onel J.R.
Slack, Thirty-fourth and Forty-seventh Indiana; and Second Brigade,
Colonel G.N. Fitch, Forty-third and Forty-sixth Indiana Infantry,
Seventh Illinois Cavalry, and Company G, First Missouri Light Artillery.
Fourth Division, comprising First Brigade, Colonel J.D. Morgan, Tenth
and Sixteenth Illinois; and Second Brigade, Colonel G.W. Cumming,
Twenty-sixth and Fifty-first Illinois, First Illinois Cavalry, and a
battalion of Yate's sharpshooters. Fifth Division, General J.B. Plummer,
comprising First Brigade, Colonel John Bryner, Forty-seventh Illinois
and Eighth Wisconsin; and Second Brigade, Colonel J.M. Loomis,
Twenty-second Illinois, Eleventh Missouri Infantry, and Company M, First
Missouri Light Artillery. Besides these was a cavalry division,
commanded by General Gordon Granger, comprising the Second and Third
Michigan Cavalry; also an artillery division, commanded by Major W.L.
Lothrop, comprising the following batteries: Second Iowa, Third
Michigan, Company F, Second United States Artillery, Houghtaling's
Ottawa Light Artillery, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Batteries of the First
Wisconsin Artillery, and De Golyer's battery, afterward Company H, of
the First Michigan Artillery. In addition to these was a command under
Colonel J.W. Bissel, called the Engineer's Regiment of the West,
comprising the Fifteenth Wisconsin and Twenty-second Missouri Infantry,
the Second Iowa Cavalry, a company of the Fourth United States Cavalry,
a company of the First United States Infantry, and battalion of the
Second Illinois Cavalry. The army commander, the division commanders,
and other officers, nearly a dozen in all, were graduates of West Point.
The men of this army had, therefore, better opportunity than most others
to learn quickly something of the business of military life, and acquire
habits of military discipline.

The road from Commerce to New Madrid was, for the most part, a
dilapidated corduroy, tumbling about a broken causeway through a swamp.
M. Jeff. Thompson, "Brigadier-General of the Missouri State Guard,"
designed to hold a "very important session of the Missouri Legislature,"
at New Madrid, on March 3d--a session which was to last, however, but
one day. When General Pope moved out from Commerce, on February 28th,
Schuyler Hamilton in front, Thompson undertook to oppose the advance
with a detachment of his irregular command and three light pieces of
rifled artillery. The Seventh Illinois Cavalry charged, captur