II.THE FIELD.

The North Fully Aroused.

Here, at last, we could breathe freely. But both railroads being monopolized by troops, we were compelled, wearily, to drive on to the village of Columbia, on the Susquehanna river. There we began to see that the North, as well as the South, was under martial rule. Armed sentinels peremptorily ordered us to halt.

On identifying the driver, and learning my business, they allowed us to proceed. At the bridge, the person in charge declined to open the gate:

"I guess you can't cross to-night, sir," said he.

I replied by "guessing" that we could; but he continued:

"Our orders are positive, to let no one pass who is not personally known to us."

He soon became convinced that I was not an emissary of the enemy; and the sentinels escorted us across the bridge, a mile and a quarter in length. We proceeded undisturbed to Lancaster, arriving there at two o'clock, after a carriage-ride of seventy miles. Thence to New York, communication was undisturbed.

The cold-blooded North was fully aroused. Rebel sympathizers found themselves utterly swept away by a Niagara of public indignation. In Pennsylvania, in New York, in New England, I heard only the sentiment that talking must be ended, and acting begun; that, cost what it might, in money and blood, all must unite to crush the gigantic Treason which was closing its fangs upon the throat of the Republic.

Uprising of the Whole People.

The people seemed much more radical than the President. In all public places, threats were heard that, ifthe Administration faltered, it must be overturned, and a dictatorship established. Against the Monumental City, feeling was peculiarly bitter. All said:

"If National troops can not march unmolested through Baltimore, that city has stood long enough! Not one stone shall be left upon another."

I had witnessed a good deal of earnestness and enthusiasm in the South, but nothing at all approaching this wonderful uprising of the whole people. All seemed imbued with the sentiment of those official papers issued before Napoleon was First Consul, beginning, "In the name of the French Republic,one and indivisible."

It was worth a lifetime to see it—to find down through all thedébrisof money-seeking, and all the strata of politics, this underlying, primary formation of loyalty—this unfaltering determination to vindicate the right of the majority, the only basis of republican government.

The storm-cloud had burst; the Irrepressible Conflict was upon us. Where would it end? What forecast or augury could tell? Revolutions ride rough-shod over all probabilities; and who has mastered the logic of civil war?

Here ended a personal experience, sometimes full of discomfort, but always full of interest. It enabled me afterward to look at Secession from the stand-point of those who inaugurated it; to comprehend Rebel acts and utterances, which had otherwise been to me a sealed book. It convinced me, too, of the thorough earnestness of the Revolutionists. My published prediction, that we should have a seven years' war unless the country used its utmost vigor and resources, seemed to excite a mild suspicion of lunacy among my personal acquaintances.

A Tribune Correspondent on Trial.

I was the last member ofThe Tribunestaff to leave the South. By rare good fortune, all its correspondentsescaped personal harm, while representatives of several other New York journals were waited upon by vigilance committees, driven out, and in some cases imprisoned. It was a favorite jest, thatThe Tribunewas the only northern paper whoseattachéswere allowed in the South.

Its South Carolinian correspondence had a peculiar history. Immediately after the Presidential election, Mr. Charles D. Brigham went to Charleston as its representative. With the exception of two or three weeks, he remained there from November until February, writing almost daily letters. The Charlestonians were excited and indignant, and arrested in all five or six persons whom they unjustly suspected.

Finally, about the middle of February, Mr. Brigham was one day taken into custody, and brought before Governor Pickens and his cabinet counselors, among whom Ex-Governor McGrath was the principal inquisitor. At this time the Southern Confederacy existed only in embryo, and South Carolina claimed to be an independent republic. The correspondent, who had great coolness and self-control, and knew a good deal of human nature, maintained a serene exterior despite the awkwardness of his position. After a rigid catechisation, he was relieved to find that the tribunal did not surmise his real character, but suspected him of being a spy of the Government.

His trial took place at the executive head-quarters, opposite the Charleston Hotel, and lasted from nine o'clock in the morning until nine at night. During the afternoon, the city being disturbed by one of its daily reports that a Federal fleet had appeared off the bar, he was turned over to Mr. Alexander H. Brown, a leading criminal lawyer, famous for his skill in examining witnesses. Mr. Brown questioned, re-questioned, andcross-questioned the vagrant scribe, but was completely baffled by him. He finally said:

"Mr. Brigham, while I think you are all right, this is a peculiar emergency, and you must see that, under the circumstances, it will be necessary for you to leave the South at once."

