His head nodded or shook as he read line by line over the unfinished piece. Its arguments were one-sided, its facts selective, its character assassinations subtle and its patriotism rampant. A wretched piece of writing it was, but good journalism here-and-now. He felt relieved that his years of serving as publisher and business magnate had not entirely erased his reportorial skills. He paused for a moment, carefully closing the portable camp desk so that the wet ink from his fresh revisions would not find its way to the other documents in the folios of the lid. After placing it carefully on the ground, he stretched, catlike, in the warm sunlight of early morning. Around him, the camp was awake though the men were not yet ready to resume their march, and beguiling odors of coffee, frying food and crisping bacon wafted over the rows of tents.
Ronsend had agreed with Makhearne that the western theater was the most crucial in these early days of the war, but had erred in thinking Kentucky would remain neutral and quiet while events played out in Missouri. Lincoln had thought that it would be useful to have someone unofficially report on the situation on the ground, especially so since the Union commanders at St Louis and Cincinnati were training tens of thousands of men and expending enormous public funds for everything from tents to bacon. Don Carlos Buell, the commander of Jefferson Barracks in St Louis, was a professional soldier of the old Army. He had graduated from West Point in the class of 1841 as a classmate of Nathaniel Lyons in Paducah, John Reynolds in California and the two Garnetts, who had gone South. He was solid, capable, strict in discipline and orderly in his preparations, and he was no fool: Buell knew exactly why this New York newspaperman and friend of Lincoln had come to visit. The general was too professional to give his guest any but the most correct welcome, and Ronsend had found little in the management of the army or procurement of supplies to excite any interest. But Buell had the defects of the old Army also; if thorough he was also slow, and if strict he was colorless, uninterested in trying to win the affections of the citizens who were now his soldiers.
The first challenges had been met, though the consequences of those early decisions were still ricocheting around the state like stray bullets. Missouri Governor Claiborne Jackson had announced his state’s neutrality when war seemed imminent, then compromised it by attempting to seize the sixty thousand muskets and rifles held at the St Louis Arsenal. Along with assorted cannon, tons of precious gunpowder and stores of supplies and rations, those rifles made St Louis the military key to control of the center of the continent. Buell had refused to hand over Jefferson Barracks to Jackson’s militia, a stand that Ronsend thought might have saved Missouri and the West for the Union. Meeting the militia in the streets of St Louis with a tiny force of regular infantry, artillery and a few scratch regiments formed from German immigrants, Buell had given the rebels ‘a taste of the grape’ and sent them reeling. Jackson had proclaimed the city lost and gone south to Rolla to set up a Confederate government for Missouri. Taking up the fight in his place was former Governor Sterling Price, who had gathered up the remnants of Jackson’s ill-fated militia and set up camp at the old town of St Charles on the Missouri River. Price might not be an experienced military man, but he knew how to keep the proclamations flowing out, and the recruits and supplies coming in.
Thither to St Charles was Buell now bound, with his scant companies of regulars stiffening Siegel’s Germans, Payton’s loyal Missourians and two regiments each from Indiana and Iowa. His goal was to trap Price’s regiments against the Missouri River and crush them, but Ronsend thought there were more difficulties ahead than the general let on. The chief one of those being the river itself, for St Charles lay on the opposite bank from Buell’s army and the sole good crossing downstream, at Music Ferry, was guarded by Confederate cannon. Still, taking almost any offensive action was better than making none at all, for Confederate brigadier Ben McCulloch was marching quickly from northwestern Arkansas into central Missouri. Whether he seized the state capital at Jefferson City or marched past to combine with Price, McCulloch’s arrival would swing the balance of numbers in Missouri heavily to the Confederate side. Buell had therefore determined to strike at Price first, and to that end had advanced from his base in St Louis, cutting across the wide loop the Missouri River made to the north. St Charles was little more than twenty miles from Jefferson Barracks as the crow flies, but Buell’s inexperienced men had required a week to make the journey, in part because the retreating Confederates had disrupted the railroad running from St Louis through St Charles and Buell was intent upon repairing it as he advanced. Given the batteries at Music Ferry and other places on the river north of town, the Federal force would have to move north of them and cross by steamboat. The land northeast of St Charles was a long, low-lying tongue dividing the Mississippi River from the Missouri, good farming land but swampy and uncrossed by roads, meaning the most difficult part of the campaign still lay ahead. Most of the Federal officers thought Price would fall back to join McCulloch, but Buell did not agree. “He’ll believe he is in a strong place,” the general had said, “and he will want to hold it. I knew him in Mexico, and he looked forward to a fight, then. He will be the same man, now.”
All of that would be days in the future if Buell’s army continued at its current… Ronsend turned and shaded his eyes. A flurry of shots from the perimeter probably meant nothing, for the green recruits were forever skylarking, loosing shots at any animal that stirred in the brush, or at nothing, for the sheer pleasure of it. The rumble died away and he bent to pick up his desk, only to jerk upright again as another fusillade rolled, this one from the northeast. Shouts followed, and another roar of musketry. Men began moving from their breakfast huddles around the campfires, sergeants chivvying them toward the neat stacks of rifles. Bawling cries rang out; ‘Fall in!’ ‘Look sharp, lads!’ ‘Fall in for inspection!’ ‘Prepare to break camp!’ The shouts and the flat, cracking thunder of gunfire were getting louder, lending urgency to the officers’ attempts to get the men into line.
