Fremont in Missouri

JOHN C. FREMONT, the eminent explorer and meritorious soldier, who was in Europe when the war began, after purchasing arms for the Government there, hastened home and was commissioned major-general of volunteers. On the 6th of July, he was appointed to the command of the Department of Missouri, with his headquarters at St. Louis, where, in consequence of General Lyon having taken the field in person, he found everything in confusion. He entered upon his duties with vigor. He caused St. Louis to be fortified; and Bird's Point, opposite Cairo, on the Mississippi, was made secure from the operations of the Confederates.

When, on the death of General Lyon and the retreat of the National troops from Springfield toward St. Louis, Fremont perceived the secession element in Missouri to be strong and defiant, he took the civil as well as the military power in his department into his own hands, and soon caused his opponents to act with circumspection. He proclaimed martial-law, and assured the disaffected that it would be vigorously enforced. His energy created jealousies; and such misrepresentations were laid before his Government that his actions, which promised the best results, were restrained, and the wholesome rigors of martial-law were removed.

Fremont had already formed a plan for ridding not only Missouri, but the whole Mississippi Valley, of armed insurgents, and for opening the navigation of the great river which was then obstructed by Confederate batteries at Memphis and elsewhere. His plan contemplated the capture or dispersion of troops under General Price, in Missouri, and the seizure of Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas. By so doing Fremont expected to turn the position of the forces under Pillow and others, in the vicinity of New Madrid, cut off their supplies from the southwest and compel them to retreat, at which time a flotilla of gun-boats then a-building near St. Louis, might descend the Mississippi and assist in military operations against the batteries at Memphis. In the event of this movement being successful, he proposed to push on toward the Gulf of Mexico, with his army, and take possession of New Orleans.

After the battle of Wilson's Creek, General McCulloch, the Texan leader, abandoned General Price, because they could not agree, when the latter, in sole command, called upon the Secessionists to fill up his ranks. They responded with alacrity; and at the middle of August, Price moved northward in the direction of Lexington, which was situated in a curve of the Missouri River. It occupied an important position, and was garrisoned by less than three thousand troops under Colonel James A. Mulligan. Early in September, when Price had reached its vicinity, Mulligan resolved to defend the place, with his small army, and cast up intrenchments around his camp. At that time a larger Union force was at the State capital, under Colonel Jefferson C. Davis, and General John Pope was coming down from the country northward of the Missouri River, with five thousand more. Price perceived his danger, and pressing vigorously forward, besieged Lexington on the 11th of September, with twenty thousand men, which number soon increased to twenty-five thousand, by reinforcements. Mulligan was inadequately supplied with heavy guns and ammunition to sustain a siege; and after a gallant defence of the post against overwhelming numbers, until the morning of the 20th, he was compelled to surrender. This disaster was severely felt by the Unionists; and Fremont, resolving to retrieve it, at once put in motion an army of more than twenty thousand men to drive Price and his followers out of Missouri.

Early in the summer the disloyal governor of Kentucky declared that arrangements had been made at Cincinnati, with General McClellan, that neither National nor Confederate troops should enter Kentucky. McClellan denied the truth of the assertions; but for several months the neutrality of Kentucky was as much respected as if such an arrangement was in force; and the purposes of the governors of Kentucky and Tennessee were promoted, for it gave them more time to prepare for war. In the meantime Pillow had been unsuccessfully trying to capture Cairo by military operations in Missouri. He urged the seizure of the bluff at Columbus, in Western Kentucky, from which he believed he might take Cairo in reverse, turn its guns upon Bird's Point, drive out and disperse the Nationals, and so make a free passage for the Confederates to St. Louis. The solemn pledges of his masters to respect Kentucky neutrality, restrained Pillow; but in September (1861) the Confederates resolved to violate that neutrality. General (Bishop) Polk, seized the strong position at Columbus, with a considerable body of troops, under the pretext that National forces were preparing to occupy that place. The Confederate secretary of war publicly telegraphed to Polk to withdraw his troops; and at the same time Jefferson Davis privately telegraphed to him to hold on, saying: "The necessity must justify the means." So Columbus was held by the Confederates. The loyal members of the Kentucky Legislature requested the governor to call out the militia of the State to expel the invaders, and asked the National Government to aid him. The governor did nothing; but General Ulysses S. Grant, then in command of the district around Cairo, took military possession of Paducah, in Northern Kentucky, at the mouth of the Tennessee River. The seizure of Columbus by the Confederates, opened the way to all the horrors of war which Kentucky suffered; and the occupation of Paducah by National troops ended the "neutrality" of that State. Thenceforth Kentucky was numbered among the loyal States.