And thus the whirligig of Time brings in his revenges.--TWELFTH NIGHT,
OR WHAT YOU WILL.
Bloody instructions, which being taught, return To plague the
inventors.--MACBETH.
[Sidenote: THE RETRIBUTIONS OF TIME.]
On the 15th of June I returned from Cairo to St. Louis. Lyon had gone
up the Missouri River with an expedition, which was all fitted out and
started in a few hours. Lyon was very much in earnest, and he knew the
supreme value of time in the outset of a war.
How just are the retributions of history! Virginia originated State
Rights run-mad, which culminated in Secession. Behold her ground
between the upper and nether mill-stones! Missouri lighted the fires
of civil war in Kansas; now they blazed with tenfold fury upon her
own soil. She sent forth hordes to mob printing-presses, overawe the
ballot-box, substitute the bowie-knife and revolver for the civil
law. Now, her own area gleamed with bayonets; the Rebel newspaper was
suppressed by the file of soldiers, civil process supplanted by the
unpitying military arm.
Governor Claiborne F. Jackson, in 1855, led a raid into Kansas, which
overthrew the civil authorities, and drove citizens from the polls.
Now, the poisoned chalice was commended to his own lips. A hunted
fugitive from his home and his chair of office, he was deserted by
friends, ruined in fortune, and the halter waited for his neck. Thomas
C. Reynolds, late Lieutenant-Governor, by advocating the right of
Secession, did much to poison the public mind of the South. He, too,
found his reward in disgrace and outlawry; unable to come within the
borders of the State which so lately delighted to do him honor!
[Sidenote: A RAILROAD REMINISCENCE.]
I followed Lyon's Expedition by the Pacific railway. The president
of the road told me a droll story, which illustrates the folly that
governed the location of the railway system of Missouri. The Southwest
Branch is about a hundred miles long, through a very thinly settled
region. For the first week after the cars commenced running over it,
they carried only about six passengers, and no freight except a live
bear and a jar of honey. The honey was carried free, and the freight
on Bruin was fifty cents. Shut up in the single freight car, during
the trip, he ate all the honey! The company were compelled to pay two
dollars for the loss of that saccharine esculent. Thus their first
week's profits on freight amounted to precisely one dollar and fifty
cents on the wrong side of the ledger.
The Rebels had now evacuated Jefferson City, and our own troops,
commanded by Colonel B[oe]rnstein, a German editor, author, and
theatrical manager, of St. Louis, were in peaceable possession. The
soldiers were cooking upon the grass in the rear of the Capitol,
standing in the shade of its portico and rotunda, lying on beds of
hay in its passages, and upon carpets in the legislative halls. They
reposed in all its rooms, from the subterranean vaults to the little
circular chamber in the dome.
[Sidenote: UNTAINTED WITH "B. REPUBLICANISM."]
Governor and Legislature were fled. With Colonel B[oe]rnstein, I went
through the executive mansion, which had been deserted in hot haste.
Sofas were overturned, carpets torn up and littered with letters
and public documents. Tables, chairs, damask curtains, cigar-boxes,
champagne-bottles, ink-stands, books, private letters, and family
knick-knacks, were scattered everywhere in chaotic confusion. Some of
the Governor's correspondence was amusing. The first letter I noticed
was a model of brevity. Here it is--its virgin paper unsullied by the
faintest touch of "B. Republicanism."
"JEFFERSON CITY, fed. 21nd 1861.
"_to his Honour Gov._ C. F. JACKSON.--Please Accept My
Compliments. With a little good Old Bourbon Whisky Cocktail.
Made up Expressly in St Louis. fear it not. it is good.
And besides it is not even tainted with B. Republicanism.
Respectfully yours,
"P. NAUGHTON."
There was a ludicrous disparity between the evidences of sudden flight
on all sides and the pompous language of the Governor's latest State
paper, which lay upon the piano in the drawing-room:
"Now, therefore, I, C. F. Jackson, Governor of the State
of Missouri, do issue this my proclamation, calling the
militia of the State, to the number of FIFTY THOUSAND, into
the service of the State. * * * Rise, then, and drive out
ignominiously the invaders!"
Beds were unmade, dishes unwashed, silver forks and spoons, belonging
to the State, scattered here and there. The only things that appeared
undisturbed were the Star Spangled Banner and the national escutcheon,
both frescoed upon the plaster of the gubernatorial bedroom.
As we walked through the deserted rooms, a hollow echo answered to the
tramp of the colonel and his lieutenant, and to the dull clank of their
scabbards against the furniture.
General Lyon opened the war in the West by the battle of Booneville.
It lasted only a few minutes, and the undisciplined and half-armed
Rebel troops, after a faint show of resistance, retreated toward the
South. Lyon's command lost only eleven men.
[Sidenote: A BELLIGERENT CHAPLAIN.]
