The Postmaster General's Defense. Excitement in Con gress. These several reports excited general attention and appeared to give satisfaction. But, Congress seethed and bubbled with a commotion which portended an outbreak against the President's policy of conciliating those in arms against the country. Mr. Lincoln clearly favored what was deemed to be a conservative" course-that is, he would not strike at Slavery as the source of strength to those in arms; he would protect all slave catchers from among those professedly loyal, by enforcing the fugitive slave law; he would not decree the release of the jail full of wretched negroes confined as runaways" in the Washington jail; he would not favor a decree of emancipation because of the rights of the loyal Border States; he would, in fact, prosecute the war in such a way as to effect a restoration of the Union with the old guarantees to Slave property unimpeached. preventing its accomplishment by prompt and direct interference. Of the cases presented for his action, upon the principles which he named, he had, by order, excluded from the mails twelve of those treasonable publications, of which several had been previously presented by the Grand Jury as incendiary and hostile to constituted authority. While he did not claim the authority to suppress any newspaper, however disloyal and treasonable its contents, the Department could not be called upon to give them circulation. It could not and would not interfere with the freedom secured by law, but it could and did obstruct the dissemination of that license which was without the pale of the Constitution and Law. The mails established by the United States Government could not, upon any known principles of law or public right, be used for its destruction. As well could the common carrier be legally required to transport a machine designed for the de- It is foreign to the nature of this work to struction of the vehicle conveying it, or an enter upon an examination of the questions inn-keeper be compelled to entertain a trav- of policy and of law which, after this date, eler whom he knew to be intending to com- (December, 1861,) became paramount themes mit a robbery in his house." He found these of discussion. Clearly, the Slave institution views supported by the high authority of the had rights, and, as clearly the Republican late Chief Justice Story, of the Supreme Court members of Congress had conceded those of the United States, whose opinion he quoted. rights.* But, quite as conclusively was the | This was the patriotic if not conclusive fact, urged by what afterwards proved to be answer to the grievances of those anxious to a Congressional majority, that it was the visecure the dissemination of conspiracy and tal source, cause and sustenance of the rebelsedition under the guise of a stoutly asseve- lion-that the Slaves were loyal and had a rated “freedom of the press." The fact that right to protection-that the old status of the the complainants were chiefly disloyal or States in insurrection could only be restored semi-loyal men did not impair the force of by their unconditional submission and pardon the Department's excuse for its procedure. for offences, the first of which was improbaYet, in spite of the good intent-perhaps of ble and the last impossible, except at a sacrithe actual propriety of the officer's course-fice of every Constitutional obligation for the the acts as alleged were arbitrary exercises punishment of sedition, conspiracy and treaof authority, depending for their justification upon the voice of loyal men rather than upon any construction of law. It was another of those instances, occurring during the war, * See Volume 1. Congressional proceedings. We wherein the Executive branches of Governmay here indicate the vote on Dunn's resolution, ment clearly overreached precedent and tech- page 82; on Winter Davis' resolve, page 104; on nical construction in order to accomplish what the resolves submitted by Mr. Seward to the Comto them seemed necessary results. The ver- mitee of Thirteen, page 123; the final vote on Cordict of posterity doubtless will be less censo-win's resolve, pages 463–67; and finally and conclurious than that visited upon the offending sively to the vote on Sherman's resolution, page officers by the "opposition" of 1862. son. The President, it may well be supposed, was exceedingly perplexed as to what course to pursue. As in the case of the first five 400. GENERAL HALLECK'S OPERATIONS. 451 Excitement in Con gress. weeks of his reign, he left | has, stood, and seemingly ever will stand, by it for circumstances to de- the interests of the South-human slavery, termine his acts. He finally aristocratic privileges and all. In saying this ended by accepting the legislation of Con- we but repeat what it cannot be denied is gress; and, in enforcing its decrees of confis- one of the well demonstrated facts in Americation and emancipation, aroused that old can History. The South only reigned supreme spirit of 'democratic' opposition which ever when that opposition was in the majority. CHAPTER VII. MISSOURI—NO HALLECK'S CONDUCT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF Halleck's Assumption MAJOR-GENERAL Henry fugitive slaves who are admitted within our lines. Wager Halleck arrived in In order to remedy this evil, it is directed that no of Command. St. Louis November 18th, such persons be hereafter permitted to enter the 1861, to assume the department command. lines of any camp, or of any forces on