Civil War Letter, March 1862

 Oneonta Herald, Oneonta, NY, April 2, 1862

Civil War Letter

Fort Scott, Kansas, March 16th, 1862

Dear Herald:  Since I wrote you last, there have been some active operations in the West.  The public have no doubt been disappointed in their expectations of the Lane expedition, but there are many reasons why the advance had not been made.  Lane and Hunter are on the best of terms and there has been no jar between them to hinder the undertaking which would have been made according to Lane's program, if at all.  The facts are these:  Hallack's brilliant campaign in Kentucky and Tennessee has done away with the immediate necessity for an advance from this quarter.  To carry on his important undertakings, he was obliged to draw heavily on all the Western States for troops and Hunter, appreciating the exigencies of the case, generously and cheerfully transferred to Hallack all the troops on their way or under orders to march to his department.

I must correct here a wrong impression I may have given in my last letter concerning our noble General Hunter.  He is not at all afraid of setting negroes loose.  There is not a Regiment and hardly a company in his department, but has one or more fugitives, who are always received, fed and protected when they come among us, and this is the more remarkable, as these people are fugitives from professedly loyal masters in many cases and not contrabands.  There are many of these fugitives in Leavenworth and they come over daily and nightly in small squads.  I have known as many as seventy-five to arrive in a single night.  I was told that Dr. Bowlby of Weston, who lost a valuable woman while we were in that place, went over to the fort and asked General Hunter to return her, pleading that he was a good Union man.  His reply was worthy of being made a text for the management of the war.  "Good Union men don't own slaves," and that is true of Platte County at least.

We left Weston on the 15th of February and took up our quarters in Leavenworth City and remained there two weeks. Never perhaps was there greater rejoicing in Ruffiandom than on that bright Saturday morning when with colors flying and the mellow silver horns making music, we marched forth and left the blighted and accursed land.  We felt joyful too for we had done our duty and made ourselves a terror to evil doers. War and rebellion are no child's play to the hardy sons of the Northwest, and we showed no favor to the criminals who have aided and abetted treason. and so they were very happy to part company with us.  On the contrary it was a day of sorrow to the poor negroes.  They shed tears as they saw us move off, for they knew we were their friends and they felt that the day of their deliverance was now gone.

We did not do all our work in Weston. A mile from that place lives a Mr. John Wells, owning a large property in land and negroes.  When Phillips was mobbed in Weston, tarred, rode on a rail, and sold at auction by a negro, it was John Wells, who furnished and carried the rail and bid him off, and when afterwards this Phillips was shot by a gang of ruffians in Leavenworth, John Wells was among them.  The circumstances of that murder are known to all who are familiar with the history of the outrages in Kansas.  Perhaps your readers have heard too, of a mob that attacked the house of a Free State man during the troubles and took two little children and dashed their brains out against the wall.  Well, John Wells was one of that party, and never did we see him swaggering about the streets of Weston, but we wanted to take summary vengeance on him.  But he had taken the oath, though rotten at heart, and a guard of Missouri troops protect his house.  But this is not to be wondered at. Even in loyal Kansas the sins of some Ruffians seem not to have been remembered. The infamous Lecompte practices law at Leavenworth and Stringfellow lives in security at Atchison

We had a pleasant time at Leavenworth.  It was joy to us to be once more on free soil and among loyal people, to have the privilege of going about wherever we chose, to go once more into the sanctuary on the Sabbath and hear words of life and peace, to mark the happy, contented looks of the fugitives from whose brows the clouds had vanished and from whose souls the iron that had entered so sharply, had been taken away.  We had two hours drill daily and the rest of the time was our own.  But the evening was our time for amusement.  Then the contrabands thronged our quarters, and original Ethiopian melodists entertained us by the hear with their wild music.  Now it would be Dixie with all sorts of comic additions and variations and again it would be some low plaintive melody accompanied by the  -?- and dance, excited shouts of merriment arose over the nimble movements of long heeled Samson as he shuffled a hoe down or jump Jim Crow.

On the afternoon of Friday, Feb. 25th, as our pay rolls were being made out and we were rejoicing in the prospect of Uncle Sam's green backs, we were ordered to march at once to Fort Scott, 180 miles distant.  Our rations were -?- that night, the sick provided for and at 5 A.M. we were packed and ready for a start.  The morning of the 1st of March dawned on us gloriously and with indications of a storm.  -?- we went forward regardless of wind and weather and reached our destination about noon on the 5th inst.  The 5th Wisconsin accompanied us as far as -?-, then took another road. They arrived here on the 8th. The winds were very fierce on the prairie and the weather cold.

Seventeen miles south of Leavenworth, we entered the timber on the Delaware Reservation and travelled through it a distance of twenty miles.  The roads in the timber were in bad condition.  Our heavy loaded wagons broke through the frozen surface, and we could have been tracked during our second day's march by the blood which oozed from the feet of the mules. After leaving this timber we entered the boundless prairie and many a weary mile we travelled without bush or tree in sight, nothing but the monotonous rolls and swells of the prairie stretching before us, and when we had gained them nothing was to be seen on the far horizon but other rolls and swells stretching away till in the distance, they could hardly be discerned from the blue sky.

We generally commenced our march by sunrise and travelled all day, camping at nightfall near some stream where we could get wood.  Out tents were soon pitched, we boiled our coffee, ate a slice of raw ham and a basswood cracker, perhaps a musty one with a few worms in it.  Then we cut brush, not evergreen boughs but rough scraggy brush, spread our blankets on it and sleep.  Sometimes some of the large quill feathers would hurt, but there is nothing like getting used to it.

We camped one night at Osawatomie, a more desolate, cheerless place I never saw. We passed few villages on our route.  The whole country is still in a state of nature. Timber is very scarce.  Along the water courses there is generally a narrow belt of seared and shapeless trees that have been scorched and blasted by a hundred fires. We often kindled fires in the rank grass as we marched along, and the fierceness of the flames accounted for the entire absence of timber.  The soil seems to be rich and small streams of water abound, but these will probably be dry in summer.

Fort Scott, like Fort Leavenworth is not a fort but a collection of stone barracks.  Price intended to take this in his march on Lexington and came as far as Drywood, twelve miles from here.  Lane had but two thousand half armed troops, but he gave out that he had a large army, well-armed and equipped.  Four hundred and fifty of his irregular cavalry made a desperate charge on Price's whole army and retreated with a loss of two killed and three wounded.  Price acknowledged a loss of sixty killed and thinking Lane's force superior, took another route.  There are some earthworks on the bluffs commanding...[rest unreadable.]

Author unknown.