SCENE SEVENTH—WAR BETWEEN THE STATES.
The late civil war between the States of the American Union was the inevitable result of two civilizations under one government, which no power on earth could have prevented We place the federal and confederate soldier in the same scale per se, and one will not weigh the other down an atom.
So even will they poise that you may mark the small allowance of the weight of a hair. But place upon the beam the pea of their actions while upon the stage, on either side, an the poise may be up or down.
More than this, your orator has nothing to say of the war, except its effect upon the characters we describe.
The bright blossoms of a May morning were opening to meet the sunlight, while the surrounding foliage was waving in the soft breeze ol spring; on the southern bank of the beautiful Ohio, where the momentous events of the future were concealed from the eyes of the preceding generation by the dar veil of the coming revolutions of the globe.
We see Cousin Cæsar and Cliff Carlo in close counsel, upon the subject of meeting the expenses of the contest at law over the Simon estate, in the State of Arkansas.
Cliff Carlo was rather non-committal. Roxie Daymon was a near relative, and the unsolved problem in the case of compromise and law did not admit of haste on the part of the Carlo family. Compromise was not the forte of Cousin Cæsar, To use his own words, “I have made the cast, and will stand the hazard of the die.”
But the enterprise, with surrounding circumstances, would have baffled a bolder man than Cæsar Simon. The first gun of the war had been fired at Fort Sumter, in South Carolina, on the 12th day of April, 1861.
The President of the United States had called for seventy-five thousand war-like men to rendezvous at Washington City, and form a Praetorian guard, to strengthen the arm of the government. To arms, to arms! was the cry both North and South. The last lingering hope of peace between the States had faded from the minds of all men, and the bloody crest of war was painted on the horizon of the future. The border slave States, in the hope of peace, had remained inactive all winter. They now withdrew from the Union and joined their fortunes with the South, except Kentucky—the dark and bloody ground historic in the annals of war—showed the white feather, and announced to the world that her soil was the holy ground of peace. This proclamation was too thin for Cæsar Simon. Some of the Carlo family had long since immigrated to Missouri. To consult with them on the war affair, and meet with an element more disposed to defend his prospect of property, Cousin Cæsar left Kentucky for Missouri. On the fourth day of July, 1861, in obedience to the call of the President, the Congress of the United States met at Washington City. This Congress called to the contest five hundred thousand men; “cried havoc and let slip the dogs of war,” and Missouri was invaded by federal troops, who were subsequently put under the command of Gen. Lyon. About the middle of July we see Cousin Cæsar marching in the army of Gen. Sterling Price—an army composed of all classes of humanity, who rushed to the conflict without promise of pay or assistance from the government of the Confederate States of America—an army without arms or equipment, except such as it gathered from the citizens, double-barreled shot-guns—an army of volunteers without the promise of pay or hope of reward; composed of men from eighteen to seventy years of age, with a uniform of costume varying from the walnut colored roundabout to the pigeon-tailed broadcloth coat. The mechanic and the farmer, the professional and the non-professional,' the merchant and the jobber, the speculator and the butcher, the country schoolmaster and the printer's devil, the laboring man and the dead beat, all rushed into Price's army, seemingly under the influence of the watchword of the old Jews, “To your tents, O Israeli” and it is a fact worthy of record that this unarmed and untrained army never lost a battle on Missouri soil in the first year of the war. * Gov. Jackson had fled from Jefferson City on the approach of the federal army, and assembled the Legislature at Neosho, in the southwest corner of the State, who were unable to assist Price's army. The troops went into the field, thrashed the wheat and milled it for themselves; were often upon half rations, and frequently lived upon roasting ears. Except the Indian or border war in Kentucky, fought by a preceding generation, the first year of the war in Missouri is unparalleled in the history of war on this continent. Gen. Price managed to subsist an army without governmental resources. His men were never demoralized for the want of food, pay or clothing, and were always cheerful, and frequently danced 'round their camp-fires, bare-footed and ragged, with a spirit of merriment that would put the blush upon the cheek of a circus. Gen. Price wore nothing upon his shoulders but a brown linen duster, and, his white hair streaming in the breeze on the field of battle, was a picture resembling the war-god of the Romans in ancient fable.
* The so called battle of Boonville was a rash venture of
citizens, not under the command of Gen. Price at the time.