On the 3d of July, the States and territories west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, including New Mexico, were constituted the Western Department, under the command of Major-General John Charles Fremont.[[43]] On the 26th he arrived in our city and took up the vastly important work confided to his hands. All the loyal wished him well. Many of them received him with exultation. He came with prestige. He was a renowned path finder to the Pacific. He had been the standard-bearer of the Republican party in 1856, and though defeated had polled a heavy vote in the most intelligent and progressive States of the Union. No one ever assumed military command under more favorable auspices.
GENERAL FREMONT’S HEADQUARTERS, EIGHTH STREET AND CHOUTEAU AVENUE, ST. LOUIS.
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He at once appointed Colonel McNeil commandant of St. Louis,[[44]] that he himself, measurably free from local demands, might expend his energies in directing the larger affairs of his department. The best volunteers of the West rapidly and enthusiastically gathered around him. He gave himself without reserve to his great and difficult task. But from the start he appeared to be vainglorious. His headquarters were luxurious. Immediately around him he gathered a body-guard of about three hundred men, some of whom were foreigners with jaw-breaking names. It was later shown that most of them were enlisted not to serve the United States, but simply the general.[[45]] He and they, in full uniform, on horseback, often went thundering along our streets, kicking up a cloud of dust, or else making the mud fly. At Fremont’s headquarters were stationed so many sentinels that it was exceedingly difficult to find access to his person. Eminent citizens of St. Louis early began to complain that he ignored both them and the important questions on which they needed his counsel.
Moreover, there was a marked lack of system in all that he undertook to do. He evidently had little talent for details; so everything in the encampments of his volunteer soldiers was in confusion. All this was inauspicious and disheartening. We had expected so much and were getting so little.
The general soon reported to the authorities at Washington that his department was in a critical condition;[[46]] that troops of the Southern Confederacy in large numbers were moving northward to aid the disloyal of Missouri; that General Pillow threatened to invade the State from the southeast, General Hardee from the south, and General McCulloch from the southwest; and that while the volunteers gathering at St. Louis to meet the invaders were numerous, many of them were unarmed.
In the meantime, Lyon at Springfield, with a clear view of the whole situation, seeing that by far the most formidable rebel force, under McCulloch and Price, was moving upon him from the southwest, pleaded in vain with Fremont to re-enforce his altogether inadequate army by at least one or two regiments and to pay and clothe his soldiers.[[47]] Fremont’s assistant adjutant-general, J. C. Kelton, wrote him at Cairo, August 2d: “General Lyon wants soldiers, soldiers, soldiers. So says Colonel Hammer, who has just arrived from Springfield.”[[48]] The same day Fremont wrote General Scott: “Force large in front of General Lyon.” But all was without avail. The Confederates, by a feint at New Madrid, in the southeastern corner of the State, had deceived him. Pillow was reported as being there with eleven thousand men.[[49]] He was led to believe that the main invasion of our commonwealth was to be at that point.
So the general called into his service eight river steamboats, loaded them with an abundance of provisions, camp equipage, ammunition and arms, and put on board about five thousand soldiers, infantry and artillery. The Stars and Stripes waved proudly over each boat, while over the “City of Alton,” “the flag steamer,” on which were the general and his staff, waved also the Union Jack and a broad pennon. On August 1st this warlike fleet, to us an unusual and imposing sight, began to move down the Mississippi.[[50]] The crowds on the levee cheered, waved handkerchiefs, and threw up hats. But not a few of the more thoughtful, shaking their heads, said, “We believe that Lyon, whose urgent pleadings have been unheeded, and to whom no re-enforcements have been sent, is right in thinking that the main invading rebel force is not at New Madrid, in the southeast, but comes from the southwest to attack him and his brave little army at Springfield.” And “This ostentatious expedition of Fremont,” they added, “is in utter contrast with the silent, swift, effective movements of the neglected Lyon.” Moreover, some of the ablest Union men of the city, half disheartened by the display on the river, exclaimed, “Fuss and feathers!” Their criticism may have been somewhat passionate, and perhaps uncalled for, but the event justified their main contention. There was only a handful of the enemy at New Madrid. But these Confederates had shrewdly played their game. They had diverted the attention of the Union general from McCulloch and Price to themselves, and made it difficult for him now to re-enforce Lyon before he must meet the enemy. Enlightened by experience, Fremont ordered his fleet back to St. Louis. Still, his expedition was not bootless. While he found but a few hundred rebels at New Madrid, and these escaped him unscathed, he laid, as he wisely intended to do, the foundation of a military encampment across the river at Cairo, Illinois, from which later began the great campaign under Grant down the east bank of the Mississippi. Nevertheless the general’s ostentatious and ill-starred movements disgusted many of the loyal of the city. Perhaps they did not fully understand him, but they saw enough to evoke their heated opposition to him; some indeed defended him, for he had true and warm friends, but others sharply condemned him; while the overawed and silenced secessionists, still by thousands among us, looked on with satisfaction.
In the meantime, the clear-sighted, intrepid Lyon at Springfield was left to shift for himself. He concluded that retreat would be hazardous, if not absolutely destructive, in the face of a hostile force nearly three times as great as his own, and unhesitatingly decided to take the initiative instead of simply standing on the defensive. His matured purpose was quickly executed. The army of Price and McCulloch was at Wilson’s Creek, about nine or ten miles south of Springfield. He determined to move upon it in two columns, the first under himself, the second under Colonel Siegel. The advance was to begin about sunset of the 9th; the attack was to be made at daylight the next morning. Having given his orders, he calmly wrote General Fremont the following memorable letter. It was his last.
“I retired to this place, as I before informed you, reaching here on the 5th. The enemy followed to within ten miles of here. He has taken a strong position and is recruiting his supply of horses, mules, and provisions, by forays into the surrounding country: his large force of mounted men enabling him to do this without much annoyance from me. I find my position extremely embarrassing, and am at present unable to determine whether I shall be able to maintain my ground, or be forced to retire. I can resist any attack from the front, but, if the enemy were to surround me, I must retire. I shall hold my ground as long as possible, though I may, without knowing how far, endanger the safety of my entire force, with its valuable material, being induced, by the important considerations involved, to take this step. The enemy showed himself in considerable force yesterday five miles from here, and has doubtless a full purpose of attacking me.”[[51]]