"John Pope, Major-General Commanding."
After the evacuation of Corinth, Pope's reputation suffered greatly from a false dispatch, asserting that he had captured ten thousand prisoners. Halleck alone was responsible for the report. Pope was in the rear. One of his subordinates on the front telegraphed him substantially as follows:
"The woods are full of demoralized and flying Rebels. Some of my officers estimate their number as high as ten thousand. Many of them have already come into my lines."
Pope forwarded this message, which said nothing about taking prisoners, to Halleck, without erasing or adding a line; and Halleck, smarting under his mortifying failure at Corinth, telegraphed that Pope reported the capture of ten thousand Rebels. Pope's reputation for veracity was fatally wounded, and the newspapers burlesqued him mercilessly.
One of my comrades lay sick and wounded at the residence of General Clinton B. Fisk, of St. Louis. On a Sunday afternoon the general was reading to him from the Bible an account of the first contraband. This historic precedent was the servant of an Amalekite, who came into David's camp and proposed, if assured of freedom, to show the King of Israel a route which would enable him to surprise his foes. The promise was given, and the king fell upon the enemy, whom he utterly destroyed. While our host was reading the list of the spoils, the prisoners, slaves, women, flocks and herds captured by David, the sick journalist lifted his attenuated finger, and in his weak, piping voice, said:
"Stop, General; just look down to the bottom of that list, and see if it is not signed John Pope, Major-General commanding!"
Halleck's Faux Pas at Corinth.
At last, Halleck's army reached Corinth, but the bird had flown. No event of the war reflected so much credit upon the Rebels and so much discredit upon the Unionists as Beauregard's evacuation. He did not disturb himself until Halleck's Parrott guns had thrown shots within fourteen feet of his own head-quarters. Then, keeping up a vigorous show of resistance on his front, he deserted the town, leaving behind not a single gun, or ambulance, or even a sick or wounded man in the hospital.
Halleck lost thenceforth the name of "Old Brains," which some imaginative person had given him, and which tickled for a time the ears of his soldiers. The only good thing he ever did, in public, was to make two brief speeches. When he first reached St. Louis, upon being called out by the people, he said:
"With your help, I will drive the enemy out of Missouri."