CHAPTER IV. ON THE ROAD TO GLORY.
|The regiment to which our young friends were attached--the FirstIowa--received orders to move southward. Everything was bustle andactivity in the camp, and the boys made themselves useful in a varietyof ways.
As before stated, they were to accompany the wagon-train, and at onceproceeded to make friends with everybody connected with that branch ofthe regiment’s service; and they were not only friendly with the men,but with the horses. Some of the animals showed a tendency to be unruly,but by gentle ways and words Jack and Harry secured their confidence,and it was often remarked that the brutes would do more for the boysthan for anybody else. One of the teamsters asked Jack how it was, andsaid he would give a good deal to know their secret of horse-training.
“There’s no secret about it,” replied Jack; “at least, none that I knowof. My father is very fond of horses, and has often told me that healways treats them kindly, but at the same time firmly. If he setsout to have a horse do anything he makes him do it; if the creature isstubborn he coaxes him and pets him, and keeps on urging him to do whathe wants, and after a while the horse does it. When he has once begun henever lets up, and the animal soon knows that the man is master, and atthe same time learns that he isn’t to be cruelly punished, very oftenfor not understanding what is wanted.”
To show what he could do in the way of equestrian training, Jack tookcharge of a “balky” horse that frequently stopped short in his tracksand refused to move on in spite of a sound thrashing. All efforts to gethim to go ahead were of no use, and altogether the beast (whose name wasBilly) was the cause of a great deal of bad language on the part of theteamsters, which even the presence of the chaplain could not restrain.
Jack harnessed Billy into a cart, and after asking those about him tomake no interference, and not even to come near him, he started to mounta small hill at the edge of the camp. Before he had ascended ten feet ofthe sloping road Billy halted, and showed by his position and the rollof his eye that he intended to stay where he was.
Jack dismounted and took the animal by the head; he tugged gently at thebridle three or four times, speaking gently and kindly all the while,but to no purpose. Billy was “set” in his determination, and did notpropose to oblige anybody.
“All right,” said Jack; “if you want to stop here I ‘ll stay too.” Andwith that he pulled out a dime novel and sat down by the roadside closeto Billy’s head.
Jack opened his book and began to read, while Billy looked on andmeditated. Half an hour passed and then an hour. At the end of that timeJack made another effort to start the horse up the hill, but with thesame result as before.
Then he read another hour and then another, stopping once in a while totry and coax the animal to move on. By this time it was noon, and Jackcalled to Harry to bring him something to eat. Harry came with a sliceof cold meat and a piece of bread, and immediately went away, leavingJack to devour his lunch in silence, which he did. When the meal wasconcluded he read another chapter or two, and then he took Billy oncemore by the bridle and in the same gentle tones urged him to proceed.
Evidently the horse had thought the matter over, as he showed a perfectwillingness to do as his young master desired. Without the leasthesitation he went straight up the hill, and when they were at the topJack petted and praised him, and after a while took him back to camp.The lesson was repeated again in the afternoon and on the following day,and from that time on Billy was a model of obedience as long as he waskindly treated.
“I believe a horse has to think things over just as we do,” said Jack;“and if you watch him you ‘ll find out that he can’t think fast. What Iwanted was to have him understand that he had got to stay there all dayand all night if necessary, until he did what I wanted him to do. Whenhe saw me reading that book and sitting so quiet by the roadside, andparticularly when he saw me eat my dinner and sit down to wait just asI had waited before, he made up his mind that’t was n’t any use to holdout. Horses have good memories. Hereafter when he ‘s inclined to bebalky he ‘ll think of that long wait and give in without any fuss.”
The regiment went by steamboat down the Mississippi river to thefrontier of Missouri, and there waited orders to advance into theinterior of the would-be neutral state, and while it waited there was arapid progress of events in St. Louis, to which we will now turn.
General Lyon had positive information that the rebels were preparingto bring troops from Arkansas and the Indian Territory to assist theMissouri state guard in keeping out the “Dutch and Yankees.” Of coursethis was quite in keeping with the neutrality about which they had somuch to say, and if allowed to go on it was very evident that the wholeof the interior of the state might soon be in their control. Accordinglyhe asked for further authority to enlist troops in the state, andrequested that the governors of the neighboring states should bedirected to furnish him with several regiments that were in readiness.His request was granted, and within less than a month from the captureof Camp Jackson General Lyon had a military force aggregating tenthousand men in St. Louis, and as many more in Kansas, Iowa and Illinoiswaiting orders to move wherever he wanted them to go.
