He seemed to have a mania for fortifications. He put Jefferson City, the capital of the State, under the command of Brigadier-General Ulysses S. Grant, then unknown to fame, and especially enjoined him to fortify it. To this order Grant replied that he had neither sufficient men nor tools to fortify the place, and added: “Drill and discipline are more important than fortifications.” That pithy, pregnant sentence foreshadowed the hero of Fort Donelson, Vicksburg and Appomattox.
At last, during the closing days of September, Fremont and his army, attended, as it seemed to us, with inextricable confusion and indescribable clatter, left St. Louis for Jefferson City. No armed host ever went forth to battle made up of nobler men. The best blood of the West ran in their veins. They were unusually intelligent and patriotic. Price, apparently always unwilling to risk a doubtful conflict, abandoning his project of destroying the railroads in the northern part of the State, with an army of about twenty thousand men, retreated in orderly fashion towards southwest Missouri. The loyal of our city now took new heart and hope. Our general, unopposed, moved on towards Springfield. On the 25th of October, Zagonyi, with a hundred and fifty of Fremont’s body-guard, made a brilliant dash into that city, dispersing the rebel soldiers stationed there to defend it. Over this we were exultant. The first brush with the enemy had resulted in decisive victory and had added glory to our arms. The people of Springfield, with tumultuous joy, ran up the Stars and Stripes in every part of their city. Fremont’s army was now rapidly concentrated there. The enemy was steadily falling back toward northwestern Arkansas. Victory for our whole army seemed hovering near, ready to perch on our banners. Even if our general had made mistakes, he was about to atone for them all by utterly defeating the enemy; so loyal St. Louis felt.
But while this apparently auspicious campaign was being prosecuted, not a few leading men, headed by Colonel Frank P. Blair, were urging the authorities at Washington to remove Fremont from his command. Mr. Blair was evidently bent on securing this end. He preferred formal charges against the general,[[62]] in which he accused him of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, extravagance and waste of the public moneys, despotic and tyrannical conduct, and disobedience of orders. These charges he sustained by many specifications. While Mr. Blair’s onslaught seemed not wholly destitute of heat and partisanship, it contained so much of truth that the authorities at Washington felt that they could not ignore it. It also greatly disturbed the loyal of our city and divided them into opposing parties, some for, some against, the general.
The situation was so grave that the Secretary of War himself came to make an investigation. He evidently found much that he did not approve. He went out into the State to Tipton and had an interview with Fremont, who was then on the march; and when, on October 14th, he was about to return from St. Louis to Washington, he instructed Fremont to correct certain irregularities in his disbursement of military funds, to discontinue the erection of earthworks around our city, as wholly unnecessary, and of barracks near his own headquarters.[[63]] He also declared that no payments would be made to officers, other than those of the volunteer forces, who had been commissioned by Fremont without the President’s approval. Such deliverances from the head of the War Department betokened reprehensible, even if it were thoughtless, insubordination, and contained a pretty clear hint of incompetence.[[64]] In fact the evidence of his incompetence was startling and cumulative. When at Jefferson City, he ordered his army to march without sufficient means of transportation. He did the same at Tipton. His ammunition was wet; the Belgian rifles that he bought in Europe were nearly useless. In the preceding September, Grant at Cairo, Illinois, learning that the rebels at Columbus, Kentucky, had planned to seize Paducah at the mouth of the Tennessee, saw that he must move without delay if he would thwart their purpose. He at once telegraphed Fremont that he was taking steps to anticipate the enemy in the occupation of that place. He received no reply that day, September 5th. So he telegraphed that he should start for Paducah that night unless he received further orders. Getting no response, he occupied Paducah at daylight the next morning, anticipating the enemy by six or eight hours. After he had garrisoned the town, placed General Smith in command and returned to Cairo, he found a despatch from Fremont authorizing him to take Paducah if he “felt strong enough.”[[65]]
It soon leaked out that Fremont had appointed general and staff officers without the authority of the general government; that those constituting his body-guard had been commissioned primarily to serve him personally rather than the United States;[[66]] and that often ignoring his adjutant-general, he had sent in bills payable, approved simply by himself.[[67]] At a later day, a committee appointed by the House of Representatives, after thoroughly investigating these alleged misdemeanors, in the main confirmed the conclusions reached by the Secretary of War.
When the Secretary arrived at Washington and made his report, the removal of Fremont from his command soon followed. He was apprised of it on November 2d,[[68]] and immediately took leave of his army. To most of us, this seemed at the moment a calamity. Not that we could justly find fault with the decision reached by the government, but we keenly felt that the time for promulgating this decision was most inopportune. The general was apparently on the eve of a great battle; his army glowed with enthusiasm; the prospect of complete victory was unusually bright; he had in fact, with the smallest modicum of fighting, nearly driven the rebel army from our State. The strong, instinctive feeling of the great body of loyal men and women of our city was that he ought to have had the chance to finish the campaign so auspiciously begun. But the authorities at Washington had, with apparently abundant justification, decreed otherwise. There was only one thing to be done; that was to submit without murmuring.
By the removal of Fremont his patriotic army was greatly disheartened. Some of them, in the first flush of disappointment, declared that they would not serve under another leader; that when he left they would throw down their arms and return to their homes. But in his farewell address to his troops, Fremont rose above all personal resentment, and in a tender patriotic appeal exhorted them to be as faithful to his successor as they had been to him.[[69]] Their sober second thought responded to his manly, unselfish words, and, in spite of their personal attachment to him, sinking all individual preferences, they determined unswervingly to fight on for the Union under any general that might be placed over them. So, as we generally anticipated, the highest motive prevailed.
Fremont returned to St. Louis. The loyal Germans, to whom we and the whole country owed so much, received him with unshaken confidence, and with the warmest expressions of affection. At the time they were firmly convinced that those who had so strenuously urged his removal had treated him with marked injustice. These tokens of personal loyalty and confidence touched his heart. In response to the assurances of his steadfast friends, he complained of the unjust charges that, in his absence, had been “rained on his defenceless head—defenceless because his face was turned to the public enemy.” But, though smarting under what he deemed grievous personal wrong, there was no note of recreancy to his country.
Whatever were his faults, whatever were his mistakes,—and they seemed to be many,—he was a patriot, and laid down the duties of his department with honor. And I am sure that all true Unionists of St. Louis, even those who did not join their German fellow-citizens either in their expressions of confidence in the retiring commander, or in their criticisms of those who thought the highest good of the Republic demanded his retirement, were nevertheless glad that these spontaneous and hearty demonstrations of the loyal Germans came to cheer the heart of Fremont in what evidently was to him a dark and bitter day.
His command was turned over to General Hunter, the oldest officer in his army. But Hunter, perhaps considering himself only a temporary bridge to Fremont’s real successor, refused to continue the campaign, which had been so suddenly arrested by the removal of his chief. In a leisurely and orderly manner he soon began a retrograde movement, for which the onlooking loyalists of our city could discover no reason. No foe immediately confronted him, and if the rebels of that region with all their forces had borne down upon him, he could have easily defeated them. But from no cause patent to us, that splendid army, under his command, was retracing its steps. We viewed the inglorious spectacle with profound disgust.