the march, and that any now within such lines be immediately Orders indicating his field of labor and auexcluded therefrom. thority (issued November 9th) assigned to his department the States of Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Arkansas, and that portion of Kentucky west of the Cumberland River. This was Fremont's De western extension. at once. A partment of the West," shorn of some of its The General reached St. Louis to receive at General Hunter's hands the somewhat disorganized forces returned from the Springfield advance. council of Generals of divisions was convened The retreat from Springfield had thrown open the State to rebel invasion, and Halleck learned, in a few days' time, that he had a most momentous work on hand to save the southern and central sections from devastation. He entered upon his labors with a calm energy at once indicative of self-reliance and a thorough mastery of his situation. Among his first orders was that afterwards called the "celebrated number three"-the text of which read : "HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE MISSOURI ST. LOUIS, Nov. 20th, 1861. "GENERAL ORDERS, No. 3. "I. It has been represented that important information respecting the numbers and condition of our forces is conveyed to the enemy by means of "By order of Major-General Halleck. WILLIAM MCMICHAEL, Order Number Three. "Assistant Adjutant General." This, though professedly a military mandate, was a declaration of policy. It at once banished the "inevitable negro" from the field by bayonetting him back into slavery-thus reassuring slave owners that, so far as the Department of Missouri was concerned, their "property" was to be driven back to them in event of its escape to the Federal lines. Construed even by the light of military propriety, it was impolitic. Scarcely a general or regimental officer in the field but confessed his indebtedness to fugitives from slavery for valuable information. Indeed, most of the valuable information came from these unhappy creatures, who would do and dare any peril to reach the Union lines. The very word "fugitives" implied their wretched estate-they were fleeing from a worse tyranny than those loyal whites who fled for protection to the Federal arms. Why were they banished? Did some of the blacks make wrong reports, owing to their ignorance and credulity? If, for the PRICE'S PROTEST AND THREATS. 453 every consideration of interest, by every desire of safety, by every tie that binds you to home and country, delay no longer; let the dead bury their dead, leave your property to take care of itself; commend your homes to the protection of God, and merit the approbation and love of childhood and womanhood by showing yourselves men, the sons of the brave and free, who bequeathed to us the sacred trust of free institutions. Come to the army. of Missouri, not for a week or a month, but to free your country. "Strike till each armed foe expires! Strike for your altars and your fires! Strike for the green graves of your sires! God and your native land!" "" And much more in the same strain. This patriotic cry for help was accompanied by the articles of agreement referred to above, by which the Southern Confederacy became responsible for the pay of all troops called into, or who voluntarily enlisted in the service. The General's rhetoric succeeded less than his bayonets in influencing any but vagabonds to enter his ranks. It is to be doubted if any army of twenty thousand men ever was gathered whose lists embraced more worthless fellows than that which Price commanded during his second campaign in Central and Western Missouri. Governor Jackson's Appeal. "Commanding officers of districts, posts and corps are directed to arrest and place in confinement all persons in arms against the United States, or who give aid, assistance or encouragement to the enemy. "All property belonging to such persons which can be used by the army, will be taken possession of for that purpose, and all other property will be examined by a board of officers and sold according to army regulations. "All persons found in disguise as pretended loyal citizens, or under other false pretences within our lines, giving information to or communicating with the enemy, will be arrested, tried and shot as spies. "Persons now employed or enlisted in the service of the so-called Confederate States, who commit hostility, will not be treated as prisoners of war, but punished as criminals, and be shot or less severely punished, according to the rules of war. "In consequence of large numbers of Union fami lies and non-combatants having been plundered and driven from their homes in a destitute condition, and thousands of such persons are now finding their way into this city, the Provost Marshals are directed to ascertain the condition of persons so driven from their homes, and under the military law of retaliation, quarter them in the homes and feed and clothe them at the expense of avowed secessionists, who, although they do not themselves rob and plunder, give aid and encouragement, abet and countenance the acts of their fellow-rebels." Out of this order (General Order No. 13) grew numberless complaints, recriminations and appeals. Though just, in a military sense, it was not faithfully enforced. Secessionists were arrested to some extent, but soon found their way to liberty again, doubly embittered by their "persecution." Persons enlisted in the cause of the Confederacy were not treated as criminals and shot, probably