my, Washington, Sept. 23, 1861. John
C. Fremont, Major-General Commanding, St Louis, Mo.: Your
dispatch of this day is received. The President is glad that
you are hastening to the scene of action. His words are "He
expects you to repair the disaster at Lexington without loss
of time." WINFIELD SCOTT.

Fremont began to topple to his fall.

217

CHAPTER XIII. FREMONT'S MARVELOUS INEFFECTIVENESS.

Gen. Sterling Price had scored a victory which gave him an enduring hold
upon the confidence and esteem of the Missourians. With the least means
he had achieved the most success of any Confederate General so far. His
conduct at the battle of Wilson's Creek had endeared him to the men he
commanded. He exposed himself with utmost indifference to the fiercest
firing, showed good judgment as to movements, was not discouraged after
repeated repulses, and was everywhere animating and encouraging the men
and bringing them forward into line of battle.

He sympathized with those who were wounded, and had them cared for, and
immediately returned to the fighting with fresh troops.

It is true, however, that he had shown no generalship, but merely
demonstrated himself a good Colonel, in leading up one regiment after
another and putting them into the fight.

Lexington brought an immensity of prestige to Price and encouragement to
the Secessionists and did a corresponding injury to the Union cause. It
added immeasurably to the burdens which President Lincoln had to bear.
He could make Brigadier-and Major-Generals, but he could not endow them
with generalship.

The Senate could confirm them, but they were still more confirmed in the
dull, unenterprising routine of camp and administrative regulations.

218

The modest bars of a Captain on their shoulder straps had been, as it
were, changed in the twinkling of an eye into the refulgent stars of
a General, but they seemed to take this as a deserved tribute to their
personal worth, rather than as an incentive and opportunity for the
greater things which had made their predecessors illustrious.

Fremont, in the palatial Brandt Mansion, for which the Government was
paying the very unusual rent of $6,000 per year, was maintaining a vice
regal court as difficultly accessible as that of any crowned head
of Europe. His uncounted and glittering staff, which seemed to have
received the Pentecostal gift of tongues--in which Englis