Early in the December following the events narrated in the last chapter, General Pope captured a camp in the interior of the State, where recruits were being collected for Price’s army.  After the return of Fremont’s army from Springfield, the Rebels boasted they would eat their Christmas dinner in St. Louis.  Many Secessionists were making preparations to receive Price and his army, and some of them prophesied the time of their arrival.  It was known that a goodly number of Rebel flags had been made ready to hang out when the conquerors should come.  Sympathizers with the Rebellion became bold, and often displayed badges, rosettes, and small flags, indicative of their feelings.  Recruiting for the Rebel army went on, very quietly, of course, within a hundred yards of the City Hall.  At a fair for the benefit of the Orphan Asylum, the ladies openly displayed Rebel insignia, but carefully excluded the National emblems.

This was the state of affairs when eight hundred Rebels arrived in St. Louis.  They redeemed their promise to enjoy a Christmas dinner in St. Louis, though they had counted upon more freedom than they were then able to obtain.  In order that they might carry out, in part, their original intention, their kind-hearted jailers permitted the friends of the prisoners to send a dinner to the latter on Christmas Day.  The prisoners partook of the repast with much relish.

The capture of those recruits was accompanied by the seizure of a supply train on its way to Springfield.  Our success served to diminish the Rebel threats to capture St. Louis, or perform other great and chivalric deeds.  The inhabitants of that city continued to prophesy its fall, but they were less defiant than before.

General Fremont commanded the Western Department for just a hundred days.  General Hunter, his successor, was dressed in brief authority for fifteen days, and yielded to General Halleck.  The latter officer endeavored to make his rule as unlike that of General Fremont as could well be done.  He quietly made his head-quarters at the Government Buildings, in the center of St. Louis, instead of occupying a “palatial mansion” on Chouteau Avenue.  The body-guard, or other cumbersome escort, was abolished, and the new general moved unattended about the city.  Where General Fremont had scattered the Government funds with a wasteful hand, General Halleck studied economy.  Where Fremont had declared freedom to the slaves of traitors, Halleck issued his famous “Order No. 3,” forbidding fugitive slaves to enter our lines, and excluding all that were then in the military camps.  Where General Fremont had surrounded his head-quarters with so great a retinue of guards that access was almost impossible, General Halleck made it easy for all visitors to see him.  He generally gave them such a reception that few gentlemen felt inclined to make a second call.

The policy of scattering the military forces in the department was abandoned, and a system of concentration adopted.  The construction of the gun-boat fleet, and accompanying mortar-rafts, was vigorously pushed, and preparations for military work in the ensuing spring went on in all directions.  Our armies were really idle, and we were doing very little on the Mississippi; but it was easy to see that we were making ready for the most vigorous activity in the future.