Chapter XV: In Camp at Rolla--A Private Expedition Into the Enemy's

COUNTRY.

|The three-months troops whose terms had expired, or were about to expire, were sent home, and the post at Rolla left in charge of the three-years regiments that remained, together with a portion of the regular forces of the late army of the southwest. The First Iowa, as already stated, had been enlisted for three months, and soon after the arrival at Rolla it returned to its own state and was disbanded.

True to their determination to see more of the war, Jack and Harry remained at Rolla when the regiment departed. At the same time they wrote to their parents and sent messages by their comrades, explaining why they wished to stay in Missouri, and their reasons for not going home. “We are not enlisted,” Jack wrote to his father, “and so we don't have to get into danger like the soldiers do. We've nothing to do but drive wagons and stay around the camp, where everything is safe. The boys will tell you how it is when they get home, and you may be sure we won't take any risks we can keep out of.”

There was a good deal of special pleading in Jack's letter, as the reader plainly perceives. It was certainly a greater risk for the youths to remain at a frontier post than to go home, where they would be out of all danger. Furthermore, anybody knows that while the position of a teamster is safer than that of the soldier who goes into battle, it is by no means a situation of unalloyed security. Wagon-trains are liable to attack and capture in the enemy's country, and one of the favorite enterprises of a cavalry commander is to strike his enemy's wagon-train on frequent occasions. If the wagons can be taken away they become the enemy's property; if they cannot be secured they are destroyed, and, in either case, the unfortunate drivers fall into the enemy's hands and become prisoners of war.

The history of war is full of stories of attacks upon wagon-trains; one of the perplexing problems for the military commander to solve is how to keep open his line of communications when advancing into the region of war and protect the trains that bring forward the supplies for his troops. If an army could be maintained without food and ammunition, save what it could collect in the enemy's country, many a leader would be greatly relieved.

Through the recommendation of the officers of the First Iowa Jack and Harry obtained employment with the post quartermaster at Rolla. With the approval of the commander of the troops stationed there he issued new clothing and blankets to the youths, and they felt, to use an old phrase, “as proud as peacocks.”

A rumor came that a rebel army was assembling somewhere to the southward for the purpose of attacking Rolla and securing the valuable property stored there. The garrison was put at work to throw up defenses, cannon were sent from St. Louis, the hills around the village were cleared of brushwood, and everything about the place assumed the appearance of war.

One day Jack suggested to Harry that they would make an excursion into the neighboring country, just to see for themselves and have a little fun.

Harry agreed to the proposal, but said there was a difficulty in the way on account of their clothing. They didn't want to be known as belonging to the garrison of Rolla, for the double reason that the people would not talk freely with them, and, besides, they might be seized and carried off as prisoners; and furthermore, their suits were new and they didn't want to spoil them as long as spoiling could be avoided.

Fortune favored them. That very day a scouting party brought in a wagon-load of clothing which had been collected in a village a few miles away to be sent to a company from that village, and then serving under General Price. From this load of clothing the quartermaster allowed Jack and Harry to help themselves, and they managed to pick out two suits which fitted them about as well as one is ordinarily fitted in a ready-made clothing store.

Slouch hats added to these butternut garments completed their costume, and thus accoutered they set out on a tramp whose duration was an uncertainty. Their plan was to walk from Rolla to Ironton and back again. The distance between the two points was about a hundred miles, and they intended to take a different road on their return from the one followed on the outward journey.

Ironton was then the terminus of the Iron Mountain Railway, and was held by a garrison of Union troops. Colonel Wyman, who commanded the Thirteenth Illinois, then stationed at Rolla, promised to write to the commander of the post at Ironton and inform him of the proposed journey of the youths, so that their story would not be discredited on their arrival there. It was thought best that they should carry no letters or papers of any kind which might compromise them in case of capture. So they took nothing except sufficient money to pay their expenses on the way, and this was supplied by the commander of the post. The paper money of the state of Missouri was preferred to anything else by the inhabitants of the region through which they were to pass, and therefore they carried nothing which bore the stamp of the United States government, with the exception of a few small pieces of silver coin and some of the local “shin-plasters” that were then in circulation.

