L. P. Brockett, The camp, the battlefield, and the hospital: or, lights and shadows of the great rebellion

---

[17] to themselves the field and the girls, by rushing up to the house and shouting, at the top of their voices, “The Feds are coming! The Feds are coming!” The plan worked admirably: the officers rushed away in hot haste-one even falling into the well-and our plotters were left in full possession of the premises. Coming back to Sedalia, they were engaged by Colonel Weir as guides. Going ahead one day to select a camping ground, they came to a house where was a man very hospitably inclined, asking them to stop, put up their horses and feed them with corn, of which he had plenty. Representing that they had been pressed into the service, but were in heart with the rebels, their entertainer grew confidential, and told them something about himself — that he acted as a spy, carried despatches wrapped in a cigar, etc. The information thus obtained from him, contributed to the capture, by General Pope, at Blackwater, of thirteen hundred rebels, with all their equipments. They accompanied General Pope on his expedition to Warrensburg, where he captured Colonel Parke's rebel force; and then returned to Kansas, where they jayhawked for a month or two. Going again to Missouri, they learned that Quantrell's guerilla band was in the vicinity of Independence. With eleven comrades, they went there, captured the town, quartered themselves in the court house, and badly frightened the people, who thought, of course, that they were only the advance guard of a larger body behind. Quantrell soon came into the place with forty-five men, and demanded their surrender. This was refused, and a skirmish commenced, the occupants of the court house firing out of the doors and windows, and finally succeeded in dispersing the