id ascent of a long flight of stairs was, therefore, a
serious matter with him. Five minutes after leaving us, he dashed
rapidly up the stairs and entered our room. As soon as he could speak,
he asked, breathing between, the words--

"Have you heard the news?"

"No," we responded; "what is it?"

"Why" (with more efforts to recover his breath), "Price has evacuated
Lexington!"

"Is it possible?"

"Yes," he gasped, and then sank exhausted into a large (very large)
arm-chair.

We gave him a glass of water and a fan, and urged him to proceed with
the story. He told all he had just heard in the bar-room below, and we
listened with the greatest apparent interest.

When he had ended, we told him _our_ story. The quality and quantity
of the wine which he immediately ordered, was only excelled by his
hearty appreciation of the joke he had played upon himself.

Every army correspondent has often been furnished with "important
intelligence" already in his possession, and sometimes in print before
his well-meaning informant obtains it.

A portion of General Fremont's army marched from Jefferson City
to Tipton and Syracuse, while the balance, with most of the
transportation, was sent by rail. General Sigel was the first to
receive orders to march his division from Tipton to Warsaw, and he was
very prompt to obey. While other division commanders were waiting
for their transportation to arrive from St. Louis, Sigel scoured the
country and gathered up every thing with wheels. His train was the
most motley collection of vehicles it has ever been my lot to witness.
There were old wagons that made the journey from Tennessee to Missouri
thirty years before, farm wagons and carts of every description,
family carriages, spring wagons, stage-coaches, drays, and hay-carts.
In fact, every thing that could carry a load was taken along. Even
pack-saddles were not neglected. Horses, mules, jacks, oxen, and
sometimes cows, formed the motive power. To stand by the roadside and
witness the passage of General Sigel's train, was equal to a visit to
Barnum's Museum, and proved an unfailing source of mirth.

[Illustration: GENERAL SIGEL'S TRANSPORTATION IN THE MISSOURI
CAMPAIGN.]

Falstaff's train (if he had one) could not have been more picturesque.
Even the Missourians, accustomed as they were to sorry sights, laughed
heartily at the spectacle presented by Sigel's transportation. The
Secessionists made several wrong deductions from the s