The story that they were to tell in case they were questioned was that they had come from the northern part of Missouri and were on their way to visit friends near Ironton. They would freely admit that they had come through Rolla, and Colonel Wyman gave them permission to tell all they knew about the garrison there, except to give a guess as to the number of troops at the post. To all questions as to the number of soldiers at Rolla, they were to reply that they “did n't know, but thought there were five or six thousand.”

The fact was a reinforcement was expected in a few days, but this was unknown to the youths, and therefore the colonel was quite willing the boys should give whatever information they could, and in saying that they did n't know the number of soldiers at the post they would be strictly within the lines of truth. On their part they were to learn all they could about what the secessionists were doing in the region between Rolla and Ironton, and to what extent it was sending recruits to the rebel forces in the field.

The only baggage either of them carried was an overcoat, if an overcoat can be called baggage. Jack wanted to add a tooth-brush and a cake of soap to his outfit, but the proposal was vetoed by Harry.

“Don't you see,” said Harry, “you'd be giving yourself away at once? These fellows here don't use soap, or so rarely that it is an exception; and as for tooth-brushes, I don't believe a quarter of the people have ever heard of'em. Suppose they search us or see us using soap and tooth-brushes; they'd know right off that we were not of their kind.

“And did n't you hear about how soap-boxes caused a lot of ammunition to be seized?” Harry added.

“No; what was that?”

“It was about the time of the Camp Jackson affair, when the state authorities were laying their plans for taking the state out of the Union and getting ready to fight. The Union commanders at St. Louis were trying to stop the shipment of arms and ammunition to the interior of the state, and all packages of goods going in that direction were examined. At first only the outside of the packages was looked at, but one day something happened to require a more careful inspection.

“The examining officers found some boxes labeled 'soap' on a steamboat bound for Lexington, on the Missouri river. Had there been only one or two boxes he would not have been suspicious, but when he found more than one hundred boxes he 'smelt a mouse.' He naturally wondered why the people in that part of Missouri could want so much soap, and from wondering he ordered some of the boxes opened.

“Every box was found to contain canisters of gunpowder instead of soap. The whole lot was seized, and after that no goods were allowed to go forward without a careful inspection. If the shipper had labeled the stuff 'whisky' instead of 'soap,' nobody would have been suspicious, as whisky is a staple article of commerce and consumption in that region.”

Jack admitted the force of the argument about soap, but insisted that a tooth-brush would not be suspicious or betray their real character.

“Don't be so sure of that,” replied Harry. “One of these Union men from the very region we're going through said the other day that he thought the colonel of the Illinois regiment was a very nice man, until he saw him come out in front of his tent one morning with a glass of water in one hand and a little stick with some bristles on it in the other.

“'He came out there,' said the man, 'and stood round for five or ten minutes pushing that little stick round in his mouth and hawking and spitting and sloshing that 'er water among his teeth till it made me feel sick. I don't think he's much of a nice man after that.'”

Jack laughed, and agreed that the tooth-brush must be left behind, as well as the soap, and thus it happened that they started with neither of those adjuncts of a civilized toilet.

They took the road leading in a southeasterly direction from Rolla, starting one morning before daybreak, so as to be well on their way before anybody in the village was stirring. The sergeant of the picket on the road they were to travel had been notified to let them go on without question, and he did so on their presentation of a pass duly signed by the commandant of the post. By sunrise they were a good three miles out of town, and had met nobody.

The first man they met was a Union refugee, who was making his way to the post to escape persecution of his secession neighbors; at least that was what the youths inferred, though he was too cautious to say so until he had reached the protection of the Stars and Stripes. He asked if he was on the right road for Rolla, and on being assured that he was he appeared greatly relieved.

“I don't know where you-'uns are going,” said he, “but you 'll find lively times if you get down into Arkansas.”

“How so?” one of the boys asked.

“Why,” was the reply, “everybody's going to the army, and they don't talk about nothing else. They say they'll be up here soon and drive the Yanks out of Rolla and everywhere else.”

“They're used to driving,” said Jack; “there's a lot of'em at Rolla that's just been driven in from Springfield, and don't act as though they were going back again in a hurry.”

“Yes, I've heard so,” replied the stranger; “p'r'aps they don't want to go back there yet awhile.”

The conversation lasted for ten or fifteen minutes, and was as non-committal as possible on both sides. Neither party was willing to admit friendliness for the Union side, as each was fearful of after consequences. The stranger was the first to move on, as he evidently distrusted the youths and wanted to get away from them.