ithout, and for some distance along the bank; and it was not difficult
for one with military training quickly to sense the situation,
especially as I overheard much of the conversation between Mapes and
the young lieutenant quartermaster who immediately came aboard. A more
desolate, God-forsaken spot than Yellow Banks I never saw. It had been
raining hard, and the slushy clay stuck to everything it touched; the
men were bathed in it, their boots so clogged they could hardly walk,
while what few horses I saw were yellow to their eyes. The passengers
going ashore waded ankle deep the moment they stepped off the plank,
and rushes and dried grass had been thrown on the ground to protect the
cargo. Only three log houses were visible, miserable shacks, one of
them a saloon, evidently doing a thriving business. In most cases it
was impossible to distinguish the civilian inhabitants from their
soldier guests. Reynolds' troops, all militia, and the greater part of
them mounted, were an extremely sorry-looking lot--sturdy enough
physically, of the pioneer type, but bearing little soldierly
appearance, and utterly ignorant of discipline. They had been hastily
gathered together at Beardstown, and, without drill, marched across
country to this spot. Whatever of organization had been attempted was
worked out en route, the men being practically without uniforms, tents,
or even blankets, while the arms they bore represented every separate
species ever invented. I saw them straggle past with long squirrel
rifles, Hessian muskets, and even one fellow proudly bearing a
silver-mounted derringer. The men had chosen officers from out their
own ranks by popular election, and these exercised their authority very
largely through physical prowess.

We had an excellent illustration of this soon after tying up at the
landing. A tall, lank, ungainly officer, with a face so distinctively
homely as to instantly attract my attention, led his company of men up
the river bank, and ordered them to transport the pile of commissary
stores from where they had been promiscuously thrown to a drier spot
farther back. The officer was a captain, to judge from certain stripes
of red cloth, sewed on the shoulders of his brown jean blouse, but his
men were far from prompt in obeying his command, evidently having no
taste for the job. One among them, apparently their ringleader in
incipient mutiny, an upstanding bully with the jaw of a prize-fighter,
to