sent beyond the lines of the Union army,[88] where he had leisure to reflect on the folly of deliberately butting against martial law.
Whatever may now be thought of General Halleck’s procedure in forcing men to alleviate the misery that they had helped to produce, at the time by far the larger part of the Unionists of our city heartily sustained it, and it did much toward solving the problem of feeding the multitude of refugees among us; for, by army rations, spontaneous private charity, and enforced assessments, all refugees that were poor, and hungry, and shelterless, were fairly well provided for.
But we were constantly agitated by events outside our gates as well as within. During 1861 and the first three months of 1862, there were fully seventy armed conflicts in Missouri. We called them battles then, although only four or five of them really attained to that dignity. And we all knew that St. Louis was the object for which hostile forces were fighting. Although we held the city, the enemy was bending all his energies to snatch it from us. Who at last should permanently hold the prize none could yet determine.
But our volunteer army grew apace. Early in 1862 an aggressive campaign was planned against the enemy in the southwest. A force of over ten thousand well-armed men under the immediate command of General Samuel Ryan Curtis, swept Price and his army from our State; and at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, met and defeated the combined forces of Van Dorn, Price, McCulloch and Pike, the last commanding a brigade of Indians.
But to the south of us lay a greater peril than that in northwestern Arkansas. The Confederates had seized, and were tenaciously holding, the Tennessee, Cumberland and Mississippi Rivers, the main arteries of our southern trade. So long as these highways of commerce were obstructed, the business of our city languished. Moreover, if the forces of the enemy were permitted to gather unmolested on these water-courses, they would soon be able to march against us in battle array. To meet this impending danger, to make such an invasion impracticable, if not impossible, by the order of General Halleck an army was rapidly gathered on the Mississippi above Columbus, Kentucky. General Grant had been fortunately ordered to organize, drill, and lead these troops. To join his command many soldiers were sent by Halleck from the encampments in and around St. Louis. I saw one morning a regiment of stalwart men from Indiana, marching with elastic step down Pine Street to the levee, their every movement instinct with exuberant life, and singing, in clear strong tones,
That was about the middle of January, 1862. That famous war song may have been sung before in our city, but this was the first time that I had heard it. It thrilled me through and through. That to me was an ecstatic moment. So it evidently was to the crowd that lined the street. They looked on as if entranced. Tears started in many eyes, and when the song, so prophetic of triumph, ended, the throng burst out into rapturous, ringing cheers. And the patriots who sang those inspiring words were on their way to swell the ranks of Grant’s army. Into the souls of all that heard them on that day came the assurance of victory.
The last of January, General Grant led his army southward. He was supported by a fleet of gunboats under the command of Commodore Foote. The movement was without ado, unexpected by the enemy, and effective. On February 6th, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River was captured by the gunboats. On the 12th, the general led his army across the country and, with considerable fighting during the afternoon, invested Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. On the next day, while waiting for the arrival of the gunboats, there was no general attack, but constant skirmishing. On the 14th, the enemy repulsed the gunboats and attacked the investing army. A furious battle ensued, lasting several hours. The right wing of Grant’s army was at first driven back. The report reached us that our troops were repulsed, and we thought that the campaign so brilliantly begun had failed. We did not then know that at last a general had appeared who regarded war as a serious business, which at all hazards must be relentlessly prosecuted to a successful issue; who if he did not conquer on the first day, fought the next, and if he did not succeed on the second day, only waited for the dawn of the third that he might renew the conflict. That third day came at Fort Donelson. Grant and his troops, in spite of sleet and hail and snow that all night had pitilessly beat upon their tentless heads, were ready for the fray. But the enemy, though sheltered behind breastworks, felt that they could no longer withstand the onslaughts of that aggressive host, whom neither storms of ice nor showers of bullets could daunt. Some in the beleaguered fort, led by their faint-hearted commanders, had slipped away under the cover of night, and by flight reached places of safety. At dawn General Buckner, to whom had been left the responsibility of surrendering, proposed that commissioners be appointed to agree upon terms of capitulation of the forces under his command, and received from Grant the famous reply, now familiar to every schoolboy, “No terms, except unconditional and immediate surrender, can be accepted. I propose to move immediately on your works.” When the telegraph flashed to us those immortal words every loyal heart in our city overflowed with delight. One said to another: “We have at last an able general who means business.”
