The Lost Army

by Frank Gee Patchin

  CHAPTER XX. OCCUPATION OF SPRINGFIELD--ANOTHER BATTLE IMMINENT.

  |Fremont’s army reached Springfield two days after the charge of thebody-guard, the rebels retiring as the advance of the column approached.There was an amusing incident connected with the charge which may herebe related.

  A corporal and half a dozen men became separated from the rest of thebody-guard and straggled into Springfield after the others had left.While the corporal was undecided what to do, a flag of truce came infrom the rebels, asking a suspension of hostilities to permit the burialof the dead.

  The corporal received the flag of truce at the courthouse, and, onlearning the object of the visit, said he must consult his general,who was lying down in an inner room of the building. He disappeared forseveral minutes, and after a sufficient time had elapsed for a parleywith the imaginary general, he returned with the partial and conditionalapproval of the request. He cautioned the officer bearing the flag oftruce not to approach a certain piece of woods near the scene of thefight until word could be sent there that a truce had been arranged;otherwise there would be danger of a collision between the troops, asthe general’s division was too much exasperated to be under control. Hesaid it would take not less than three hours to arrange the matter, andmeantime the burying party must remain away. The flag of truce departed,and the corporal hastily summoned his men and decamped in the directionwhich his chief had taken.

  A ruse not unlike this was played by the colonel of a Kansas regimentthat was suddenly confronted while on the march through western Missouriby a force four times its own strength. The colonel immediately deployedhis entire regiment into a skirmish-line and boldly advanced to battle.The rebels naturally thought that when an entire regiment was deployedas skirmishers there must be a good sized force behind it. Theyretired carefully and in good order, the Kansas colonel pressing themsufficiently close to give the impression that he was anxious for afight. By this ruse, which required a good deal of nerve to undertake, abattle was avoided and the prestige of victory went to the Unionists.

  The day after Fremont’s advance reached Springfield the column fromRolla made its appearance, and went into camp just outside the town.Jack and Harry were attached to the wagon-train as before, but with theadvantage in their favor that they were allowed to retain the horseswhich had been given to them after the capture of the rebel captain,and therefore they were able to see more of the country than under theirformer circumstances. There had been no opposition on the march,and therefore the trip from Rolla had been devoid of incidents ofimportance. The boys went several times with scouting parties that weresent out to examine the country, on both sides of the line of march, buthowever much they wanted to get into a brush with the enemy they couldnot find an enemy to brush with. All the men who sympathized with therebellion seemed to have gone to the rebel army, with the exception ofthose who were too old for service.

  But if the men were absent, the women were not; and what was more,they were not slow, in most cases, to make known their feelings. Theydenounced the “Yankees” and “Dutch” in the bitterest terms, tauntingthem with robbing and killing honest people who were fighting in defenseof their homes; charging them with being cowards and hirelings, andsometimes cursing them roundly in language altogether unfit for earspolite or lips refined.

  One day a woman poured upon Jack and Harry a volley of vituperationthat was delivered with such rapidity as to render fully half of itunintelligible. Jack was at first inclined to anger, and started to“talk back,” but Harry restrained him, and asked the woman if that wasall she had to say.

  “All I’ve got to say?” she screamed; “no, I’ve got more to say; and thatis that you’re a pair of brainless boys that sense is wasted on.’T ain’tno use talking to such babies without no more beards than the back of myhand.”

  “Did you ever read ‘Washington’s farewell address to his army, madam?” said Harry, with the utmost gravity depicted on his face.

  “No; I don’t know nothing about it,” she replied. “Who’s he, I’d liketo know; one of your Dutch thieves, I s’pose?” and her voice came down anote or two from its very high pitch.

  “He was first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of hiscountrymen,” said Harry, with his mock gravity continued throughout.

  “I s’pose he’s one of your Dutch generals or colonels,” retorted thewoman. “He’d better not come around here, or I ‘ll tell him what I thinkof him and all his other Dutchmen.”

  “He will not come, madam; I ’ll take care that he does n’t. But in hisfarewell address he remarked that there was nothing half so sweet inlife as two souls without a single thought, and two hearts that beetsand cabbages could not turn from their faithful allegiance.”

  “What’s that got to do with us, I’d like to know,” said she. “He’dbetter not come around here alone talking that way; but if he fetchesalong his Dutch thieves, we can’t help ourselves. You’uns ought to gohome if you want to save yourselves from killing, for the Southern menwon’t leave one of ye alive.”

  “That is what I was saying to my friend here,” responded Harry; “and nowthat we’ve had our call, we ‘ll take your advice and go.”

