soldier enough, although I had not had much experience
then, to know that the methods being pursued under Fremont could bring
nothing but disaster to the service. Every order was signed by somebody
acting as a General, a Colonel, or something else, while in fact many of
them had no rank whatever, and in looking over my own orders I do not know
why I did not sign myself as an Acting General, as those who succeeded me
did. Even after General Halleck took command I noticed in the orders of
General Hunter that he assigned persons to the command of a Brigade as
Acting Brigadier-Generals instead of their rank as Colonel Commanding,
etc.

I remained at Rolla until the return of the troops under General Hunter;
and finally those commanded by Siegel, Asboth and Osterhaus were encamped
at Rolla outside of the post and were reporting directly to the commanding
officer of the department, while I as post commander reported directly to
the same authority.

General Hunter as soon as he took command wired the War Department that
there was no force of the enemy in his neighborhood, although orders had
been given by Fremont a day or two before to march out and fight Price's
Army. Hunter, therefore, in accordance with his orders from Washington,
abandoned the pursuit, although with the force he had he could have driven
Price and McCullough south of the Arkansas River, and probably have
avoided the later campaign that ended in the Battle of Pea Ridge. Hunter
moved his forces back to Rolla and Sedalia and sent 18,000 of his men to
join General Grant in the campaigns up the Tennessee River.

This force at Rolla was mostly Germans, and the change of commanders from
Fremont to Hunter, and later to Halleck, was unsatisfactory to them,
though one of the officers, General Osterhaus, took no part in the feeling
and sentiment that seemed to exist that for success it was necessary to
have Fremont or Siegel in command, and my understanding was that the force
at Rolla during the winter of 1861-62 was the nucleus of the force that
was again to march to the Southwest under the orders of General Halleck
and to be commanded by General Siegel. General Halleck, when he assumed
command of the department, in his letters to the War Department and his
orders to the troops showed plainly his disgust at the condition of
matters in that department. He wrote to the War Department:

One week's experience here is sufficient to prove that everything is
in