On the following day, February 17th, the news of the surrender came. More than fourteen thousand prisoners, with forty pieces of artillery, thousands of small arms and large quantities of commissary stores had been taken, and the Union troops occupied the fort. In spontaneous celebration of these glad tidings from all the encampments around our city came the roar of cannon; brass bands played “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Yankee Doodle;” the Union Merchants Exchange laid aside all business and sang patriotic songs; large companies of Unionists, drawn together by some irresistible impulse, in the stores, in the market, on the streets, congratulated each other, laughed, clapped their hands and stamped their feet in glee. It was an hour of triumph; and the Missouri Democrat issued in hot haste an extra, heading its column with “Te Deum.” It thus caught and expressed the sentiment then dominant in all loyal hearts, that of thanksgiving and praise to God, who presides over and directs the affairs of nations and in wisdom withholds or grants victories to armies. But our secession neighbors were mute. What gave us joy, gave them pain. At such times we always felt it to be sad that we were so divided. Both of us could not be right. That which separated us was being decided by the dread arbitrament of battle, and the thought began to penetrate the minds of the more considerate of the disloyal that after all the Federal government might be able to subdue the rebellion; a notion which, at the beginning of the war, they rejected with ineffable contempt.
The following Saturday was Washington’s birthday. All the Unionists of the city were in fit mood for its celebration. The victories both in the southwest and south filled them with unbounded satisfaction. One of the morning papers accurately reflected their state of mind by declaring that “the last vestige of military insurrection had been swept away.” So, at all events, it seemed just then. The curtain of the future for the moment graciously hid from view the perils that still awaited us. So on that 22d of February our political horizon was bright. Clouds were soon to arise; but on that glad day we saw none of them. Our patriotism was at white heat. Nothing could repress it; it flamed out. Early in the day it found devout expression. At nine o’clock in the morning, the Unionists flocked into the First Presbyterian Church, and filled it to overflowing. The ablest Protestant pastors of the city were there. We sang patriotic hymns. We read the Scriptures together. We prayed for wisdom and strength that we might do our delicate and difficult duties wisely and courageously. A brother read to us significant portions of Washington’s farewell address. We then stimulated each other by earnest speeches to strive on for the maintenance of the Union. So at the beginning of our festivities we were made strong by entering into fellowship with God.
Before noon a mammoth procession was formed. Many rode in carriages, a great company on horseback, four abreast, and a host marched on foot. Every vehicle, every horse, and every person was decorated with, or carried, the Stars and Stripes. There were many bands of music. Regiments of soldiers were in the procession, marching to patriotic music, discoursed not only by brass bands, but also by fife and drum. It took two and a half hours for the procession to pass any given point. And as we marched, from different directions came the boom of cannon, and the houses all along our route were decked with flags and with red, white and blue bunting intertwined, while crowds of the loyal on either side the street shouted for the Union and sang war songs. Again and again we were greeted with,
While this procession was a hearty, spontaneous outburst of patriotism, those who planned it intended to make as profound an impression as possible on the disloyal of the city. They wished to show them that no party among us adverse to the Federal government could hereafter have any reasonable hope of withstanding this mighty tide of Unionism, which was daily rising higher and had already become resistless. In this I was in full tide of sympathy with my fellow Unionists. Accompanied by a neighboring pastor, I rode a horse over the whole route of that famous procession, with a star-spangled banner on my horse’s head, another on the lapel of my coat, and a third in my hand. Nor was I singular in this; very many others did the same. As we rode the Christian pastor at my side said: “Is not this glorious? Why, you can see the shell crack and the light stream in.”
Sunday evening, April 6th, I was greatly surprised and delighted to see my old mathematical teacher, Major-General Quinby, come into church. It was a joy once more to look into his genial face and to feel the warm grasp of his hand. He seemed to me to have appeared just in the nick of time. For many days I had been very anxious to enlist in the army, and here, thought I, is my chance to talk the whole matter over with one that knows me well, and can appreciate my aspirations. When I made known to him my desire, he said at once that I could have a place on his staff, but thought that I ought not to quit my post at St. Louis. He felt quite sure that I could do the country more good by remaining there than by becoming a soldier in the field. Others urged upon me the same view of the case; and I reluctantly abandoned my purpose of enlisting, although I had had for many weeks a burning desire to be in the fight at the front.
On the 9th of April I met General Quinby at the levee, as he was taking a steamer to go down the Mississippi. He was with General Halleck, with whom I conversed, and with whom I was most favorably impressed. While few fully approved of all his measures, he had been a godsend to the Unionists of the city. He had done his duty faithfully and fearlessly. He had held an extremely difficult position. He had been compelled at times to listen to many diverse opinions, yet had never been confused as to what he deemed wise and just. His decisions had been clear. He had carried them out promptly and thoroughly. He had, to be sure, unwittingly sown dragon’s teeth whose harvest tormented some of his successors in command; but if he had shown as much wisdom in the field as he did in our city and State, he would have made himself immortal. But when he went down the river to take personal command of the army, he apparently left his wisdom behind him.