During the engagement, the Rev. William A. Pile, Chaplain of the First
Missouri Infantry, with a detail of four men, was looking after the
wounded, when, coming suddenly upon a party of twenty-four Rebels, he
ordered them to surrender. Strangely enough, they laid down their arms,
and were all brought, prisoners, to General Lyon's head-quarters by
their five captors, headed by the reverend representative of the Church
militant and the Church triumphant.
Messrs. Thomas W. Knox and Lucien J. Barnes, army correspondents,
zealous to see the first battle, narrowly escaped with their
lives. Appearing upon a hill, surveying the conflict through their
field-glasses, they were mistaken by General Lyon for scouts of the
enemy. He ordered his sharpshooters to pick them off, when one of his
aids recognized them.
BOONEVILLE, MO., _June 21_.
The First Iowa Infantry has arrived here. On the way, several slaves,
who came to its camp for refuge, were sent back to their masters.
[Sidenote: HUMORS OF THE IOWA SOLDERS.]
The regiment contains many educated men, and that large percentage of
physicians, lawyers, and editors, found in every far-western community.
On the way here, they indulged in a number of freaks which startled
the natives. At Macon, Mo., they took possession of _The Register_, a
hot Secession sheet, and, having no less than forty printers in their
ranks, promptly issued a spicy loyal journal, called _Our Whole Union_.
The valedictory, which the Iowa boys addressed to Mr. Johnson, the
fugitive editor, in his own paper, is worth perusing.
"VALEDICTORY.
"Johnson, wherever you are--whether lurking in recesses of
the dim woods, or fleeing a fugitive on open plain, under
the broad canopy of Heaven--good-by! We never saw your
countenance--never expect to--never want to--but, for all
that, we won't be proud; so, Johnson, good-by, and take care
of yourself!
"We're going to leave you, Johnson, without so much as
looking into your honest eyes, or clasping your manly
hand--even without giving utterance, to your face, of 'God
bless you!' We're right sorry, we are, that you didn't stay
to attend to your domestic and other affairs, and not skulk
away and lose yourself, never to return. Oh, Johnson! why did
you--how could you do this?
"Johnson, we leave you to-night. We're going where bullets
are thick and mosquitos thicker. We may never return. If we
do not, old boy, remember us. We sat at your table; we stole
from your 'Dictionary of Latin Quotations;' we wrote Union
articles with your pen, your ink, on your paper. We printed
them on your press. Our boys set 'em up with your types, used
your galleys, your 'shooting-sticks,' your 'chases,' your
'quads,' your 'spaces,' your 'rules,' your every thing. We
even drank some poor whisky out of your bottle.
"And now, Johnson, after doing all this for you, you won't
forget us, will you? Keep us in mind. Remember us in your
evening prayers, and your morning prayers, too, when you
say them, if you do say them. If you put up a petition at
mid-day, don't forget us then; or if you awake in the solemn
stillness of the night, to implore a benison upon the absent,
remember us then!
"Once more, Johnson--our heart pains us to say it--that
sorrowful word!--but once more and forever, Johnson, GOOD-BY!
If you come our way, Call! Johnson, adieu!"
One of the privates in the regular army has just been punished with
fifty lashes on the bare back, for taking from a private house a lady's
furs and a silk dress.
This morning I passed a group of the Iowa privates, resting beside the
road, along which they were bringing buckets of water to their camp.
They were debating the question whether a heavy national debt tends
to weaken or to strengthen a Government! These are the men whom the
southern Press calls "ignorant mercenaries."
ST. LOUIS, _July 12_.
_The Missouri State Journal_, which made no disguise of its sympathy
with the Rebels, is at last suppressed by the military authorities. It
was done to-day, by order of General Lyon, who is pursuing the Rebels
near Springfield, in the southwest corner of the State. Secessionists
denounce it as a military despotism, but the loyal citizens are
gratified.
[Sidenote: CAMP TALES OF THE MARVELOUS.]
Are you fond of the marvelous? If so, here is a camp story about
Colonel Sigel's late engagement at Carthage:
A private in one of his companies (so runs the tale), while loading
and firing, was lying flat upon his face to avoid the balls of the
Rebels, when a shot from one of their six-pounders plunged into the
ground right beside him, plowed through under him, about six inches
below the surface, came out on the other side, and pursued its winding
way. It did not hurt a hair of his head, but, in something less than a
twinkling of an eye, whirled him over upon his back!
If you shake your head, save your incredulity for _this_: A captain
assures me that in the same battle he saw one of Sigel's artillerists
struck by a shot which cut off both legs; but that he promptly raised
himself half up, rammed the charge home in his gun, withdrew the
ramrod, and then fell back, dead! This is, at least, melo-dramatic, and
only paralleled by the ballad-hero
----"Of doleful dumps,
Who, when his legs were both cut off,
Still fought upon his stumps."