The modest bars of a Captain on their shoulder straps had been, as it were, changed in the twinkling of an eye into the refulgent stars of a General, but they seemed to take this as a deserved tribute to their personal worth, rather than as an incentive and opportunity for the greater things which had made their predecessors illustrious.
Fremont, in the palatial Brandt Mansion, for which the Government was paying the very unusual rent of $6,000 per year, was maintaining a vice regal court as difficultly accessible as that of any crowned head of Europe. His uncounted and glittering staff, which seemed to have received the Pentecostal gift of tongues—in which English was not included—was headed by a mysterious "Adlatus,"—a title before unknown in America or to the dictionaries, and since retired to oblivion. Naturally, the Adlatus's command of English was limited. His knowledge of Missouri was even more so. Though commanding Missouri and dealing intensely with Missouri affairs, the men surrounding Fremont were everything but Missourians or those acquainted with Missouri affairs. It would have been surprising to find one of them who could bound the State and name its principal rivers.
This, too, in the midst of a multitude of able, educated, influential Missourians who were ardent Unionists and were burning with zeal to serve the cause. Not one of them appears in the Fremont entourage.
Gens. Pope, Sturgis, Jeff C. Davis, Hunter,—all Regulars and trained to war; Sigel, with his profound theoretical knowledge and his large experience; Curtis, lately returned to the Army with his military training supplemented by wide experience in civil life; Hurlbut, the brilliant orator and politician, were all busily engaged in something or other that kept them from interfering with Price while he lingered on the Missouri River gathering up recruits and stripping the Union farmers of that rich agricultural region of cattle and grain sufficient to feed his army during the coming Winter, and of horses and wagons to haul off his spoils and thoroly equip his army with transportation.
The only really soldierly thing done at this time was by the "political General,"—the erratic, demagogic, trumpet-sounding "Jim" Lane. He was commanding men who had come out from home to do something toward fighting the war and not to stay in camp and be drilled into automatons. He could only maintain his hold on them and his ascendency in Kansas politics by action.
Learning that Price had left a large stock of ammunition at the important little town of Osceola, the head of navigation on the Osage River, under strong guard, Lane led his brigade a swift march from Kansas upon the town, and succeeded in surprising the garrison, which, after a brief resistance, retreated and left it to Lane's mercy, whereupon he proceeded to not only destroy the very considerable quantity of stores which Price had accumulated there, but to burn down the town. This was an exceedingly ill-advised ending to a piece of brilliant soldiership, because not only was it injustice to an enemy, but it was a severe blow upon Union men who owned full one-third of the property destroyed.
A large number of these were engaged in the trade of the Southwest, for which Osceola was a distributing center. Goods were brought up the river during the high water and then shipped through the country by wagons. The town was also the County seat of St. Clair County, and contained the public records, etc.
Still more unfortunate was it that Lane's act was taken as an excuse for the Missouri guerrillas to retaliate upon Kansas towns and the property of the Union people in their own State. Lane says in his report: "The enemy ambushed the approaches to the town, and after being driven from them by the advance under Cols. Montgomery and Weer, they took refuge in the buildings of the town to annoy us. We were compelled to shell them out, and in doing so the place was burned to ashes, with an immense amount of stores of all descriptions. There were 15 or 20 of them killed and wounded; we lost none. Full particulars will be furnished you hereafter."