Besides these troops there were several thousands of Home Guards indifferent parts of the state; many of these men were Germans, who hadseen military service in the old country, and were excellent materialfor an army. Opposed to them the governor had a few thousand statetroops, many of them poorly armed, but they greatly made up in activitywhat they lacked in numbers or equipment, so far as keeping the countryin a perpetual turmoil was concerned.
It was very evident that the state troops could not hold out againstGeneral Lyon’s disciplined army, and consequently the governor madeready to abandon Jefferson City, the capital, whenever General Lyonmoved against it. All the state property that could be moved was sentaway, and the governor and other officials prepared to follow wheneverhostilities began.
Through the efforts of several gentlemen who still hoped for a peacefulsolution of the troubles of Missouri, a conference was held at St. Louison the eleventh of June between Governor Jackson and General Price onbehalf of the state authorities, and General Lyon and Colonel Blair onthe other. General Lyon had guaranteed that if Jackson and Price wouldcome to St. Louis for the purposes of the conference they should have“safe conduct” both ways and not be molested while in the city.
The meeting was a historic one. General Lyon, on being notified of thearrival of Jackson and Price in the city, asked them to meet him atthe United States arsenal. The wily governor did not consider himselfaltogether safe in venturing there, in spite of the safe-conduct thathe held, and suggested that the conference must be held at the Planters’House, a well-known hotel of St. Louis, and at that time the principalone. Accordingly the general went there with Colonel Blair, and after afew polite phrases the negotiations began. Present, but not taking partin the debate, were Major Conant, of General Lyon’s staff, and ColonelSnead, the private secretary of Governor Jackson.
Four or five hours were consumed in the discussion, which was ananimated one throughout. The governor demanded that the United Statestroops should be withdrawn from the state, and that no recruiting forthe union cause should be permitted anywhere in Missouri. ‘When thetroops were withdrawn he would disband the state militia, and thus thestate would be kept entirely neutral. General Lyon insisted that thegovernment had the right to send its troops where it pleased within theboundaries of the United States, and he would listen to nothing else.No progress was made by either side, as neither would yield a point.Finally General Lyon brought the conference to an end by tellingGovernor Jackson it was useless to talk longer, and that in one hour anofficer would call to escort them out of the city.
Lyon and Blair went at once to the arsenal to give orders for themovement of troops, and within an hour from the end of the conferenceJackson and Price were on their way to Jefferson City as fast as therailway train could carry them. On the way they ordered the bridgesover the Osage and Gasconade rivers
to be burned, in order to preventpursuit.
Early the next morning the governor issued a proclamation calling thepeople of the state to arms, for the purpose, as he said, of repellinginvasion and protecting the lives and property of the citizens of thestate. He also asked the Confederate government to send a co-operatingforce into Missouri as soon as possible, and gave orders for GeneralPrice to take the field at once with all the troops he could muster.
General Lyon ordered three regiments with two batteries of artillery,under General Sweeney, to occupy the southwestern part of the state, andby the thirteenth they were on their way to Springfield by way of Rolla,which was then the terminus of the railroad in that direction. Theobject of this movement was to stop the advance of any Confederateforce coming from Arkansas to help the Missourians, and also to head offJackson and Price in case they marched in that direction. At the sametime General Lyon, with two regiments of infantry and a battery ofartillery, together with about five hundred regular infantry, wentup the Missouri river to Jefferson City, which they captured on thefifteenth without opposition, the rebels having left on the day thatGeneral Lyon started from St. Louis.
At the same time that he gave orders for the movements from St. Louis,General Lyon telegraphed to the commander of the Iowa regiment to whichJack and Harry were attached, to advance into Missouri in the directionof Booneville, a flourishing town on the south bank of the Missouri, andthe spot selected by General Price as the rallying point of the statetroops. There was a considerable amount of war material stored therebelonging to the state, and by orders of the governor an arsenal hadbeen started at Booneville for the manufacture of cannon and small-arms.Most of the inhabitants sympathized with the secession movement, whichwas not the case with the population of Jefferson City, largely composedof Germans.
Jack and Harry fairly danced with delight when they found they were tomarch into the enemy’s country. They regretted that their duties keptthem with the wagon-train, which is not usually supposed to take partin battle, and wondered if there was not some way by which they couldchange places with two of the soldiers and have a share in the fighting.During their first night on the soil of Missouri they lost a fair amountof blood; it was drawn not by the bullets or the sabers of the enemy,but by the mosquitos with which that region is abundantly supplied. Jackthought he had spilled at least a pint of gore in feeding the Missourimosquitos, and wondered if he could be fairly charged with treason orgiving “aid and comfort to the enemy.”