General Buell was in command of the department, with his head-quarters at the Galt House. He had a large army at Mumfordville and other points. He issued his orders by telegraph, but he had no plan of operations. There were no indications of a movement. The Rebel sympathizers kept General Johnston, in command at Bowling Green, well informed as to Buell's inaction. There was daily communication between Louisville and the Rebel camp. There was constant illicit trade in contraband goods. The policy of General McClellan was also the policy of General Buell,—to sit still.
Events were more stirring in Missouri, and I proceeded to St. Louis, where General Halleck was in command,—a thick-set, dark-featured, black-haired man, sluggish, opinionated, and self-willed, arbitrary and cautious.
Soon after his appointment to this department he issued, on the 20th of November, his Order No. 3, which roused the indignation of earnest loyal men throughout the country. Thus read the document:—
"It has been represented that information respecting the numbers and condition of our forces is conveyed to the enemy by means of fugitive slaves who are admitted within our lines. In order to remedy this evil, it is directed that no such persons be hereafter permitted to enter the lines of any camp, or of any forces on the march, and that any within our lines be immediately excluded therefrom."
General Schofield was in command of Northern Missouri, under General Halleck. The guerillas had burned nearly all the railroad bridges, and it was necessary to bring them to justice. The negroes along the line gave him the desired intelligence, and six of the leaders were in this way caught, tried by court-martial, and summarily shot. Yet General Halleck adhered to his infamous order. Diligent inquiries were made of officers in regard to the loyalty of the negroes, and no instance was found of their having given information to the enemy. In all of the slaveholding States a negro's testimony was of no account against a white man under civil law; but General Schofield had, under military law, inaugurated a new order of things,—a drum-head court, a speedy sentence, a quick execution, on negro testimony. The Secessionists and Rebel sympathizers were indignant, and called loudly for his removal.
The fine army which Fremont had commanded, and from which he had been summarily dismissed because of his anti-slavery order, was at Rolla, at the terminus of the southwest branch of the Pacific Railroad. This road, sixteen miles out from St. Louis, strikes the valley of the Maramec,—not the Merrimack, born of the White Hills, but a sluggish stream, tinged with blue and green, widening in graceful curves, with tall-trunked elms upon its banks, and acres of low lands, which are flooded in freshets. It is a pretty river, but not to be compared in beauty to the stream which the muse of Whittier has made classic. Nearly all the residences in this section are Missourian in architectural proportions and features,—logs and clay, with the mammoth outside chimneys, cow-yard and piggery, an oven out of doors on stilts, an old wagon, half a dozen horses, hens, dogs, pigs, in front, and lean, cadaverous men and women peeping from the doorways, with arms akimbo, and pipes between the teeth. This is the prevailing feature,—this in a beautiful, fertile country, needing but the hand of industry, the energy of a free people, vitalized by the highest civilization, to make it one of the loveliest portions of the world.
At Franklin the southwestern branch of the Pacific Railroad diverges from the main stem. It is a new place, brought into existence by the railroad, and consists of a lime-kiln, a steam saw-mill, and a dozen houses. Behind the town is a picturesque bluff, with the lime-kiln at its base, which might be taken for a ruined temple of some old Aztec city. Near at hand two Iowa regiments were encamped. A squad of soldiers was on the plain, and a crowd stood upon the depot platform, anxiously inquiring for the morning papers. It was a supply station, provisions being sent up both lines. Two heavy freight trains, destined for Rolla, were upon the southwestern branch. To one of them passenger cars were attached, to which we were transferred.
When the branch was opened for travel in 1859, the directors run one train a day,—a mixed train of passenger and freight cars,—and during the first week their patronage in freight was immense,—it consisted of a bear and a pot of honey! On the passage the bear ate the honey, and the owner of the honey brought a bill against the company for damages.
Beyond Franklin the road crosses the Maramec, enters a forest, winds among the hills, and finally by easy grades reaches a crest of land, from which, looking to the right or the left, you can see miles away over an unbroken forest of oak. Far to the east is the elevated ridge of land which ends in the Pilot Knob, toward the Mississippi, and becomes the Ozark Mountain range toward the Arkansas line. We looked over the broad panorama to see villages, church-spires, white cottages, or the blue curling smoke indicative of a town or human residence, but the expanse was primitive and unbroken. Not a sign of life could be discovered for many miles as we slowly crept along the line. The country is undulating, with the limestone strata cropping out on the hillsides. In the railroad cuttings the rock, which at the surface is gray, takes a yellow and reddish tinge, from the admixture of ochre in the soil. In one cutting we recognized the lead-bearing rocks, which abound through the southwestern section of the State.
We looked in vain to discover a school-house. A gentleman who was well acquainted with this portion of the State, said that he knew of only two school-houses,—one in Warsaw and the other in Springfield. In a ride of one hundred and thirteen miles we saw but two churches. As Aunt Ophelia found "Topsy" virgin soil, so will those who undertake to reconstruct the South find these wilds of Southwestern Missouri. And they are a fair specimen of the South.