we were fairly settled to rest, bringing us intelligence that the room, where the guns of the Home Guard were temporarily stored, had been invaded while the sentinels were at supper.  The locks had been removed from some of the muskets, but there were arms enough to make some resistance if necessary.  Telling him we would come out when the firing began, and requesting the landlord to send the cavalry commander to our room as soon as he arrived, we fell asleep.

No one of our party carried his fears beyond the waking hours.  In five minutes after dismissing our friend, all were enjoying a sleep as refreshing and undisturbed as if we had been in the most secure and luxurious dwelling of New York or Chicago.  During several years of travel under circumstances of greater or less danger, I have never found my sleep disturbed, in the slightest degree, by the nature of my surroundings.  Apprehensions of danger may be felt while one is awake, but they generally vanish when slumber begins.

In the morning we found ourselves safe, and were gratified to discover that our horses had been let alone.  The landlord declared every thing was perfectly quiet, and had been so through the night, with the exception of a little fight at one end of the town.  The Home Guards were in possession, and the Secessionists had dispersed.  The latter deliberated upon the policy of attacking us, and decided that their town might be destroyed by our retreating army in case we were disturbed.  They left us our horses, that we might get away from the place as speedily as possible.  So we bade adieu to Lebanon with much delight.  That we came unmolested out of that nest of disloyalty, was a matter of much surprise.  Subsequent events, there and elsewhere, have greatly increased that surprise.

After a ride of thirteen miles we reached the Gasconade River, which we found considerably swollen by recent rains.  The proprietor of the hotel where we breakfasted was a country doctor, who passed in that region as a man of great wisdom.  He was intensely disloyal, and did not relish the prospect of having, as he called it, “an Abolition army” moving anywhere in his vicinity.  He was preparing to leave for the South, with his entire household, as soon as his affairs could be satisfactorily arranged.  He had taken the oath of allegiance, to protect himself from harm at the hands of our soldiers, but his negroes informed us that he belonged to a company of “Independent Guards,” which had been organized with the design of joining the Rebel army.

This gentleman was searching for his rights.  I passed his place six months afterward.  The doctor’s negroes had run away to the North, and the doctor had vanished with his family in the opposite direction.  His house had been burned, his stables stripped of every thing of value, and the whole surroundings formed a picture of desolation.  The doctor had found a reward for his vigilant search.  There was no doubt he had obtained his rights.