A staff officer mounted on a bay gelding rode by, calling to the milling officers and men alike. “It’s Price, men. He’s come out to fight, he’s over here where we can get ‘im! So grab your guns and fall in, and you will each get to whip a rebel or two today!” Men cheered and ran for their kit – rifles, bandoliers of ammunition, caps, tunics. Drummers began to roll the long burring drone of the call to assembly, and somewhere in the distance a bugler sounded more or less at random.
That was when the first of the rebels came out of the trees, pushing ahead of them a loose mass of men in blue. Some were running, but most were walking backwards at a steady pace, trying to reload as they came. The rebels were in civilian homespun, but a few had donned the lost caps and tunics of their retreating foes, and they were coming on in little rushes, dropping down behind whatever cover they could find. Ronsend had a moment to marvel that there were so few dead or wounded on either side before he saw one and then another go down. The ragged Confederate line halted and gave a sputtering volley, and he heard the bullets singing in the trees overhead, little bits of leaves showering down. One bullet thwacked into a branch not two feet from his elbow, and he decided then and there to seek out a safer vantage point. Turning his back was somehow impossible, and so he moved away in the sideways sidle the retreating Federals were still employing, easing into the trees at the back of the clearing just as a bluecoated company shouted, ‘Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!’ and went forward at a run. That bowled the Confederates back into the brush, but other regiments coming up on the verges dropped a dozen or more Union boys and sent the rest scampering to the rear. More Confederates could be seen in the woods every moment.
About fifteen minutes later, still clutching his portable desk under one arm, he came across Buell. The general had one foot propped on a stump and was addressing a half-dozen officers. “He’s come across the river and hit us in the rear,” Buell was saying, “and he’s hit us in the front, too. But it’s tricky to make that work even with regulars, and all Price has is militia. None of these are McCulloch’s boys, I think, so we have the advantage of numbers. Keep your men steady, take up good positions, and keep the ammunition coming to them. Allow no straggling, and no shirking! Captain Crawford, we shall need a provost guard to round up the strays and send them back to the firing line. Captain Sturdevant, see to the safety of the wagons, get the men fresh ammunition and look to your accounting for the bullets afterwards.” That got a brief chuckle. “Right, then. He’s pushing us back, and our fellows are shaken, so we’ve got to firm them up; give them all the encouragement we can. Drop trees if you can, or use fences, or any other kind of cover. Major Dancy, your regiment had better go over to the left of Peete’s – send a runner to him and to Castle, find out what they know and get word back to me. I’ll be headed for the crossroads, about a quarter-mile that way.” Everyone nodded. “Colonel Luker, hold your men where they are, save to give Jones help if he needs it. We don’t know yet which of these two attacks is the main one. And Gordon, bring your boys along to the crossroads, quick as you can. I think I’ll have a use for you. Captain Fellowes, get your battery moving to the crossroads immediately; I’ll have further instructions for you then.”
Seeing one of the officers staring over his shoulder, Buell turned his head. “Mister Robinson! Where have you come from, sir? What have you seen?”
“I was at Vogel’s farm, General, with Castle’s regiment. The enemy was in the woods to the northeast, and it looked like there were a lot of them.”
Buell nodded, unimpressed with the slim facts of the report. “Major Dancy, you had better get moving now. If you – or anyone – comes across Brigadier Payton, I should like to speak with him.” The officers melted away, leaving one nervous lieutenant and Ronsend alone with Buell. The general gave the reporter an unfriendly look before clapping a hand on the young lieutenant’s shoulder.
“Now, son, how are Siegel’s men holding up?” Siegel had served in the army of Baden, and had been Minister of War for the anti-Prussian side of the revolts of 1848. He had been instrumental in swinging the German vote – and thus, Missouri – to Lincoln in 1860, and he had been able to rapidly raise thousands of recruits from the German settlers of St Louis when the war broke out. Without his men, Buell would have been overwhelmed and St Louis lost. Lincoln had rewarded Siegel with a commission as a brigadier general of volunteers, but the new brigadier and his men were not highly regarded by Buell and his staff.
“He’s fighting hard, sir… It’s pretty confused, back there.” Siegel’s troops had been in the van, furthest west toward the river when the attack came in. “Lots of ‘em scampered, but the reg’lars was right behind ‘em. The artillery got up, I know I saw that ‘fore Major Dawes sent me back to find you. He said to tell you that Ostermann’s with Siegel, sir, and that he thought his present line could be held for now.”
Buell nodded thoughtfully; Ostermann might not be Siegel’s equal in rank but he was steady, cautious and painstaking, a good man for Siegel to look to for advice. Dawes was a hard-bitten veteran of the Old Army, a careerist, and his men were the 1st Infantry Regiment, USA, the ‘Old Guard’ of the American Army. “Carry a message back. Ask General Siegel to consult with Major Dawes and Major Ostermann. Tell him to hold his position, and not to let the enemy get around his flanks. I’m sending… what I can as reinforcements. They aren’t to take any offensive action unless a position must be retaken… Yes, that’ll do it. Tell them the rebels have split their army, and I’m going to hit the other side first.”
Buell strode toward his horse. “Ride fast, son. Mister Robinson, there’s a horse for you – some poor man doesn’t need it anymore.” Ronsend gentled the horse and wiped the blood from the saddle with his bandana, then tucked his desk under a strap and swung himself into the saddle. The horse was nervous, but willing, and Ronsend nudged it past a trot. Buell was already half-way across the clearing and accelerating fast, and if Ronsend lost sight of the general he wasn’t sure what he would do.
