cated, lost control of himself and his men, and the roughs and desperadoes seemed about to capture the outpost. The disturbance attracted the attention of the Union forces at the arsenal opposite, and a party was sent across to occupy the island. At this crisis, Major Williams, happening to be at St. Louis, came over to the post, and by prompt and energetic measures restored order, and saved our position from capture by either of the invading bodies, friends or foes. The mob was silenced, our friends from the arsenal returned, and the day was saved to Illinois and the Twelfth. However, the luckless officer of the guard was ordered back to Caseyville in arrest, to await some form of punishment suited to his offence. Some days of meditation at headquarters upon the power of a regimental court-martial to cashier a commissioned officer for the good of the service, resulted at last in the conclusion that in military law such a proceeding was not permissible. The culprit solved the problem by a timely resignation, which was cordially and promptly accepted. It is said that he joined another regiment, and there retrieved his good name.

The days at Caseyville were well spent in drill of officers and men, and practice in the usages of camp life. The traffic to and from St. Louis was inspected with vigilance, and now and then seizures of contraband goods were made. There was but little sickness; usually about thirty cases, in charge of Doctor Wardner and his assistant, and many of these off duty for a few days only. The constant guard, though at times quite severe, was in the end of great benefit to all. Officers and men gradually became acquainted with each other, and the foundations of the regiment were well laid. Here, also, the men received the first uniforms issued after their muster in; they were furnished by the State, and were of a color not at all welcome, gray. The recipients of these ambiguous garments put them on as ordered, but no one enjoyed the spectacle of a Union

VOL. II. - 17

battalion clad in that tint. It was in vain to assert that the New York Seventh wore gray, as it provoked the retort: "So do the Rebels." Up to this time the Galena Company had been the only one uniformed, wearing a sort of jäger costume of green. Nor, with all this attention to dress, were the arts of alimentation neglected. In our comparatively primitive customs at Camp Yates we had been content to boil our camp-kettles in a rude and reckless way over open fires, the suspending contrivance being a pole resting on forked sticks set in the ground. At Caseyville, the men soon progressed beyond this gypsy expedient, and learned to build ovens and fireplaces of bricks cemented with clay. The question of water-supply arose at once. There are those who remember the digging of a certain well in the hollow back of camp, and the engineering devices brought to bear by the adjutant and a volunteer fatigue party in the construction of the curbing, and a way leading to the water. They will also recall the general sorrow, a few days after, when that well suddenly went dry, and would not yield another drop. But the water was good while it lasted, and the discovery of the fickle fountain and the adornment of the place about it had given us a pleasing employment. That the rural deities grew unkind, and refused further to slake our thirst, was a result which the martial powers could neither prevent nor punish.

June 3, 1861, was to be our last day at Camp Bissell, for it was then ordered that the regiment proceed immediately to St. Louis. At five o'clock that afternoon, every tent was struck; by six, the special train of ten passenger coaches and as many freight cars steamed away to the West, and Caseyville was no more. Before dark,

the entire command had embarked on the steamer "Louisiana." The "City of Alton," the Seventh Illinois crowding her decks, was at the East St. Louis landing as we arrived, and the two boats swung clear of the shore and headed down the stream together. All was enthusi

It grieved us

asm and wonder as we left the place. As we glided past the landings and settlements one after the other, the people would at sometimes greet us with cheers, and at others look over the water in sullen stillness. Once, on the shore, we beheld the Stars and Stripes gleaming amid the trees; and more than once Union ladies for such, in our gratitude, we deemed them-waved their white handkerchiefs as we floated swiftly on and on. The "Alton," as we soon learned, was the faster boat. to find this out, and see her take the lead before we had reached Cape Girardeau; but the master of the "Louisiana" did his best, and followed close in the wake of her consort. Faster or slower, our boat was hastening down the great river of the West, her passengers destined, no doubt, to share in the contest for the control of that national waterway which was so soon to begin. The summer heat was tempered by gentle airs that seemed to advance to meet us as we went, and the summer night had grown late before the men lay down upon the decks to sleep. Talk and music had passed the evening time; but at last the voices of the singers of songs and the tellers of stories died away, and the boat and the regiment became silent, save for the steady footfalls of the guard and a tremulous undertone of machinery, marking with unvarying cadence our southward way.

CAMPAIGN OF THE ARMY OF THE

THE

FRONTIER.

BY JOSEPH B. LEAKE.

[Read October 1, 1884.]

HE position of the State of Missouri at the beginning of the Rebellion was one which threatened great danger to the Union. An enemy in possession of it would dominate the Mississippi River from Keokuk to Columbus; would absolutely blockade the Missouri; would cut off the State of Kansas and the Western Territories from direct connection with the East; would paralyze Iowa's assistance to the government, by invasion of her territory all along her southern border; and would put Illinois on the defence of two-thirds of her western boundary. The armies of the Confederacy would have unopposed access to the State, from Kentucky and Tennessee on the southeast, and from Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and the Indian Territory, along the natural highway in the southwest; and could concentrate within easy striking distance of Chicago, or any other centre of the loyal northwestern States. Stretching so far to the north, threatening danger on every side, it was but natural that within the boundaries of Missouri, or just beyond them, should be fought some of the bitterest contests of the early war.

The political condition of the State served only to increase the confusion and danger of the situation. In January, 1861, Claiborne F. Jackson was inaugurated governor, and, with a disloyal legislature, took immediate. measures to precipitate the State into the vortex of secession. A convention was called, but the result of the