arning of my intended movement, while my transportation was
being collected took time by the forelock and left Florida before I had
started from Salt River. He had increased the distance between us by
forty miles. The next day I started back to my old camp at Salt River
bridge. The citizens living on the line of our march had returned to
their houses after we passed, and finding everything in good order,
nothing carried away, they were at their front doors ready to greet us
now. They had evidently been led to believe that the National troops
carried death and devastation with them wherever they went.

In a short time after our return to Salt River bridge I was ordered with
my regiment to the town of Mexico. General Pope was then commanding the
district embracing all of the State of Missouri between the Mississippi
and Missouri rivers, with his headquarters in the village of Mexico. I
was assigned to the command of a sub-district embracing the troops in
the immediate neighborhood, some three regiments of infantry and a
section of artillery. There was one regiment encamped by the side of
mine. I assumed command of the whole and the first night sent the
commander of the other regiment the parole and countersign. Not wishing
to be outdone in courtesy, he immediately sent me the countersign for
his regiment for the night. When he was informed that the countersign
sent to him was for use with his regiment as well as mine, it was
difficult to make him understand that this was not an unwarranted
interference of one colonel over another. No doubt he attributed it for
the time to the presumption of a graduate of West Point over a volunteer
pure and simple. But the question was soon settled and we had no
further trouble.

My arrival in Mexico had been preceded by that of two or three regiments
in which proper discipline had not been maintained, and the men had been
in the habit of visiting houses without invitation and helping
themselves to food and drink, or demanding them from the occupants.
They carried their muskets while out of camp and made every man they
found take the oath of allegiance to the government. I at once
published orders prohibiting the soldiers from going into private houses
unless invited by the inhabitants, and from appropriating private
property to their own or to government uses. The people were no longer
molested or made afraid. I received the most marked courtesy from the
citizens of Mexic