A portion of General Fremont’s army marched from Jefferson City to Tipton and Syracuse, while the balance, with most of the transportation, was sent by rail.  General Sigel was the first to receive orders to march his division from Tipton to Warsaw, and he was very prompt to obey.  While other division commanders were waiting for their transportation to arrive from St. Louis, Sigel scoured the country and gathered up every thing with wheels.  His train was the most motley collection of vehicles it has ever been my lot to witness.  There were old wagons that made the journey from Tennessee to Missouri thirty years before, farm wagons and carts of every description, family carriages, spring wagons, stage-coaches, drays, and hay-carts.  In fact, every thing that could carry a load was taken along.  Even pack-saddles were not neglected.  Horses, mules, jacks, oxen, and sometimes cows, formed the motive power.  To stand by the roadside and witness the passage of General Sigel’s train, was equal to a visit to Barnum’s Museum, and proved an unfailing source of mirth.

[Illustration:  GENERAL SIGEL’S TRANSPORTATION IN THE MISSOURI CAMPAIGN.]

Falstaff’s train (if he had one) could not have been more picturesque.  Even the Missourians, accustomed as they were to sorry sights, laughed heartily at the spectacle presented by Sigel’s transportation.  The Secessionists made several wrong deductions from the sad appearance of that train.  Some of them predicted that the division with such a train would prove to be of little value in battle.  Never were men more completely deceived.  The division marched rapidly, and, on a subsequent campaign, evinced its ability to fight.

One after another, the divisions of Fremont’s army moved in chase of the Rebels; a pursuit in which the pursued had a start of seventy-five miles, and a clear road before them.  Fremont and his staff left Tipton, when three divisions had gone, and overtook the main column at Warsaw.  A few days later, Mr. Richardson, of the Tribune, and myself started from Syracuse at one o’clock, one pleasant afternoon, and, with a single halt of an hour’s duration, reached Warsaw, forty-seven miles distant, at ten o’clock at night.  In the morning we found the general’s staff comfortably quartered in the village.  On the staff there were several gentlemen from New York and other Eastern cities, who were totally unaccustomed to horseback exercise.  One of these recounted the story of their “dreadful” journey of fifty miles from Tipton.

“Only think of it!” said he; “we came through all that distance in less than three days.  One day the general made us come twenty-four miles.”

“That was very severe, indeed.  I wonder how you endured it.”

“It was severe, and nearly broke some of us down.  By-the-way, Mr. K——­, how did you come over?”

“Oh,” said I, carelessly, “Richardson and I left Syracuse at noon yesterday, and arrived here at ten last night.”