Called upon again, on leaving St. Louis for Washington, to assume the duties of general-in-chief, he made an equally brief response:
"Gentlemen: I promised to drive the enemy out of Missouri; I have done it!"
Halleck's Army, before Corinth, }
April 23, 1862. }
Heavy re-enforcements are arriving. The woods, in luxuriant foliage, are spiced with
"——a dream of forest sweets,
Of odorous blooms and sweet contents,"
and the deserted orchards are fragrant with apple and cherry blossoms.
Out on the Front.
May 11.
Still we creep slowly along. Pope's head-quarters are now within the borders of Mississippi. Out on his front you find several hundred acres of cotton-field and sward, ridged with graves from a recent hot skirmish. Carcasses of a hundred horses, killed during the battle, are slowly burning under piles of rails, covered with a layer of earth, that their decay may not taint the atmosphere.
Beyond, our infantry pickets present muskets and order you to halt. If you are accompanied by a field-officer, or bear a pass "by order of Major-General Halleck," you can cross this Rubicon. A third of a mile farther are our vedettes, some mounted, others lying in the shade beside their grazing horses, but keeping a sharp look-out in front. In a little rift of the woods, half a mile away, you see through your field-glass a solitary horseman clad in butternut. Two or three more, and sometimes forty or fifty, come out of the woods and join him, but they keep very near their cover, and soon go back. Those are the enemy's pickets. You hear the drum beat in the Rebel lines, and the shrill whistle of the locomotives at Corinth, which is three miles distant.