under fear of the lex talionis, which the Con We should, in this connection, also refer to the commingled proclamation, address and appeal published by Governor Jackson in a New Madrid journal, Dec. 16th. It repeated his thrice published "views" of affairs, and recited the history of the six months campaign in a strain of congratulation calculated to inspire the hopes of a good time coming to his cause. The object of this document was to induce his six months men to remain in the army-to reenlist in the Confederate service for the war, which he promised should be but a brief and glorious strug-federates, from practice, knew well how to gle. He also authorized the State Guard to reorganize and to enter the Confederate lists. His appeal for troops ran the gamut of terms from imprecation to prayer. He had tronsferred the State to the Confederacynow he would transfer his constituents if he could. It was like the wail of an Irish "wake" -the cry of one for the dead. execute. Some levies were made upon the Price's Protest and burners and guerrillas, General Price protestHalleck's orders were numerous and im-ed, threatening retaliation. Under guise of portant. In a series published December | communications on the subject, he succeed to burn railway bridges, rolling stock and stations. This was to occur on the 20th of December when the entire rebel force was to assume the offensive and defensive on the line of the river, with the ultimate design of foraging for supplies in Kansas and Iowa. It was a boldly conceived enterprize but im ed in getting three or four spies within the | ties north of the Missouri Price's Disposition. Federal lines, until, at length, Halleck re- river, and simultaneously plied: “No order of yours can save from punishment spies, marauders, robbers, incendiaries, guerrilla bands, &c., who violate the laws of war." Yet, though the country swarmed with these “irregulars," none were dealt with according to orders: not a cutthroat was hung, not a guerrilla shot, not a bridge burner made to taste the halter. At practicable owing to the superiority of Halthis time Tennessee dungeons and gallows were crying aloud with the blood of Tennessee citizens; yet, the Confederate authorities had the effrontery to characterize Halleck's orders as “inhuman," while a bloody retaliation was threatened for his "monstrous procedure." General Price but practiced the dissimulation common to almost every Confederate leader from Jefferson Davis down to Colonel Wigfall. Order Closing the leck in men and supplies. A number of valuable bridges were burned on the North Missouri and on the Hannibal and St. Joseph railways, and some rolling stock destroyed. The rapidity of Halleck's combinations, however, arrested the general destruction designed by the ambitious Price. Halleck's Counter Disposition. December 13-15th, General Prentiss in command at St. Joseph, moved down An order issued Decem- toward Lexington, where the rebels then ber 13th, closed the Mis- were in occupation, and from which point souri and Mississippi rivers | Price's army drew enormous supplies in proto commerce, except under military surveil- visions, clothing and men—the counties conlance. An immense contraband transporta- tiguous voluntarily contributing, it is said, tion was carried on by means of the rivers more to sustain the Confederate cause than and their tributaries, and Halleck at once all the rest of the State. With Prentiss' addressed himself to its suppression. The movement General Hunter co-operated. His fleet of gunboats then gathered at Cairo and St. Louis, gave him a sharp police, and soon the rebels found it hazardous business to communicate with their sympathising friends in St. Louis and up the Missouri. Up to that date much provisions, clothing, medicines and not a small quantity of arms found their way down the Mississippi, chiefly by means of small boats pulled down-stream in the darkness, or under the shadows of the shores. Price concentrated his Price's Disposition. forces at Osceola, early in December. Halleck's disposition was such as to hold the rebel there. The Confederates took up a camp position five miles from the town, leaving General Rains with his division in the place. All through the western and central counties the enemy swarmedtheir plundering and murdering propensities. preferring the "detached service," of which Price himself was chief administrator. He arranged, as one means of carrying out the objects of his campaign, to “raise" the coun forces were so disposed as to concentrate north or south of Lexington as might be required. A dispatch dated Tipton, Dec. 16th, said: "Yesterday orders were received here for all the forces at this post to hold themselves in readiness to march at a moment's notice. At the same time General Pope, commanding the Department of Central Missouri, at the head of nearly all the troops in winter quarters at Otterville, marched westward towards Warrensburg, for the purpose, it is generally believed here, of cutting off General Price, whom our scouts reported making forced marches to reach Generals Slack and Stein, now in the intrenchments at Lexington. Every body is on the qui vive for startling and good news, as universal confidence is felt in the ability and bravery of General Pope and his army." The point of interest again became Lexington. It was soon diverted to a point about twenty miles to the south of the river, in the vicinity of Warrensburg, whither Pope had moved to plant himself between Price and |