He is Warned to Depart.

The "sweet sorrow" of parting gladdened his journalistic heart; but, at the bidding of prudence, he replied:

"I hope not, sir. It is very hard for one who, as you are bound to admit, after the most rigid scrutiny, has done nothing improper, who has deported himself as a gentleman should, who sympathizes with you as far as a stranger can, to be driven out in this way."

The attorney replied, with that quiet significance which such remarks possessed:

"I am sorry, sir, that it is not a question for argument."

The lucky journalist, while whispering he would ne'er consent, consented. Whereupon the lawyer, who seemed to have some qualms of conscience, invited him to join in a bottle of wine, and when they had become a little convivial, suddenly asked:

"By the way, do you know who is writing the letters from here toThe Tribune?"

"Why, no," was the answer. "I haven't seen a copy of that paper for six months; but I supposed there was no such person, as I had read in your journals that the letters were purely fictitious."

"Thereissuch a man," replied Brown; "and thus far, though we have arrested four or five persons, supposing that we had found him, he completely baffles us. Now, when you get home to New York, can't you ascertain who he is, and let us know?"

Tribune Representatives in Charleston.

Mr. Brigham, knowing exactly what tone to adopt with the "Chivalry," replied:

"Of course, sir, I would not act as a spy for you or anybody else. However, such things have a kind of publicity; are talked of in saloons and on street-corners. If I can learn in that way whoThe Tribunecorrespondent is, I shall deem it my duty to advise you."

The lawyer listened with credulity to this whisper of hope, though a well-known Rebel detective, named Shoubac—a swarthy, greasy, uncomfortable fellow, with a Jewish countenance—did not. He remarked to the late prisoner:

"You haven't fooledme, if you have Brown."

But Mr. Brigham was allowed to depart in peace for New York.The Tribuneafterward had in Charleston five or six different correspondents, usually keeping two there at a time for emergencies. Often they did not know each other personally; and there was no communication between them. When one was arrested, there was always another in reserve to continue the correspondence. Mr. Brigham, who remained in the home editorial rooms, retouched the letters just enough to stamp them as the work of one hand, and the baffled authorities went hopelessly up and down to cast out the evil spirit which troubled their peace, and whose unsuspected name was legion.

Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of War.Julius Cæsar.

Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of War.

Julius Cæsar.

Sancho Panza passed away too early. To-day, he would extend his benediction on the man who invented sleep, to the person who introduced sleeping-cars. The name of that philanthropist, by whose luxurious aid we may enjoy unbroken sleep at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, should not be concealed from a grateful posterity.

A Sunday at Niagara Falls.

Thus I soliloquized one May evening, when, in pursuit of that "seat of war," as yet visible only to the prophetic eye, or in newspaper columns, I turned my face westward. It were more exact to say, "turned my heels." Inexorable conductors compel the drowsy passenger to ride feet foremost, on the hypothesis that he would rather break a leg than knock his brains out.

I was detained for a day at Suspension Bridge; but life has more afflictive dispensations, even for the impatient traveler, than a Sunday at Niagara Falls. Vanity of vanities indeed must existence be to him who could not find a real Sabbath at the great cataract, laying his tired head upon the calm breast of Nature, and feeling the pulsations of her deep, loving heart!

Eight years had intervened since my last visit. Therewas no second pang of the disappointment we feel in seeing for the first time any object of world-wide fame. In Nature, as in Art, the really great, however falling below the ideal at first glance, grows upon the beholder forever afterward.

Though the visiting season had not begun, the harpies were waiting for their victims. Step out of your hotel, or turn a corner, and one instantly pounced upon you. But, though numerous, they were quiet, and decorous manners, even in leeches, are above all praise.

Everybody at the Falls is eager to shield you from the extortion of everybody else. The driver, whom you pay two dollars per hour; the vender, who sells you Indian bead-work at a profit of one hundred per cent.; the guide, who fleeces you for leading to places you would rather find without him—each warns you against the other, with touching zeal for your welfare. And the precocious boy, who offers a bit of slate from under the Cataract for two shillings, cautions you to beware of them all.

