I therefore gave General Prentiss the
situation of the troops and the general condition of affairs, and
started for St. Louis the same day. The movement against the rebels at
Greenville went no further.
From St. Louis I was ordered to Jefferson City, the capital of the
State, to take command. General Sterling Price, of the Confederate
army, was thought to be threatening the capital, Lexington, Chillicothe
and other comparatively large towns in the central part of Missouri. I
found a good many troops in Jefferson City, but in the greatest
confusion, and no one person knew where they all were. Colonel
Mulligan, a gallant man, was in command, but he had not been educated as
yet to his new profession and did not know how to maintain discipline.
I found that volunteers had obtained permission from the department
commander, or claimed they had, to raise, some of them, regiments; some
battalions; some companies--the officers to be commissioned according to
the number of men they brought into the service. There were recruiting
stations all over town, with notices, rudely lettered on boards over the
doors, announcing the arm of service and length of time for which
recruits at that station would be received.
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