This trip was called the Betty Decker march. I don’t know why this name was given it unless she was the lady who furnished us so many good things for our suppers.
We got back to the railroad at 8 p. m., got aboard a train, and at 10 o’clock arrived at our camp at Carondelet.
While here we had to guard the dry docks while the ironclad vessels, St. Louis and Carondelet were being built. It was rumored that these vessels would be blown out of existence before they were finished, and as half of the people in St. Louis were ready to do anything for the Southern cause, we believed it. But nevertheless they were completed and had an active part in putting down the rebellion.
While we were drilling and guarding at this place we could see other regiments at Benton Barracks who were strengthening their fortifications. Now was the time when something had to be done to invade Missouri.
CHAPTER II.
September 16th, 1861, we got marching orders, struck tents, and boarded a steamboat which carried us to St. Louis. We left the boat and while marching up Main street on our way to the Union station was the first charge which the old Twenty-fourth struck. Drums and fifes were playing when four large gray horses drawing a big delivery wagon collided with the head of our column, knocking it east and west. Several of our boys were slightly bruised, but they were more frightened than injured. In this way James R. Dalton and John W. Hostetter got their discharges.
That night we boarded a train, pulled by two engines, of twenty flat cars, fifty men to a car. We started westward to open up the Union Pacific railroad over which a train had not run for months. The weeds had grown upon the track until the engines could hardly pull their own weight. We traveled very slowly, and the morning of the 17th found us not many miles from St. Louis.
Half of our train had been cut loose and the engines had pulled on to the next switch. They soon returned for the balance of the train. At this place we heard the first national songs which we had heard sung in rebeldom. Some ladies carrying the grand old Stars and Stripes came out on the portico and sang “The Star Spangled Banner,” “The Red, White and Blue,” and other national songs. You bet there were cheers which went up for those union ladies.