  Away they rode, and had a good laugh as soon as they were out of sightof the house. Jack admitted that Harry had shown good sense in makinglight of the vituperation they received, and said he would follow thesame plan in future.

  “It’s no use trying to convert these people to our way of thinking,” said Harry, as they rode along on their way to rejoin the column.“Argument is wasted on them just as it would be wasted on us. Nobodycould win us over to believe in secession, and why should we expectthese men and women, born and bred with slaves around them, to regardslavery and what comes of it as we regard it.” Jack acquiesced inHarry’s theory, and he further admitted that if he had been born in theSouth and brought up there, it was fair to suppose that he would havebelieved in state-rights and the other principles that the Southernleaders had advocated since the formation of the republic.

  After the arrival of the column at Springfield and its junction withthe forces of General Fremont, there was a prolonged halt to wait forsupplies for the army, preparatory to a further advance into the enemy’scountry. The rebels fell back toward the Arkansas line, and it wasreported that a force was advancing to join them from Arkansas, whenthey would be ready to meet us. Scouting parties were sent out, andascertained that there was practically no enemy within fifty miles,the rebel army being concentrated at Cassville, where they waited thereinforcements mentioned. The country far beyond Wilson’s Creek wasentirely safe, only a stray scouting party of rebels having been seenfor several days.

  Jack and Harry obtained permission to visit Wilson’s Creek and thebattle-ground from which they had been driven eleven weeks before. “Thething that impressed us most,” said Jack, in his letter to his father,which he wrote the evening afterward, “was the absolute stillness of theplace in contrast to the roar of artillery and the crash of the smallarms on the day of the battle. There was no sound whatever to break it,except the occasional chirping of a bird or the rippling of the creek,except our own voices and the breaking of the twigs under the feet ofour horses. At every step we took we could not help contrasting thecool autumn morning with that hot day in August when shot and shelland bullets were flying all around and the sound of the cannon was likerapid peals of thunder.

  “My horse stumbled over something in the grass, and I looked down to seewhat it was. It was a human skull on which his foot had fallen, and theskull turning had caused him to stumble as he did. A few feet away laythe dismembered skeleton to which the skull evidently belonged. It wasprobably the remains of a soldier who had been wounded and crawled undera tree for shelter and died there, as the spot was among the trees, andaway from the beaten track. There were bits of cloth scattered over theground, and it was evident that birds or wild animals had been at workthere; and also upon another skeleton a little further on, which wasdisturbed and scattered like t
he first.

  “On the battle-field there were numerous graves, that showed howsevere had been the carnage; some were single graves, while otherswere sufficiently broad to contain a dozen or more bodies. Fragments ofweapons, pieces of the broken wheel of a gun-carriage, and of the shellthat destroyed it, were lying all around, and the trees everywhere wereseamed and scarred by bullets. Then there were skeletons of horses lyingwhere the animals fell, and these had also been the prey of birds oranimals, to judge by the general aspect of dismemberment.

  “We looked for the spot where General Lyon fell, and found it marked byan inscription carved upon the nearest tree. A farmer living near thebattle-field came out to show us around, and he told us that the rebelsoldiers cut off the glossy mane and tail of General Lyon’s horse anddivided it among them, to wear as badges of honor or send home to theirfriends. Then they took away the teeth and bones as souvenirs of thefight, and when these were exhausted the teeth and bones of other horseswere secured as relics of the general’s favorite steed.

  “We rode over and around Bloody Hill and then descended to the valley ofthe creek, where the rebels had their camp on the morning of the battle.Here there were more traces of the conflict in the shape of the ashes ofthe wagons that were set on fire at the time of Sigel’s attack, andthe bits of iron which the fire could not consume. And all the time thestillness impressed us so much that it was almost painful.”

  They returned to Springfield by the Fayetteville road, having gone tothe battle-field by the route which was followed by General Lyon.

  The next day there was a rumor that the rebels had been reinforced andwere advancing. A battle could be looked for very soon, and the wholecamp was in a state of excitement.

  On the morning of the second of November the scouts brought positiveinformation that the rebels were advancing, and the next day it wasreported that they were camped on the old battleground at Wilson’s Creekand would fight there. The general officially announced it, and gaveorders for an advance on the following day.

  The army was ready to move, pickets were doubled and grand guardsincreased, and a battery of four guns was placed on the Fayettevilleroad to greet the enemy if he chose to come on. Jack and Harry sleptthat night with their horses saddled; their sleep was more in theorythan practice, as they were so excited that they hardly closed an eyeduring the night.