Oct., 1861. |
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[82]
until Plummer's arrival.
They formed a junction at Frederickton, with Plummer in chief command, and, starting in pursuit of the Confederates, who they supposed were in full flight, found them about one thousand strong, well posted and ready for battle, partly in an open field and partly in the woods, only a mile from the village, with four iron 18-pounders in position.
Schofield opened the battle with his heavy guns.
A general engagement ensued, and, after two hours hard fighting, the Confederates fled, hotly pursued by the Indiana cavalry for twenty miles. The Confederate Colonel Lowe was killed early in the action.
Their loss was large — how large is not known.
The loss of the Nationals was ten killed and twenty wounded. This defeat and dispersion completely broke up Thompson's guerrilla organization for a time, which was composed almost wholly of disloyal and deluded Missourians.
They had fought bravely with inferior arms against superior numbers.1
We have observed that General Fremont had anticipated an interference with his plans when he heard that the Secretary of War and the Adjutant-General were in pursuit of him. They had overtaken him on the 13th,
at Tipton, the then Western terminus of the Pacific Railway, about thirty miles south of Jefferson City.
The interview of the officials was courteous and honorable.
The Secretary frankly told him that their errand was to make personal observations of his army, and of affairs in his Department.
Complaints concerning his administration of those affairs had filled the mind of the President with painful apprehensions, and the Secretary of War bore with him an order, relieving him of his command, with discretionary powers to use it or not. The Secretary carried it back to Washington, and the Adjutant-General made a report highly unfavorable to the commanding general in Missouri.
This was published, and had the two-fold effect of prejudicing the public mind against Fremont, and revealing to the enemy secrets which the highest interests of the country at that time required to be hidden.2
The assertion was publicly made, after the return of the Government officials, that the campaign in Missouri was a failure; and the prediction was confidently uttered that Fremont's army could never cross the Osage, much less reach Springfield.
The fallacy of this prophecy was proven in less than a fortnight, when that army lay on the Ozark hills and on the plain around Springfield; and the campaign failed only, it is believed, because its progress was suddenly checked when the most reasonable promises of abundant success were presented.
That check was given on the morning of the 2d of November, when a courier arrived at Headquarters with an order from General Scott, directing General Fremont to turn over his command to General
1 More than half of their fire-arms were old flint-lock squirrel guns. “Of the dead,” wrote an eye-witness, “not a single one that I saw was dressed in any kind of uniform, the cloth being generally home-made, and butter-nut colored.”
2 This report was in the form of a journal, and contained A great amount of gossip and scandal, gathered from subalterns and Fremont's political enemies, which subsequent information showed to be unworthy of credit. It is due to the Adjutant-General to say that he disclaimed any intention to make that journal public. It is said that a copy of it was surreptitiously obtained and given to a newspaper reporter, and suspicion at the time pointed to the Postmaster-General (whose brother, an officer in the army, it was known had quarrelled with Fremont), as the one on whom the responsibility of the publication should rest. Fremont afterward published A vindication of his administration in the Department of Missouri, which almost wholly removed from the public mind the unfavorable impression made by that journal.
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