OF BELMONT
--A NARROW ESCAPE--AFTER THE BATTLE.

From the occupation of Paducah up to the early part of November nothing
important occurred with the troops under my command. I was reinforced
from time to time and the men were drilled and disciplined preparatory
for the service which was sure to come. By the 1st of November I had
not fewer than 20,000 men, most of them under good drill and ready to
meet any equal body of men who, like themselves, had not yet been in an
engagement. They were growing impatient at lying idle so long, almost
in hearing of the guns of the enemy they had volunteered to fight
against. I asked on one or two occasions to be allowed to move against
Columbus. It could have been taken soon after the occupation of
Paducah; but before November it was so strongly fortified that it would
have required a large force and a long siege to capture it.

In the latter part of October General Fremont took the field in person
and moved from Jefferson City against General Sterling Price, who was
then in the State of Missouri with a considerable command. About the
first of November I was directed from department headquarters to make a
demonstration on both sides of the Mississippi River with the view of
detaining the rebels at Columbus within their lines. Before my troops
could be got off, I was notified from the same quarter that there were
some 3,000 of the enemy on the St. Francis River about fifty miles west,
or south-west, from Cairo, and was ordered to send another force against
them. I dispatched Colonel Oglesby at once with troops sufficient to
compete with the reported number of the enemy. On the 5th word came
from the same source that the rebels were about to detach a large force
from Columbus to be moved by boats down the Mississippi and up the White
River, in Arkansas, in order to reinforce Price, and I was directed to
prevent this movement if possible. I accordingly sent a regiment from
Bird's Point under Colonel W. H. L. Wallace to overtake and reinforce
Oglesby, with orders to march to New Madrid, a point some distance below
Columbus, on the Missouri side. At the same time I directed General C.
F. Smith to move all the troops he could spare from Paducah directly
against Columbus, halting them, however, a few miles from the town to
await further orders from me. Then I gathered up all the troops at
Cairo and Fort Holt, except suitable guards, and moved them down the
river on steamers con