View from the Suspension Bridge.

As you cross the suspension bridge, the driver points out the spot, more than two hundred feet above the water, where Blondin, of tight-rope renown, crossed upon a single strand, with a man upon his shoulders, cooked his aerial omelet, hung by the heels, and played other fantastic tricks before high heaven.

Palace of the Frost King.

From the bridge you view three sections of the Cataract. First, is the lower end of the American Fall, whose deep green is intermingled with jets and streaks of white. Its smooth surface conveys the impression of the segment of a slowly revolving wheel rather than of tumbling water. Beyond the dense foliage appears another section, parted in the middle by the stone tower on Goat Island. Its water is of snowy whiteness, and lookslike an immense frozen fountain. Still farther is the great Horse-shoe Fall, its deep green surface veiled at the base in clouds of pure white mist.

Here, at the distance of two miles, the Falls soothe you with their quiet, surpassing beauty. But when you reach them on the Canada side, and go down, down, beneath Table Rock, under the sheet of water, you feel their sublimity. As you look out upon the sea of snowy foam below, or through the rainbow hues of the vast sweeping curtain above, the earth trembles with the unceasing thunder of the cataract.

In winter the effect is grandest. Then, from the bank in front of the Clifton House, you look down on upright rocks, crowned with pinnacles of ice, till they rise half way to the summit, or catch glimpses of the boundless column of water as it strikes the torrent below, faintly seen through the misty, alabaster spray rising forever from its troubled bed. Hundreds of white-winged sea-gulls graze the rapids above, and circle down to plunge in the waters below.

Attired in stiff, cold, water-proof clothing, which, culminating in a round oil-cloth cap, makes you look like an Esquimaux and feel like a mummy, you follow the guide far down dark, icy stairs and paths.

Look up ninety feet, and see the great torrent pour over the brink. Look down seventy feet from your icy little shelf, and behold it plunge into the dense mist of the boiling gulf. Through its half-transparent sheet, filtered rays of the bright sunshine struggle toward your eyes. You are in the palace of the Frost King. Ice—ice everywhere, from your slippery foothold to the huge icicles, fifty feet long and three feet thick, which overhang you like the sword of Damocles.

Admiration without comparison is vague and unsatisfactory.Less glorious, because less vast, than the matchless panorama seen from the summit of Pike's Peak, this picture is nearly as impressive, because spread right beside you, and at your very feet. Less minutely beautiful than the exquisite chambers of the Mammoth Cave, its great range and sweep make it more grand and imposing.

Along the Great Western Railway of Canada, the country closely resembles northern Ohio; but the people have uncompromising English faces. A well-dressed farmer and his wife rode upon our train all day in a second-class car, without seeming in the least ashamed of it—a moral courage not often exhibited in the United States.

At Detroit, an invalid, pale, wasted, unable to speak above a whisper, was lying on a bed hastily spread upon the floor of the railway station. Her husband, with their two little boys bending over her in tears, told us that they had been driven from New Orleans, and he was now taking his dying wife to their old home in Maine. There were few dry eyes among the lookers-on. A liberal sum of money was raised on the spot for the destitute family, whose broken pride, after some persuasion, accepted it.

Chicago Rising from the Earth.

The next morning we reached Chicago. In that breezy city upon the lake shore, property was literally rising. Many of the largest brick and stone blocks were being elevated five or six feet, by a very nice system of screws under their walls, while people were constantly pouring in and out of them, and the transaction of business was not impeded. The stupendous enterprise was undertaken that the streets might be properly graded and drained. This summoning a great metropolis to rise from its vasty deep of mud, is one of the modern miraclesof mechanics, which make even geological revelations appear trivial and common-place.

Mysteries of Western Currency.

The world has many mysteries, but none more inscrutable than Western Currency. The notes of most Illinois and Wisconsin banks, based on southern State bonds, having depreciated steadily for several weeks, gold and New York exchange now commanded a premium of twenty per cent. The Michigan Central Railway Company was a good illustration of the effect of this upon Chicago interests. That corporation was paying six thousand dollars per week in premiums upon eastern exchange. Yet the hotels and mercantile houses were receiving the currency at par. One Illinois bank-note depreciated just seventy per cent., during the twelve hours it spent in my possession!

