COUNTRY.
|The three-months troops whose terms had expired, or were about to
expire, were sent home, and the post at Rolla left in charge of the
three-years regiments that remained, together with a portion of the
regular forces of the late army of the southwest. The First Iowa, as
already stated, had been enlisted for three months, and soon after the
arrival at Rolla it returned to its own state and was disbanded.
True to their determination to see more of the war, Jack and Harry
remained at Rolla when the regiment departed. At the same time they
wrote to their parents and sent messages by their comrades, explaining
why they wished to stay in Missouri, and their reasons for not going
home. “We are not enlisted,” Jack wrote to his father, “and so we don't
have to get into danger like the soldiers do. We've nothing to do but
drive wagons and stay around the camp, where everything is safe. The
boys will tell you how it is when they get home, and you may be sure we
won't take any risks we can keep out of.”
There was a good deal of special pleading in Jack's letter, as the
reader plainly perceives. It was certainly a greater risk for the youths
to remain at a frontier post than to go home, where they would be out
of all danger. Furthermore, anybody knows that while the position of a
teamster is safer than that of the soldier who goes into battle, it is
by no means a situation of unalloyed security. Wagon-trains are liable
to attack and capture in the enemy's country, and one of the favorite
enterprises of a cavalry commander is to strike his enemy's wagon-train
on frequent occasions. If the wagons can be taken away they become the
enemy's property; if they cannot be secured they are destroyed, and,
in either case, the unfortunate drivers fall into the enemy's hands and
become prisoners of war.
The history of war is full of stories of attacks upon wagon-trains; one
of the perplexing problems for the military commander to solve is how to
keep open his line of communications when advancing into the region
of war and protect the trains that bring forward the supplies for his
troops. If an army could be maintained without food and ammunition, save
what it could collect in the enemy's country, many a leader would be
greatly relieved.
Through the recommendation of the officers of the First Iowa Jack and
Harry obtained employment with the post quartermaster at Rolla. With
the approval of the commander of the troops stationed there he issued
new clothing and blankets to the youths, and they felt, to use an old
phrase, “as proud as peacocks.”
A rumor came that a rebel army was assembling somewhere to the southward
for the purpose of attacking Rolla and securing the valuable property
stored there. The garrison was put at work to throw up defenses, cannon
were sent from St. Louis, the hills around the village were cleared of
brushwood, and everything about the place assumed the appearance of war.
One day Jack suggested to Harry that they would make an excursion into
the neighboring country, just to see for themselves and have a little
fun.
Harry agreed to the proposal, but said there was a difficulty in the way
on account of their clothing. They didn't want to be known as belonging
to the garrison of Rolla, for the double reason that the people would
not talk freely with them, and, besides, they might be seized and
carried off as prisoners; and furthermore, their suits were new and they
didn't want to spoil them as long as spoiling could be avoided.
Fortune favored them. That very day a scouting party brought in a
wagon-load of clothing which had been collected in a village a few miles
away to be sent to a company from that village, and then serving under
General Price. From this load of clothing the quartermaster allowed Jack
and Harry to help themselves, and they managed to pick out two suits
which fitted them about as well as one is ordinarily fitted in a
ready-made clothing store.
Slouch hats added to these butternut garments completed their costume,
and thus accoutered they set out on a tramp whose duration was an
uncertainty. Their plan was to walk from Rolla to Ironton and back
again. The distance between the two points was about a hundred miles,
and they intended to take a different road on their return from the one
followed on the outward journey.
Ironton was then the terminus of the Iron Mountain Railway, and was
held by a garrison of Union troops. Colonel Wyman, who commanded the
Thirteenth Illinois, then stationed at Rolla, promised to write to the
commander of the post at Ironton and inform him of the proposed journey
of the youths, so that their story would not be discredited on their
arrival there. It was thought best that they should carry no letters or
papers of any kind which might compromise them in case of capture. So
they took nothing except sufficient money to pay their expenses on the
way, and this was supplied by the commander of the post. The paper
money of the state of Missouri was preferred to anything else by the
inhabitants of the region through which they were to pass, and
therefore they carried nothing which bore the stamp of the United States
government, with the exception of a few small pieces of silver coin and
some of the local “shin-plasters” that were then in circulation.
The story that they were to tell in case they were questioned was that
they had come from the northern part of Missouri and were on their way
to visit friends near Ironton. They would freely admit that they had
come through Rolla, and Colonel Wyman gave them permission to tell all
they knew about the garrison there, except to give a guess as to the
number of troops at the post. To all questions as to the number of
soldiers at Rolla, they were to reply that they “did n't know, but
thought there were five or six thousand.”
