spoken to
him. I knew him by sight, however, because he was living at the same
hotel and I often saw him at table. The evening I was to quit the
capital I left the supper room before the governor and was standing at
the front door when he came out. He spoke to me, calling me by my old
army title "Captain," and said he understood that I was about leaving
the city. I answered that I was. He said he would be glad if I would
remain over-night and call at the Executive office the next morning.
I complied with his request, and was asked to go into the
Adjutant-General's office and render such assistance as I could, the
governor saying that my army experience would be of great service there.
I accepted the proposition.

My old army experience I found indeed of very great service. I was no
clerk, nor had I any capacity to become one. The only place I ever
found in my life to put a paper so as to find it again was either a side
coat-pocket or the hands of a clerk or secretary more careful than
myself. But I had been quartermaster, commissary and adjutant in the
field. The army forms were familiar to me and I could direct how they
should be made out. There was a clerk in the office of the
Adjutant-General who supplied my deficiencies. The ease with which the
State of Illinois settled its accounts with the government at the close
of the war is evidence of the efficiency of Mr. Loomis as an accountant
on a large scale. He remained in the office until that time.

As I have stated, the legislature authorized the governor to accept the
services of ten additional regiments. I had charge of mustering these
regiments into the State service. They were assembled at the most
convenient railroad centres in their respective congressional districts.
I detailed officers to muster in a portion of them, but mustered three
in the southern part of the State myself. One of these was to assemble
at Belleville, some eighteen miles south-east of St. Louis. When I got
there I found that only one or two companies had arrived. There was no
probability of the regiment coming together under five days. This gave
me a few idle days which I concluded to spend in St. Louis.

There was a considerable force of State militia at Camp Jackson, on the
outskirts of St. Louis, at the time. There is but little doubt that it
was the design of Governor Claiborn Jackson to have these troops ready
to seize the United States arsenal and the city of St. L