Just before the General left camp to-day, I received orders to report myself to General Asboth, for duty as Judge-Advocate of a Court-Martial to be held in his division.  General Asboth was several miles behind us, and I set out to ride back and join him.  After a gallop of half an hour across the prairie, I discovered that I had lost my way.  I vainly tried to find some landmark of yesterday’s march, but was at last compelled to trust to the sagacity of my horse,—­the redoubtable Spitfire, so named by reason of his utter contempt for gunpowder, whether sputtered out of muskets or belched forth by cannon.  I gave him his head.  He snuffed the air for a moment, deliberately swept the horizon with his eyes, and then turned short around and carried me back to the farm-house from which I had started.  I arrived just in time for dinner.  Two officers of Lane’s brigade, which had marched from Kansas, came in while we were at the table.  They seasoned our food with spicy incidents of Kansas life.

After dinner I started with Captain R., of Springfield, to find Asboth.  As we left the house, we were joined by the most extraordinary character I have seen.  He was a man of medium height.  His chest was enormous in length and breadth; his arms long, muscular, and very large; his legs short.  He had the body of a giant upon the legs of a dwarf.  This curious figure was surmounted by a huge head, covered with coarse brown hair, which grew very nearly down to his eyes, while his beard grew almost up to his eyes.  It seemed as if the hair and beard had had a struggle for the possession of his face, and were kept apart by the deep chasm in which his small gray eyes were set.  He was armed with a huge bowie-knife, which he carried slung like a sword.  It was at least two feet long, heavy as a butcher’s cleaver, and was thrust into a sheath of undressed hide.  He called this pleasant instrument an Arkansas toothpick.  He bestrode, as well as his diminutive legs would let him, an Indian pony as shaggy as himself.  This person proved to be a bearer of despatches, and offered to guide us to the main road, along which Asboth was marching.

The pony started off at a brisk trot, and in an hour we were upon the road, which we found crowded with troops and wagons.  Pressing through the underbrush along-side the road, we kept on at a rapid pace.  We soon heard shouts and cheers ahead of us, and in a few moments came in sight of a farm-house, in front of which was an excited crowd.  Men were swarming in at every door and window.  The yard was filled with furniture which the troops were angrily breaking, and a considerable party was busy tearing up the roof.  I could not learn the cause of the uproar, except that a Secessionist lived there who had killed some one.  I passed on, and in a little while arrived at Asboth’s quarters.