hereafter permitted to
enter the lines of any camp, or of any forces on the march, and that any
now within such lines be immediately excluded therefrom.

It was particularly distasteful to the Radicals in Missouri who had been
represented by Gen. Fremont. During his administration the Union
party in the State had divided into two wings--the Radicals and the
Conservatives, who soon came to hate each other almost if not quite as
badly as they did the Secessionists. The Radicals, or, as their enemies
called them, "the Charcoals," were largely made up, as before stated, of
the young, aggressive, idealistic Germans who had poured into Missouri
after the suppression of the Rebellion of 1848, and who looked upon
slavery as they did on "priest-craft" and "despotism"--all monstrous
relics of barbarism. They had absolutely no patience with the "peculiar
institution," and could not understand how any rational, right-thinking
man could tolerate it or hesitate about sweeping it off the earth at
the first opportunity. Those of them who had gone into the army had only
done so to fight for freedom, and without freedom the object of their
crusade was lost.

260

The German newspapers attacked Halleck with the greatest bitterness,
meetings were held to denounce him and secure his removal, and strong
efforts were made to obtain Sigel's promotion to a Major-General and his
assignment to the command.

Gen. Halleck, in a letter to F. P. Blair, explained and justified this
order, as follows:

Order No. 3 was, in my mind, clearly a military necessity. Unauthorized
persons, black or white, free or slave, must be kept out of our camps,
unless we are willing to publish to the enemy everything we do or intend
to do. It was a military, and not a political order.

I am ready to carry out any lawful instructions in regard to fugitive
slaves which my superiors may give me, and to enforce any law which
Congress may pass. But I cannot make law, and will not violate it. You
know my private opinion on the policy of confiscating the slave property
of the rebels in arms. If Congress shall pass it, you may be certain
that I shall enforce it.

Among other well-taken measures was the passage of a law by Congress
authorizing the enrollment of citizens of Missouri into regiments to
be armed, equipped and paid by the United States, but officered by the
Governor of Missouri, and employed only in the defense of the State.
This had many advantages beside