In Chicago I encountered an old friend just from Memphis. His association with leading Secessionists for some time protected him; but the popular frenzy was now so wild that they counselled him, as he valued his life, to stay not upon the order of his going, but go at once.

The Memphians were repudiating northern debts, and, with unexampled ferocity, driving out all men suspected of Abolitionism or Unionism. More than five thousand citizens had been forced or frightened away, and in many cases beggared. A secret Committee of Safety, made up of prominent citizens, was ruling with despotic sway.

Scores of suspected persons were brought before it daily, and, if they could not exculpate themselves, sentenced to banishment, with head half shaved, to whipping, or to death. Though, by the laws of all slave States, negroes were precluded from testifying against white men, this inquisition received their evidence. My frienddared not avow that he was coming North, but purchased a ticket for St. Louis, which was then deemed a Rebel stronghold.

A Horrible Spectacle in Arkansas.

As the steamer passed Osceola, Arkansas, he saw the body of a man hanging by the heels, in full view of the river. A citizen told him that it had been there for eight days; that the wretched victim, upon mere suspicion of tampering with slaves, was suspended, head downward, and suffered intensely before death came to his relief.

All on board the crowded steamboat pretended to be Secessionists. But when, at last, nearing Cairo, they saw the Stars and Stripes, first one, then another, began to huzza. The enthusiasm was contagious; and in a moment nearly all, many with heaving breasts and streaming eyes, gave vent to their long-suppressed feeling in one tumultuous cheer for the Flag of the Free. Of the one hundred and fifty passengers, nearly every man was a fleeing Unionist.

The all-pervading railroad and telegraph in the North began to show their utility in war. Cairo, the extreme southern point of Illinois, now garrisoned by Union troops, was threatened by the enemy. The superintendent of the Illinois Central Railway (including branches, seven hundred and four miles in length) assured me that, at ten hours' notice, he could start, from the various points along his line,four milesof cars, capable of transporting twenty-four thousand soldiers.

Patriotism of the Northwest.

The Rebels now began to perceive their mistake in counting upon the friendship of the great Northwest. Indeed, of all their wild dreams, this was wildest. They expected the very States which claimed Mr. Lincoln as from their own section, and voted for him by heavy majorities, to help break up the Union because he was elected! Though learning their delusion, they nevercomprehended its cause. After the war had continued nearly a year,The New Orleans Deltasaid:

"The people of the Northwest are our natural allies, and ought to be fighting on our side. It is the profoundest mystery of these times how the few Yankee peddlers and school-marms there have been able to convert them into our bitter enemies."

On the mere instinct of nationality—the bare question of an undivided republic—the West would perhaps fight longer, and sacrifice more, than any other section. Its people, if not more earnest, are much more demonstrative than their eastern brethren. Their long migration from the Atlantic States to the Mississippi, the Missouri, or the Platte, has quickened and enlarged their patriotism. It has made our territorial greatness to them no abstraction, but a reality.

No one else looks forward with such faith and fervor to that great future when man shall "fill up magnificently the magnificent designs of Nature;" when their Mississippi Valley shall be the heart of mightiest empire; when, from all these mingling nationalities, shall spring the ripe fruitage of free schools and free ballots, in a higher average Man than the World has yet seen.

Our train from Chicago to St. Louis was crowded with Union troops. Along the route booming guns saluted them; handkerchiefs fluttered from windows; flags streamed from farm-houses and in village streets; old men and boys at the plow huzzaed themselves hoarse.

Thus, at the rising of the curtain, the northwestern States, worthy offspring of the Ordinance of Eighty-seven, were sending out—

"A multitude, like which the populous North Poured never from her frozen loins."

Four blood-stained years have not dimmed their faithor abated their ardor. "Wherever Death spread his banquet, they furnished many guests." What histories have they not made for themselves! Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Wisconsin—indeed, if we call their roll, which State has not covered herself with honor—which hasnotachieved her Lexington—her Saratoga—her Bennington—though the battle-field lie beyond her soil?9

Missouri Rebels bent on Revolution.

