ng it than the rickety ferry. A bridge must at
once be built, strong and firm, a safe road for the army in case of
disaster. So decides the General. And as we look upon the swift-running
river and its rocky shores, cold and gloomy in the twilight, every one
agrees that the General is right. His decision has since been strongly
supported, for to-day two soldiers of the Fremont Hussars were drowned in
trying to cross the ford, and the water is now rising rapidly.

This morning we moved into Warsaw, and for the first time the staff is
billeted in the Secession houses of the town; but the General clings to
his tent. Our mess is quartered in the house of the county judge, who says
his sympathies are with the South. But the poor man is so frightened, that
we pity and protect him.

Bridge-building is now the sole purpose of the army. There is no saw-mill
here, nor any lumber. The forest must be cut down and fashioned into a
bridge, as well as the tools and the skill at command will permit. Details
are already told off from the sharp-shooters, the cadets, and even the
body-guard, and the banks of the river now resound with the quick blows of
their axes.

_Warsaw, October 21st._ Four days we have been waiting for the building of
the bridge. By night and by day the work goes on, and now the long black
shape is striding slowly across the stream. In a few hours it will have
gained the opposite bank, and then, Ho, for Springfield!

Our scouts have come in frequently the last few days. They tell us Price
is at Stockton, and is pushing rapidly on towards the southwest. He has
been grinding corn near Stockton, and has now food enough for another
journey. His army numbers twenty thousand men, of whom five thousand have
no arms. The rest carry everything, from double-barrelled shot-guns to the
Springfield muskets taken from the Home-Guards. They load their shot-guns
with a Minie-ball and two buck-shot, and those who have had experience say
that at one hundred yards they are very effective weapons. There is little
discipline in the Rebel army, and the only organization is by companies.
The men are badly clothed, and without shoes, and often without food. The
deserters say that those who remain are waiting only to get the new
clothes which McCulloch is expected to bring from the South.

McCulloch, the redoubtable Ben, does not seem to be held in high esteem by
the Rebel soldiers. They say he lacks judgment and self-command. But all
spe