The fact was a reinforcement was expected in a few days, but this was
unknown to the youths, and therefore the colonel was quite willing the
boys should give whatever information they could, and in saying that
they did n't know the number of soldiers at the post they would be
strictly within the lines of truth. On their part they were to learn all
they could about what the secessionists were doing in the region between
Rolla and Ironton, and to what extent it was sending recruits to the
rebel forces in the field.
The only baggage either of them carried was an overcoat, if an overcoat
can be called baggage. Jack wanted to add a tooth-brush and a cake of
soap to his outfit, but the proposal was vetoed by Harry.
“Don't you see,” said Harry, “you'd be giving yourself away at once?
These fellows here don't use soap, or so rarely that it is an exception;
and as for tooth-brushes, I don't believe a quarter of the people have
ever heard of'em. Suppose they search us or see us using soap and
tooth-brushes; they'd know right off that we were not of their kind.
“And did n't you hear about how soap-boxes caused a lot of ammunition to
be seized?” Harry added.
“No; what was that?”
“It was about the time of the Camp Jackson affair, when the state
authorities were laying their plans for taking the state out of the
Union and getting ready to fight. The Union commanders at St. Louis were
trying to stop the shipment of arms and ammunition to the interior
of the state, and all packages of goods going in that direction were
examined. At first only the outside of the packages was looked at, but
one day something happened to require a more careful inspection.
“The examining officers found some boxes labeled 'soap' on a steamboat
bound for Lexington, on the Missouri river. Had there been only one or
two boxes he would not have been suspicious, but when he found more
than one hundred boxes he 'smelt a mouse.' He naturally wondered why
the people in that part of Missouri could want so much soap, and from
wondering he ordered some of the boxes opened.
“Every box was found to contain canisters of gunpowder instead of soap.
The whole lot was seized, and after that no goods were allowed to go
forward without a careful inspection. If the shipper had labeled the
stuff 'whisky' instead of 'soap,' nobody would have been suspicious, as
whisky is a staple article of commerce and consumption in that region.”
Jack admitted the force of the argument about soap, but insisted that a
tooth-brush would not be suspicious or betray their real character.
“Don't be so sure of that,” replied Harry. “One of these Union men from
the very region we're going through said the other day that he thought
the colonel of the Illinois regiment was a very nice man, until he saw
him come out in front of his tent one morning with a glass of water in
one hand and a little stick with some bristles on it in the other.
“'He came out there,' said the man, 'and stood round for five or ten
minutes pushing that little stick round in his mouth and hawking and
spitting and sloshing that 'er water among his teeth till it made me feel
sick. I don't think he's much of a nice man after that.'”
Jack laughed, and agreed that the tooth-brush must be left behind, as
well as the soap, and thus it happened that they started with neither of
those adjuncts of a civilized toilet.
They took the road leading in a southeasterly direction from Rolla,
starting one morning before daybreak, so as to be well on their way
before anybody in the village was stirring. The sergeant of the picket
on the road they were to travel had been notified to let them go on
without question, and he did so on their presentation of a pass duly
signed by the commandant of the post. By sunrise they were a good three
miles out of town, and had met nobody.
The first man they met was a Union refugee, who was making his way to
the post to escape persecution of his secession neighbors; at least that
was what the youths inferred, though he was too cautious to say so until
he had reached the protection of the Stars and Stripes. He asked if he
was on the right road for Rolla, and on being assured that he was he
appeared greatly relieved.
“I don't know where you-'uns are going,” said he, “but you 'll find
lively times if you get down into Arkansas.”
“How so?” one of the boys asked.
“Why,” was the reply, “everybody's going to the army, and they don't
talk about nothing else. They say they'll be up here soon and drive the
Yanks out of Rolla and everywhere else.”
“They're used to driving,” said Jack; “there's a lot of'em at Rolla
that's just been driven in from Springfield, and don't act as though
they were going back again in a hurry.”
“Yes, I've heard so,” replied the stranger; “p'r'aps they don't want to
go back there yet awhile.”
The conversation lasted for ten or fifteen minutes, and was as
non-committal as possible on both sides. Neither party was willing to
admit friendliness for the Union side, as each was fearful of after
consequences. The stranger was the first to move on, as he evidently
distrusted the youths and wanted to get away from them.