thority, while the same
can be peaceably exercised.

The Commanding General will labor vigilantly for the public
welfare, and, in his efforts for their safety, hopes to
obtain not only the acquiescence, but the active support, of
the people of the country.

J. C. FREMONT,

Major-General Commanding.

Another man who appeared on the scene as Colonel of the 2d Iowa was
Samuel R. Curtis, an Ohio man, who graduated from West Point in 1831, in
the same class with Gens. Ammen, Humphreys and W. H. Emory. He resigned
the next year and became a prominent civil engineer in Ohio. He served
in the Mexican War as Colonel of the 2d Ohio, and at the close of that
struggle returned to his profession of engineering, removed to Iowa, and
at the outbreak of the war was a member of Congress from that State. He
was a man of decided military ability, and the victory won at Pea Ridge
was his personal triumph. He was to rise to the rank of Major-General
and command an independent army, but become involved in the factional
fights in Missouri and have his further career curtailed.

199

Still another name which appears with increased frequency about this
time is that of U. S. Grant, an Ohio man, who had graduated from West
Point in 1843, and had shown much real enterprise and soldiership in
Mexico, but had fallen under the disfavor of his commanding officers;
had been compelled to resign while holding the rank of Captain in the
4th U. S., and for eight years had had a losing struggle in trying to
make a living in civil pursuits. A happy accident put him at the head of
the 21st Ill., with which he had entered Missouri to guard the Hannibal
& St. Joseph Railroad, and incidentally to dispose of one Thomas A.
Harris, a very energetic and able man who held a Brigadier-Generalship
from Gov. Jackson, and who was making himself particularly active in
the neighborhood of that railroad. Grant showed much energy in chasing
around for Harris, but had never succeeded in bringing him into battle,
though when he left for other scenes Harris was hiding among the knobs
of Salt River, with his command reduced to three enlisted men and his
staff.

Though he was out of favor with Gen. McClellan and many others who
were directing military operations, in some way a Brigadier-General's
commission came to U. S. Grant, and he was assigned to the District of
Southeastern Missouri, with headquarters at Cape Girardeau, where h