Travel in the Border and Southern States will acquaint a Northerner with strange customs.  To find an entire household occupying a single large room is not an unfrequent occurrence.  The rules of politeness require that, when bedtime has arrived, the men shall go out of doors to contemplate the stars, while the ladies disrobe and retire.  The men then return and proceed to bed.  Sometimes the ladies amuse themselves by studying the fire while the men find their way to their couches, where they gallantly turn their faces to the wall, and permit the ladies to don their robes de nuit.

Notwithstanding the scarcity of accommodations, the traveler seeking a meal or resting-place will rarely meet a refusal.  In New York or New England, one can journey many a mile and find a cold denial at every door.  In the West and Southwest “the latch-string hangs out,” and the stranger is always welcome.  Especially is this the case among the poorer classes.

Springfield is the largest town in Southwest Missouri, and has a fine situation.  Before the war it was a place of considerable importance, as it controlled the trade of a large region around it.  East of it the country is quite broken, but on the south and west there are stretches of rolling prairie, bounded by rough wood-land.  Considered in a military light, Springfield was the key to that portion of the State.  A large number of public roads center at that point.  Their direction is such that the possession of the town by either army would control any near position of an adversary of equal or inferior strength.  General Lyon was prompt in seeing its value, and determined to make an early movement for its occupation.  When he started from St. Louis for Booneville, he ordered General Sweeney to march from Rolla to Springfield as speedily as possible.

General Sweeney moved with three regiments of infantry and a battery of artillery, and reached Springfield in five days from the time of starting; the distance being a hundred and twenty miles.  He then divided his forces, sending Colonel Sigel to Carthage, nearly fifty miles further toward the west, in the hope of cutting off the Rebel retreat in that direction.  Major Sturgis was moving from Leavenworth toward Springfield, and expected to arrive there in advance of General Lyon.

Major Sturgis was delayed in crossing a river, so that the Rebels arrived at Carthage before Colonel Sigel had been reinforced.  The latter, with about eleven hundred men, encountered the Rebel column, twice as large as his own.  The battle raged for several hours, neither side losing very heavily.  It resulted in Sigel’s retreat to avoid being surrounded by the enemy.  Wonderful stories were told at that time of the terrific slaughter in the Rebel ranks, but these stories could never be traced to a reliable source.  It is proper to say that the Rebels made equally large estimates of our own loss.