POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT. 501 men and money, if necessary, to sustain formation of a new State out of Westthem in their contest." ern Virginia is an original, independent act of revolution. I do not deny the When the vote was taken, five only Messrs. Bayard, Bright, Polk, Powell power of revolution (I do not call it and Saulsbury-were in favor of refer-right-for it is never prescribed, it exring the credentials; so the Senators were admitted to take the oath of office. The ground taken by Congress and the Government in this Virginia question in reference to the position of the Western portion of the State, which there was a strong disposition at one time to separate from the rest as a new and distinct commonwealth, was well set forth in a letter addressed on the 12th of the following month by the Attorney-General of the United States, Mr. Bates, to Mr. A. F. Ritchie, a member of the Virginia Convention, then sitting at Wheeling. "I have thought," wrote this high officer of the Government, "a great deal upon the question of dividing the State of Virginia into two States; and since I came here as a member of the Government, I have conversed with a good many, and corresponded with some, of the good men of Western Virginia, in regard to that matter. In all this intercourse, my constant and earnest effort has been to impress upon the minds of those gentlemen the vast importancenot to say necessity-in the terrible crisis of our national affairs, to abstain from the introduction of any new elements of revolution, to avoid, as far as possible, all new and original theories of Government; but, on the contrary, in all the insurgent commonwealths to adhere, as closely as circumstances will allow, to the old constitutional standard of principle, and to the traditional habits and thoughts of the people. And I still think that course is dictated by the plainest teachings of prudence. The ists in force only, and has and can have no law but the will of the revolutionists). Any attempt to carry it out involves a plain breach of both the Constitutions-of Virginia and the nation. And hence, it is plain you cannot take that course without weakening, if not destroying, your claims upon the sympathy and support of the General Government; and without disconcerting the plan already adopted both by Virginia and the General Government, for the reorganization of the revolted States, and the restoration of the integrity of the Union. That plan I understand to be this: When a State, by its perverted functionaries, has declared itself out of the Union, we avail ourselves of the sound and loyal elements of the State-all who owned allegiance to, and claimed protection of, the Constitution, to form a State government, as nearly as may be, upon the former model, and claiming to be the very State which has been, in part, overthrown by the successful rebellion. In this way we establish a constitutional nucleus around which all the shattered elements of the commonwealth may meet and combine, and thus restore the old State in its original integrity. This, I verily thought, was the plan adopted at Wheeling, and recognized and acted upon by the General Government here. Your convention annulled the revolutionary proceedings at Richmond, both in the Convention and General Assembly, and your new Governor formally demanded of the President the fulfilment of the constitutional guarantee in favor of Virginia-Virginia, as known to our fathers and to us. The President admitted the obligation, and promised his best efforts to fulfil it; and the Senate admitted your Senators, not as representing a new and nameless State, now for the first time heard of in our history, but as representing the good old commonwealth.'" A joint resolution of the two Houses recommending a fast day, and following nearly the exact words of a resolution passed during the war of 1812, was introduced into the Senate by Harlan of Iowa, and was adopted unanimously. It ran thus:-"It being a duty peculiarly incumbent in a time of public calamity CHAPTER XXXII. THE BATTLE OF CARTHAGE, Mo., JULY 5, 1861. through the western counties in the direction of Springfield. GENERAL LYON having, as we have the beginning of July, making his way seen in a previous chapter, summarily put the disloyal Governor of Missouri and his forces to flight at Booneville, prepared to follow them in their retreat to the southern portion of the State, where, supporting themselves at the expense of the inhabitants, they were adding to their numbers, and gathering fresh nutriment in the cause of the rebellion. General Price, with other insurgent leaders, it was understood was in arms in the southwest, and there were rumors of the presence in the same quarter of the redoubtable Texas ranger, Ben McCulloch, who had lately left the vicinity of the Potomac, and been seen in Arkansas. To meet these and whatever other enemies there might be abroad, General Lyon set out from Booneville at He had hardly departed, however, before the enemy whom he sought were successfully encountered in a remote part of the State by a young officer of foreign birth, whose skill, displayed on more than one occasion, gained him the highest honors of the campaign. This was Colonel Franz Sigel, who, born at Baden in 1821, had been educated at the military school of Carlsruhe, held high rank in the Prussian army, and on the breaking out of the Revolution in 1848, joined the liberals and become a leader of their revolutionary army. Having achieved considerable military distinction in this command, on the pacification of the country he came to America, where north, to attack Jackson and Rains, and open a line of communication with General Lyon, who, it was incorrectly reported, had had an engagement with the enemy in that direction. Scarcely, however, had Colonel Sigel left Sarcoxie when he received news that the camp of Price had been broken up, and his troops retreated to the extremity of the State. Colonel Sigel then advanced, welcomed by the inhabitants on the way, who had suffered grievously from the pillaging of the insurgents, and occupied Neosho, where he was received without opposi he diligently applied himself to the study of the language. Marrying the daughter of his preceptor, Mr. Dulon, he made his home in St. Louis, where, at the opening of the war, he was engaged as Professor in a College, among other courses, giving instruction in tactics. Quickly responding to the call of his adopted country, he stood by the side of Colonel Blair and Colonel Bornstein, at the head of one of the first regiments of volunteers raised in Missouri. He was now to have an opportunity to exhibit his military genius on a new theatre in America. The scene of his operations was in the southwestern tion. Declining further pursuit of Price's corner of Missouri, where a communication was kept open by the insurgent state troops with Arkansas, and where the rebel generals often rallied during the war, till the more southerly regions were cleared of the insurgents, who were ever ready to carry the war beyond their own borders into the territory of Missouri. On the arrival of Colonel Sigel with his command, on the 23d of June, at Springfield, he was informed that the rebels, under Governor Jackson, were making their way from the Osage river southwardly through the western counties, a movement which he at once resolved to intercept by putting his force across their track. He accordingly moved in a south-after a march of twenty miles, encamped westerly direction to Sarcoxie, where, on his arrival on the 28th, he learned that a body of troops, under General Price, some eight or nine hundred in number, were encamped below him to the south, a few miles from Neosho, the capital of Newton county, while other portions of the State troops of Jackson's and Rains' commands were, as he expected, advancing from above. As Price was the nearest at hand, General Sigel resolved first to march against him, and then turning troops as impracticable, he then turned his whole attention to the enemy at the north. Disposing a detachment of his little force to watch their movements on the road, he summoned to him a battalion of Colonel Salomon's Missouri regiment, then approaching Sarcoxie, and with this addition to his troops, leaving a company of the 3d regiment as a guard to protect the friends of the Union at Neosho, he advanced to meet the enemy. The conflict which ensued, known as the battle of Carthage, is thus related in the official report which Colonel Sigel prepared of the expedition. "On the evening of the 4th of July," he writes, "our troops, southeast of Carthage, close by Spring river. I was by this time pretty certain that Jackson, with four thousand men, was about nine miles distant from us, as his scouts were seen in large numbers coming over the great plateau as far as the country north of Carthage, and conducted their explorations almost under our very eyes. The troops under my command who participated in the engagement on the 5th of July, were as follows: Nine companies of the 3d regiment--in |