Headquarters of the Western Department,
St Louis, Aug. 31, 1861.
Circumstances in my judgment of sufficient urgency render it
necessary that the Commanding General of this Department
should assume the administrative power of the State. Its
disorganized condition, the devastation of property by bands
of murderers and marauders who infest nearly every County in
the State, and avail themselves of the public misfortunes
and the vicinity of a hostile force to gratify private and
neighborhood vengeance, and who find an enemy wherever they
find plunder, finally demand the severest measures to
repress the daily increasing crimes and outrages which are
driving off the inhabitants and ruining the State. In this
condition the public safety and the success of our arms
require unity of purpose, without let or hindrance to the
prompt administration of affairs.
In order, therefore, to suppress disorders, to maintain, as
far as now practicable, the public peace, and to give
security and protection to the persons and property of loyal
citizens, I do hereby extend and declare established martial
law thru-out the State of Missouri. The lines of the army of
occupation in this State are, for the present, declared to
extend from Leavenworth, by way of the posts of Jefferson
City, Rolla and Ironton to Cape Girardeau, on the
Mississippi River. All persons who shall be taken with arms
in their hands within these lines shall be tried by court-
martial, and, if found guilty, will be shot. The property,
real and personal, of all persons in the State of Missouri
who shall take up arms against the United States, or shall
be directly proven to have taken active part with their
enemies in the field, is declared to be confiscated to the
public use; and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby
declared free men.
All persons who shall be proven to have destroyed, after the
publication of this order, railroad tracks, bridges or
telegraphs, shall suffer the extreme penalty of the law.
All persons engaged in treasonable correspondence, in giving
or procuring aid to the enemies of the United States, in
disturbing the public tranquility by creating and
circulating false reports or incendiary documents, are in
their own interest warned that they are exposing themselves.
All persons who have been led away from their allegiance are
required to return to their homes forthwith; any such
absence, without sufficient cause, will be held to be
presumptive evidence against them.
The object of this declaration is to place in the hands of
the military authorities the power to give Instantaneous
effect to existing laws, and to supply such deficiencies as
the conditions of war demand. But it is not intended to
suspend the ordinary tribunals of the country, where the law
will be administered by the civil officers in the usual
manner and with their customary authority, while the same
can be peaceably exercised.
The Commanding General will labor vigilantly for the public
welfare, and, in his efforts for their safety, hopes to
obtain not only the acquiescence, but the active support, of
the people of the country.
J. C. FREMONT,
Major-General Commanding.
Another man who appeared on the scene as Colonel of the 2d Iowa was Samuel R. Curtis, an Ohio man, who graduated from West Point in 1831, in the same class with Gens. Ammen, Humphreys and W. H. Emory. He resigned the next year and became a prominent civil engineer in Ohio. He served in the Mexican War as Colonel of the 2d Ohio, and at the close of that struggle returned to his profession of engineering, removed to Iowa, and at the outbreak of the war was a member of Congress from that State. He was a man of decided military ability, and the victory won at Pea Ridge was his personal triumph. He was to rise to the rank of Major-General and command an independent army, but become involved in the factional fights in Missouri and have his further career curtailed.
Still another name which appears with increased frequency about this time is that of U. S. Grant, an Ohio man, who had graduated from West Point in 1843, and had shown much real enterprise and soldiership in Mexico, but had fallen under the disfavor of his commanding officers; had been compelled to resign while holding the rank of Captain in the 4th U. S., and for eight years had had a losing struggle in trying to make a living in civil pursuits. A happy accident put him at the head of the 21st Ill., with which he had entered Missouri to guard the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad, and incidentally to dispose of one Thomas A. Harris, a very energetic and able man who held a Brigadier-Generalship from Gov. Jackson, and who was making himself particularly active in the neighborhood of that railroad. Grant showed much energy in chasing around for Harris, but had never succeeded in bringing him into battle, though when he left for other scenes Harris was hiding among the knobs of Salt River, with his command reduced to three enlisted men and his staff.
Though he was out of favor with Gen. McClellan and many others who were directing military operations, in some way a Brigadier-General's commission came to U. S. Grant, and he was assigned to the District of Southeastern Missouri, with headquarters at Cape Girardeau, where his duty was to hold in check the poetical M. Jeff Thompson, the noisy Gideon J. Pillow and the prelatic Leonidas J. Polk in their efforts to get control of the southeastern corner of the State and menace Cairo and St. Louis.
Maj. Sturgis was promptly made a Brigadier-General to date from Wilson's Creek, and assigned to the command of Northeast Missouri, where he had five or six thousand men under him.
Capt. Fred Steele had accepted a commission as Colonel of the 8th Iowa; Capt. Jos. B. Plummer shortly took the Colonelcy of a new regiment, the 11th Mo.; Capt. Totten became Lieutenant-Colonel and Colonel of the 1st Mo. Art., of which Schofield was Major.