In St. Louis I found at last a "seat of war." Recent days had been full of startling events. The Missouri Legislature, at Jefferson City, desired to pass a Secession ordinance, but had no pretext for doing so. The election of a State Convention, to consider this very subject, had just demonstrated, by overwhelming Union majorities, the loyalty of the masses. Claiborne Fox Jackson, the Governor, was a Secessionist, and was determined to plunge Missouri into revolution. This flagrant, open warfare against the popular majority, well illustrated how grossly the Rebels deceived themselves in supposing that their conduct was impelled by regard for State Rights, rather than by the inherent antagonism between free and slave labor.

Camp Jackson, commanded by Gen. D. M. Frost, was established at Lindell Grove, two miles west of St. Louis, "for the organization and instruction of the State Militia." It embraced some Union men, both officers and privates. Frost and his friends claimed that it was loyal; but the State flag, only, was flying from the camp, and its streets were named "Davis Avenue," "Beauregard Avenue," etc.

Nathaniel Lyon and Camp Jackson.

An envoy extraordinary, sent by Governor Jackson, had just returned from Louisiana with shot, shell, and mortars—all stolen from the United States Arsenal at Baton Rouge. The camp was really designed as the nucleus of a Secession force, to seize the Government property in St. Louis and drive out the Federal authorities. But the Union men were too prompt for the Rebels. Long before the capture of Fort Sumter, nightly drills were instituted among the loyal Germans of St. Louis; and within two weeks after the President's first call for troops, Missouri had ten thousand Union soldiers, armed, equipped, and in camp.

The first act of the Union authorities was to remove by night all the munitions from the United States Arsenal near St. Louis, to Alton, Illinois. When the Rebels learned it, they were intensely exasperated. The Union troops were commanded by a quiet, slender, stooping, red-haired, pale-faced officer, who walked about in brown linen coat, wearing no military insignia. He was by rank a captain; his name was Nathaniel Lyon.

On the tenth of May, Capt. Lyon, with three or four hundred regulars, and enough volunteers to swell his forces to five thousand, planted cannon upon the hills commanding Camp Jackson, and sent to Gen. Frost a note, reciting conclusive evidence of its treasonable intent, and concluding as follows:

"I do hereby demand of you an immediate surrender of your command, with no other conditions than that all persons surrendering shall be humanely and kindly treated. Believing myself prepared to enforce this demand, one-half hour's time will be allowed for your compliance."

This contrasted so sharply with the shuffling timidity of our civil and military authorities, usual at this period,that Frost was surprised and "shocked." His reply, of course, characterized the demand as "illegal" and "unconstitutional." In those days there were no such sticklers for the Constitution as the men taking up arms against it! Frost wrote that he surrendered only upon compulsion—his forces being too weak for resistance. The encampment was found to contain twenty cannon, more than twelve hundred muskets, many mortars, siege-howitzers, and shells, charged ready for use—which convinced even the most skeptical that it was something more than a school for instruction.

The garrison, eight hundred strong, were marched out under guard. There were many thousands of spectators. Hills, fields, and house-tops were black with people. In spite of orders to disperse, crowds followed, jeering the Union troops, throwing stones, brickbats, and other missiles, and finally discharging pistols. Several soldiers were hurt, and one captain shot down at the head of his company, when the troops fired on the crowd, killing twenty and wounding eleven. As in all such cases, several innocent persons suffered.

Intense excitement followed. A large public meeting convened that evening in front of the Planter's House—heard bitter speeches from Governor Jackson, Sterling Price, and others. The crowd afterward went to mobThe Democratoffice, but it contained too many resolute Unionists, armed with rifles and hand-grenades, and they wisely desisted.

Sterling Price Joins the Rebels.

Sterling Price was president of the State Convention—elected as an Unconditional Unionist. But, in this whirlwind, he went over to the enemy. An old feud existed between him and a leading St. Louis loyalist. Price had a small, detached command in the Mexican war. Afterward, he was Governor of Missouri, and candidatefor the United States Senate. An absurd sketch, magnifying a trivial skirmish into a great battle, with Price looming up heroically in the foreground, was drawn and engraved by an unfortunate artist, then in the Penitentiary. It pleased Price's vanity; he circulated it largely, and pardoned out the suffering votary of art.

Severe Loss to the Unionists.

When the Legislature was about voting for United States Senator, Frank Blair, Jr., then a young member from St. Louis, obtained permission to say a few words about the candidates. He was a great vessel of wrath, and administered a terrible excoriation, pronouncing Price "worthy the genius of a convict artist, and fit subject for a Penitentiary print!" Price was defeated, and the rupture never healed.

