On the second and third of March several expeditions were sent out for the purpose of collecting supplies and also of breaking up small camps where the rebels were said to be recruiting. One of these expeditions went in the direction of Pineville, Missouri, and arrived within half a mile of the object of its search, when it received orders to return. It got back to camp without meeting the enemy, but it was afterward ascertained that it crossed the intersection of two roads only half an hour before a rebel division reached that spot in sufficient force to have completely overwhelmed the little detachment.
Another detachment which went to Maysville, near the western boundary of Arkansas, was completely cut off and compelled to march northward to avoid capture. A third expedition went to Huntsville, in Madison county, to break up a rebel camp; but it failed of its mission, as the rebels had left two days before it arrived there.
Harry and Jack accompanied this expedition, and therefore we have a special interest in knowing how it turned out. We will let Harry tell the story of their adventures.
“We were not a large party,” wrote Harry afterward; “only a thousand men in all. There was a part of the Ninth Iowa and the Twenty-fifth Missouri, two companies of cavalry and two pieces of light artillery from the Dubuque battery. General Vandever commanded the expedition, and we expected to be away four or five days.
“We were two days getting to Huntsville, where we found the rebels that we were after had gone. Huntsville is an Arkansas county-seat of two or three hundred inhabitants, and hardly an able-bodied man could be found in the whole place; all were away fighting in the rebel ranks. The principal store in the place was a whisky-shop, and the proprietor claimed to be a union man. One of the officers, a captain, bought a canteen of whisky of him, and offered a United States treasury note in payment.
“The man took the note and looked at it carefully. Then he returned it, saying he must have either gold or Confederate paper money.
“'Isn't this good enough?' the captain asked.
“'Good enough as long as you 'uns are here,' said the man; 'but when you turn your backs the other fellows would hang me if I had that kind of money.'
“Nobody had any Confederate paper, and the captain didn't know what to do. He wanted the man's whisky, as the weather was cold, but he knew the fellow was right about getting into trouble for having our money.
“Another of the officers had been in the first expedition to Fayetteville, and happened to have in his pocket a whole sheet of private 'shinplasters,' or promises to pay, that he picked up in a printing-office in that town. He took the sheet from his pocket and asked if that was the kind of money the man wanted.