CHAPTER XV. IN CAMP AT ROLLA—A PRIVATE EXPEDITION INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY.
The three-months troops whose terms had expired, or were about to expire, were sent home, and the post at Rolla left in charge of the three-years regiments that remained, together with a portion of the regular forces of the late army of the southwest. The First Iowa, as already stated, had been enlisted for three months, and soon after the arrival at Rolla it returned to its own state and was disbanded.
True to their determination to see more of the war, Jack and Harry remained at Rolla when the regiment departed. At the same time they wrote to their parents and sent messages by their comrades, explaining why they wished to stay in Missouri, and their reasons for not going home. “We are not enlisted,” Jack wrote to his father, “and so we don't have to get into danger like the soldiers do. We've nothing to do but drive wagons and stay around the camp, where everything is safe. The boys will tell you how it is when they get home, and you may be sure we won't take any risks we can keep out of.”
There was a good deal of special pleading in Jack's letter, as the reader plainly perceives. It was certainly a greater risk for the youths to remain at a frontier post than to go home, where they would be out of all danger. Furthermore, anybody knows that while the position of a teamster is safer than that of the soldier who goes into battle, it is by no means a situation of unalloyed security. Wagon-trains are liable to attack and capture in the enemy's country, and one of the favorite enterprises of a cavalry commander is to strike his enemy's wagon-train on frequent occasions. If the wagons can be taken away they become the enemy's property; if they cannot be secured they are destroyed, and, in either case, the unfortunate drivers fall into the enemy's hands and become prisoners of war.
The history of war is full of stories of attacks upon wagon-trains; one of the perplexing problems for the military commander to solve is how to keep open his line of communications when advancing into the region of war and protect the trains that bring forward the supplies for his troops. If an army could be maintained without food and ammunition, save what it could collect in the enemy's country, many a leader would be greatly relieved.
Through the recommendation of the officers of the First Iowa Jack and Harry obtained employment with the post quartermaster at Rolla. With the approval of the commander of the troops stationed there he issued new clothing and blankets to the youths, and they felt, to use an old phrase, “as proud as peacocks.”
A rumor came that a rebel army was assembling somewhere to the southward for the purpose of attacking Rolla and securing the valuable property stored there. The garrison was put at work to throw up defenses, cannon were sent from St. Louis, the hills around the village were cleared of brushwood, and everything about the place assumed the appearance of war.
One day Jack suggested to Harry that they would make an excursion into the neighboring country, just to see for themselves and have a little fun.
Harry agreed to the proposal, but said there was a difficulty in the way on account of their clothing. They didn't want to be known as belonging to the garrison of Rolla, for the double reason that the people would not talk freely with them, and, besides, they might be seized and carried off as prisoners; and furthermore, their suits were new and they didn't want to spoil them as long as spoiling could be avoided.
Fortune favored them. That very day a scouting party brought in a wagon-load of clothing which had been collected in a village a few miles away to be sent to a company from that village, and then serving under General Price. From this load of clothing the quartermaster allowed Jack and Harry to help themselves, and they managed to pick out two suits which fitted them about as well as one is ordinarily fitted in a ready-made clothing store.