At the outbreak of the Rebellion, Price was far more loyal than men afterward prominent Union leaders in Missouri. In those chaotic days, very slight influences decided the choice of many. By tender treatment, Price could doubtless have been retained; but neither party regarded him as possessing much ability.

His defection proved a calamity to the Loyalists. He was worth twenty thousand soldiers to the Rebels, and developed rare military talent. Like Robert E. Lee, he was an old man, of pure personal character, sincerity, kindness of heart, and unequaled popularity among the self-sacrificing ragamuffins whom he commanded. He held them together, and induced them to fight with a bravery and persistency which, Rebels though they were, was creditable to the American name. With a good cause, they would have challenged the world's acclamation.

At this time the President was treating the border slave States with marvelous tenderness and timidity.The Rev. M. D. Conway declared, wittily, that Mr. Lincoln's daily and nightly invocation ran:

"O Lord, I desire to have Thee on my side, but Imusthave Kentucky!"

Captain Lyon was confident that if he asked permission to seize Camp Jackson, it would be refused. So he captured the camp, and then telegraphed to Washington—not what he proposed to do, but what hehaddone. At first his act was disapproved. But the loyal country applauded to the echo, and Lyon's name was everywhere honored. Hence the censure was withheld, and he was made a Brigadier-General!

St. Louis in a Convulsion.

Governor Jackson burned the bridges on the Pacific Railroad; the Missouri Legislature passed an indirect ordinance of Secession, and adjourned in a panic, caused by reports that Lyon was coming; a Union regiment was attacked in St. Louis, and again fired into the mob, with deadly results. The city was convulsed with terror. Every available vehicle, including heavy ox wagons, was brought into requisition; every outgoing railway train was crowded with passengers; every avenue was thronged with fugitives; every steamer at the levee was laden with families, who, with no definite idea of where they were going, had hastily packed a few articles of clothing, to flee from the general and bloody conflict supposed to be impending between the Americans and the Dutch, as Secessionists artfully termed the two parties. Thus there became a "Seat of War."

Heart-rending as were the stories of most southern refugees, some were altogether ludicrous. In St. Louis, I encountered an old acquaintance who related to me his recent experiences in Nashville. Grandiloquent enough they sounded; for his private conversation always ran into stump speeches.

A Nashville Experience.

"One day," said he, "I was waited on by a party of leading Nashville citizens, who remarked: 'Captain May,weknow very well that you are with us in sentiment; but, as you come from the North, others, less intimate with you, desire some special assurance.' I replied: 'Gentlemen, by education, by instinct, and by association, I am a Southern man. But, gentlemen, when you fire upon that small bit of bunting known as the American flag, you can count me, by Heaven, as your persistent and uncompromising foe!' The committee intimated to me that the next train for the North started in one hour! You may stake your existence, sir, that the subscriber came away on that train. Confound a country, anyhow, where a man must wear a Secession cockade upon each coat-tail to keep himself from being kicked as an Abolitionist!"

Inexorable war knows no ties of friendship, of family, or of love. Its bitterest features were seen on the border, where brother was arrayed against brother, and husband against wife. At a little Missouri village, the Rebels raised their flag, but it was promptly torn down by the loyal wife of one of the leaders. I met a lady who had two brothers in the Union army, and two among Price's Rebels, who were likely soon to meet on the battle-field.

In St. Louis, a Rebel damsel, just about to be married, separated from her Union lover, declaring that no man who favored the Abolitionists and the "Dutch hirelings" could be her husband. He retorted that he had no use for a wife who sympathized with treason; and so the match was broken off.

Bitterness of Old Neighbors.

I knew a Union soldier who found at Camp Jackson, among the prisoners, his own brother, wounded by two Minié rifle balls. He said: "I am sorry my brotherwas shot; but he should not have joined the traitors!" Of course, the bitterness between relatives and old neighbors, now foes, was infinitely greater than between northerners and southerners. The same was true everywhere. How intensely the Virginia and Tennessee Rebels hated their fellow-citizens who adhered to the Union cause! Ohio and Massachusetts Loyalists denounced northern "Copperheads" with a malignity which they never felt toward South Carolinians and Mississippians.

St. Louis,May 20, 1861.

