shelter him In peace from the storms of the coming; Winter.

Let not history record that the men who bore with patience
the privations of Cowskln Prairie, who endured
uncomplainingly the burning heat of a Missouri Summer and
the frosts and snows of a Missouri Winter; that the men who
met the enemy at Carthage, at Oak Hills, at Fort Scott, at
Lexington and on numberless lesser battlefields In Missouri,
and met them but to conquer them; that the men who fought so
bravely and so well at Blkhorn; that the unpaid soldiery of
Missouri were, after so many victories and after so much
suffering, unequal to the great task of achieving the
Independence of their magnificent State.

Soldiers, I go but to mark a pathway to our homes. Follow
me!

Very few but those who had already been cajoled into the Confederate
service followed.

A great deal of bitterness was developed from the discovery upon the
battlefield of a number of Union dead who had been scalped by
Pike's Indians. Many of these belonged to the 3d Iowa Cav., and the
investigation of the matter was conducted by order of Col. Bussey, by
his Adjutant, John W. Noble, afterwards Secretary of the Interior. Col.
Bussey became Assistant Secretary of the Interior.

341

The bodies of at least eight of the 3d Iowa Cav. were exhumed and found
to have been scalped and the bodies otherwise maltreated after their
deaths by the scalping knives and tomahawks of merciless Indians. The
matter was made subject of a strong communication from Gen. Curtis
to Gen. Van Dorn, and the latter's Adjutant-General, Dabney H. Maury,
replied, cordially condemning any such deeds, but claiming that, on
the other hand, many prisoners of war had been killed in cold blood by
Curtis's men, who were alleged to be Germans. The letter said:

The General commanding feels sure that you will do your part as he will
in preventing such atrocities in the future, and that the perpetrators
of them will be brought to justice, whether Germans or Choctaws.

Gen. Curtis was promoted to Major-General for his victory, and well
deserved that honor, in spite of some bitter critics. Sigd was also
made a Major-General, with much less reason. Asboth had his withheld
Brigadier-Generalcy confirmed to him. Cols. Carr, Davis and Dodge were
made Brigadier-Generals, but Cols. Osterhaus, White and Bussey, who had
done conspicuous fighting, had to wait some