An Involuntary Sojourn With Rebels.
I have just met a gentleman, residing in southwestern Missouri, whose experience is novel. He visited the camp of the Rebels to reclaim a pair of valuable horses, which they had taken from his residence. They not only retained the stolen animals, but also took from him those with which he went in pursuit, and left him the alternative of walking home, twenty-three miles, through a dangerous region, or remaining in their camp. Fond of adventure, he chose the latter, and for three weeks messed with a Missouri company. The facetious scoundrels told him that they could not afford to keep him unless he earned his living; and employed him as a teamster. He had philosophy enough to make the best of it, and flattered himself that he became a very creditable mule-driver.
Early on the morning of August 10th, he was breakfasting with the officers from a dry-goods box, which served for a table, when bang! went a cannon, not more than two or three hundred yards from them, and crash! came a ball, cutting off the branches just above their heads. "Here is the devil to pay; the Dutch are upon us!" exclaimed the captain, springing up and ordering his company to form.
My friend was a looker-on from the Southern side during the whole battle. He gives a graphic account of the joy of the Rebels at finding the body of General Lyon, lying under a tree (the first information they had of his death), and their surprise and consternation at the bravery with which the little Union army fought to the bitter end.
Twenty leading Secessionists are in durance vile here. There is a poetic justice in the fact that their prison was formerly a slave-pen, and that they are enabled to study State Rights from old negro quarters.
September 7.
A Startling Confederate Atrocity.
The Rebels have just perpetrated a new and startling atrocity. They cut down the high railroad bridge over the Little Platte River near St. Joseph. The next train from Hannibal reached the spot at midnight, and its locomotive and five cars were precipitated, thirty feet, into the bed of the river. More than fifty passengers were dangerously wounded, and twenty instantly killed. They were mainly women and children; there was not a single soldier among them.