When South Carolina seceded, the slave property of Missouri was worth forty-five millions of dollars; hence she is under bonds to just that amount to keep the peace. With thirteen hundred miles of frontier, she is "a slave peninsula in an ocean of free soil." Free Kansas, which has many old scores to clear up, guards her on the west. Free Iowa, embittered by hundreds of Union refugees, watches her on the north. Free Illinois, the young giantess of the prairie, takes care of her on the east. This loyal metropolis, with ten Union regiments already under arms, is for her a sort of front-door police. Missouri, in the significant phrase of the frontier, iscorraled.10

Here, at least, asThe Richmond Whig, just before going over to the Rebels, so aptly said: "Secession is Abolitionism in its worst and most dangerous form."

Rebels glare upon Union men like chained wild beasts. Citizens, walking by night, remember the late assassinations, and, like Americans in Mexican towns, cast suspicious glances behind. Secessionists utter fiercethreats; but since their recent severe admonition that Unionists, too, can use fire-arms, and that it is not discreet to attack United States soldiers, they do not execute them.

Captain Lyon, who commands, is an exceedingly prompt and efficient officer, attends strictly to his business, exhibits no hunger for newspaper fame, and seems to act with an eye single to the honor of the Government he has served so long and so faithfully.

Good Soldiers for Scaling Walls.

Among our regiments is the Missouri First, Colonel Frank P. Blair. Three companies are made up of German Turners—the most accomplished of gymnasts. They are sinewy, muscular fellows, with deep chests and well-knit frames. Every man is an athlete. To-day a party, by way of exercise, suddenly formed a human pyramid, and commenced running up, like squirrels, over each other's shoulders, to the high veranda upon the second story of their building. In climbing a wall, they would not require scaling-ladders. There are also two companies from the Far West—old trappers and hunters, who have smelt gunpowder in Indian warfare.

Colonel Blair's dry, epigrammatic humor bewilders some of his visitors. I was sitting in his head-quarters when a St. Louis Secessionist entered. Like nearly all of them, he now pretends to be a Union man, but is very tender on the subject of State Rights, and wonderfully solicitous about the Constitution. He remarked:

"I am a Union man, but I believe in State Rights. I believe a State may dissolve its connection with the Government if it wants to."

"O yes," replied Blair, pulling away at his ugly mustache, "yes, you can go out if you want to. Certainly you can secede. But, my friend, you can't take with you one foot of American soil!"

Missouri and the Slaveholders.

A citizen of Lexington introduced himself, saying:

"I am a loyal man, ready to fight for the Union; but I am pro-slavery—I own niggers."

"Well, sir," replied Blair, with the faintest suggestion of a smile on his plain, grim face, "you have a right to. We don't like negroes very much ourselves. Ifyoudo, that's a matter of taste. It is one of your privileges. But if you gentlemen who own negroes attempt to take the State of Missouri out of the Union, in about six months you will be the most ---- niggerless set of individuals that you ever heard of!"

Only we want a little personal strength,And pause until these Rebels, now afoot,Come underneath the yoke of Government.King Henry IV.

Only we want a little personal strength,And pause until these Rebels, now afoot,Come underneath the yoke of Government.

King Henry IV.

Cairo, as the key to the lower Mississippi valley, is the most important strategic point in the West. Immediately after the outbreak of hostilities, it was occupied by our troops.

As a place of residence it was never inviting. To-day its offenses smell to heaven as rankly as when Dickens evoked it, from horrible obscurity, as the "Eden" of Martin Chuzzlewit. The low, marshy, boot-shaped site is protected from the overflow of the Mississippi and Ohio by levees. Its jet-black soil generates every species of insect and reptile known to science or imagination. Its atmosphere is never sweet or pure.

General McClellan at Cairo.

On the 13th of June, Major-General George B. McClellan, commander of all the forces west of the Alleghanies, reached Cairo on a visit of inspection. His late victories in Western Virginia had established his reputation for the time, as an officer of great capacity and promise, notwithstanding the high heroics of his ambitious proclamations. This was before Bull Run, and before the New York journals, by absurdly pronouncing him "the Young Napoleon," raised public expectation to an embarrassing and unreasonable hight.

