mmand to Col. James
Mcintosh, lately Captain in the United States Army, he departed for
Richmond to give the Confederate War Department his version of the
occurrences in his territory.

Sterling Price had learned the same day, Nov. 16, of the departure of
the Union army, and set his columns in motion northward, announcing that
he was going to winter on the Missouri River. Again he sent an appeal to
McCulloch to cooperate, but Col. Mcintosh declined, on the ground that
the troops were not properly clad for the rigorous weather so far north,
and, besides, he did not think that the expedition would do any good.

287

Sterling Price simply let loose his army on the country evacuated by the
Union troops, and a reign of indescribable misery ensued for the Union
people and those who were vainly trying to keep the neutral middle of
the road. The army was spread out as much as possible in order to gather
in recruits and supplies and assert its influence most widely.

From Marshall, in Saline Co., Sterling Price issued a most remarkable
proclamation to the people, calling for 50,000 volunteers. He reminded
them that their harvests had been reaped, their preparation for Winter
had been made, and now they had leisure to do something to relieve
the people from the "inflictions of a foe marked with all the
characteristics of barbarian warfare." He admitted that the great
mass of the people were not in the war, and especially the
substantial portion of the population, for, he said, "boys and small
property-holders have in the main fought the battles." He begged,
he implored that the herdsman should leave his folds, the lawyer his
office, and come into camp to win the victory. He even dropped into
poetry in his tearful earnestness, quoting the school boy's declamation
from Marco Bozarris:

Strike, till the last armed foe expires; Strike, for your
altars and your fires! Strike for the green graves of your
sires, God, and your native land!

An infinitely harmful part of the proclamation was the following:

Leave your property at home. What if it be taken--all taken?
We have $200,000,000 worth of Northern means in Missouri
which cannot be removed. When we are once free the State
will indemnify every citizen who may have lost a dollar by
adhesion to the cause of his country. We shall have our
property, or its value, with interest.

288

This was naturally interpreted as meaning t