we approached the brow of the hill from which it was expected we could see Harris’ camp, and possibly find his men ready formed to meet us, my heart kept getting higher and higher until it felt to me as though it was in my throat.  I would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois, but I had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do; I kept right on.  When we reached a point from which the valley below was in full view I halted.  The place where Harris had been encamped a few days before was still there and the marks of a recent encampment were plainly visible, but the troops were gone.  My heart resumed its place.  It occurred to me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him.  This was a view of the question I had never taken before; but it was one I never forgot afterwards.  From that event to the close of the war, I never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy, though I always felt more or less anxiety.  I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his.  The lesson was valuable.

Inquiries at the village of Florida divulged the fact that Colonel Harris, learning of my intended movement, while my transportation was being collected took time by the forelock and left Florida before I had started from Salt River.  He had increased the distance between us by forty miles.  The next day I started back to my old camp at Salt River bridge.  The citizens living on the line of our march had returned to their houses after we passed, and finding everything in good order, nothing carried away, they were at their front doors ready to greet us now.  They had evidently been led to believe that the National troops carried death and devastation with them wherever they went.

In a short time after our return to Salt River bridge I was ordered with my regiment to the town of Mexico.  General Pope was then commanding the district embracing all of the State of Missouri between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, with his headquarters in the village of Mexico.  I was assigned to the command of a sub-district embracing the troops in the immediate neighborhood, some three regiments of infantry and a section of artillery.  There was one regiment encamped by the side of mine.  I assumed command of the whole and the first night sent the commander of the other regiment the parole and countersign.  Not wishing to be outdone in courtesy, he immediately sent me the countersign for his regiment for the night.  When he was informed that the countersign sent to him was for use with his regiment as well as mine, it was difficult to make him understand that this was not an unwarranted interference of one colonel over another.  No doubt he attributed it for the time to the presumption of a graduate of West Point over a volunteer pure and simple.  But the question was soon settled and we had no further trouble.