In those days, every eye was looking for the Coming Man, every ear listening for his approaching footsteps,which were to make the earth tremble. Men judged, by old standards, that the Hour must have its Hero. They had not learned that, in a country like ours, whatever is accomplished must be the work of the loyal millions, not of any one, or two, or twenty generals and statesmen.

A Little Speech-Making.

McClellan was enthusiastically received, and, to the strains of the "Star Spangled Banner," escorted to head-quarters. There, General Prentiss, who had so decided apenchantfor speech-making, that cynics declared he always kept a particular stump in front of his office for a rostrum, welcomed him with some rhetorical remarks:

* * * * "My command are all anxious to taste those dangers which war ushers in—not that they court danger, but that they love their country. We have toiled in the mud, we have drilled in the burning sun. Many of us are ragged—all of us are poor. But we look anxiously for the order to move, trusting that we may be allowed to lead the division."

The soldiers applauded enthusiastically—for in those days the anxiety to be in the earliest battles was intense. The impression was almost universal throughout the North that the war was to be very brief. Officers and men in the army feared they would have no opportunity to participate in any fighting!

McClellan responded to Prentiss and his officers in the same strain:

* * * "We shall meet again upon the tented field; and Illinois, which sent forth a Hardin and a Bissell, will, I doubt not, give a good account of herself to her sister States. Her fame is world-wide: in your hands, gentlemen, I am sure it will not suffer. The advance is due to you."

Then there was more applause, and afterward a review of the brigade.

Penalty of Writing for the Tribune.

General McClellan is stoutly built, short, with light hair, blue eyes, full, fresh, almost boyish face, and lip tufted with a brown mustache. His urbane manner truly indicates the peculiar amiability of character and yielding disposition which have hurt him more than all other causes. An officer once assured me that McClellan had said to him: "My friends have injured me a thousand times more than my enemies." It was certainly true.

Now, seeing his features the first time, I scanned them anxiously for lineaments of greatness. I saw a pleasant, mild, moony face, with one cheek distended by tobacco; but nothing which appeared strong or striking. Tinctured largely with the general belief in his military genius, I imputed the failure only to my own incapacity for reading "Nature's infinite book of secrecy."

One evening, at Cairo, a man, whose worn face, shaggy beard, matted locks, and tattered clothing marked him as one of the constantly arriving refugees, sought me and asked:

"Can you tell me the name ofThe Tribunecorrespondent who passed through Memphis last February?"

He was informed that that pleasure had been mine.

A Loyal Girl's Assistance.

"Then," said he, "I have been lying in jail at Memphis about fifty days chiefly on your account! The three or four letters which you wrote from there were peculiarly bitter. Of course, I was not aware of your presence, and I sent one toThe Tribune, which was also very emphatic. The Secessionists suspected me not only of the one which I did write, but also of yours. They pounced on me and put me in jail. After the disbanding of the Committee of Safety I was brought before the City Recorder, who assured me from the bench of his profound regrets that he could find no law for hangingme! I would have been there until this time, but for the assistance of a young lady, through whom I succeeded in bribing an officer of the jail, and making my escape. I was hidden in Memphis for several days, then left the city in disguise, and have worked my way, chiefly on foot, aided by negroes and Union families, through the woods of Tennessee and the swamps of Missouri up to God's country."

The refugee seemed to be not only in good health, but also in excellent spirits, and I replied:

"I am very sorry for your misfortunes; but if the Rebels must have one of us, I am very glad that it was not I."

Nearly four years later, this gentleman turned the tables on me very handsomely. After my twenty months imprisonment in Rebel hands, among a crowd of visitors he walked into my room at Cincinnati one morning, and greeted me warmly.

"You do not remember me, do you?" he asked.

"I recognize your face, but cannot recall your name."

"Well, my name is Collins. Once, when I escaped from the South, you congratulated me at Cairo. Now, I congratulate you, and I can do it with all my heart, in exactly the same words. I am very sorry for your misfortunes; but if the Rebels must have one of us, I am very glad that it was not I!"

After our troops captured Memphis, I encountered the young lady who aided Mr. Collins in escaping. She was enthusiastically loyal, but her feeling had been repressed for nearly two years, when the arrival of our forces loosened her tongue. She began to utter her long-stifled Union views, and it is my deliberate opinion that she has not stopped yet. She is now the wife of an officer in the United States service.

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