manding
officer, the adjutant, and a surgeon started on the gloomy round of the
cavalry garrison. Yesterday we saw those fair, smiling women bravely
striving to hide their anxieties and loneliness, and to lend enthusiasm
to the celebration of the nation's anniversary. One after another they
were startled from the deep slumber of early morning by the knocking at
the door,--"the first knell of disaster,"--and who that saw the old
Missouri post when the fearful news was finally made known to all will
ever forget the scene that ensued? May God avert the possibility of such
another!

The day wore gloomily away at Russell. Twice Mr. Gleason called at
Captain Truscott's quarters. The second time Mrs. Stannard appeared at
the door, and briefly told him that Mrs. Truscott was not well enough to
see anybody, and that Miss Sanford begged to be excused. Mrs. Whaling
permeated the post in an ecstasy of soulful comfort, shedding prayers
and prophecies of similar fortune for the --th with the impartiality of
a saint. She even succeeded in scaring Mrs. Turner half to death and
exasperating Mrs. Wilkins to the verge of a tirade, but the latter had
contented herself with the spirited, though ungrateful announcement that
when it came to having hearses and mutes it wouldn't be Mrs. Whaling
they'd inquire for. "Matters are bad enough without your making 'em
worse, ma'am," she said, in her decided way. And the good lady, longing
to deluge somebody with sympathetic tears, was compelled to confine
herself to the round of the infantry quarters, where, with the ladies of
her own regiment, she could bemoan the unfathomable ingratitude and lack
of appreciation of their sisters of the --th.

Late that afternoon there came more orders and despatches. Truscott and
the other cavalry officers were summoned to Colonel Whaling's, where
they found most of the infantrymen already assembled. Captain Webb had
been called back to Kansas as a witness before a civil court, and to
Truscott the order of the division commander was conveyed that he should
march with the two troops at Russell without delay, and join the --th
wherever he could find them north of the Platte. Three of the four
infantry companies would also march for Laramie at dawn. Colonel
Whaling, with one small company, the recruits, the band, and the
non-combatants, would remain to take charge of the post.

Sending for his first sergeant, Truscott ordered him to have everything
put in readiness