Head-quarters were established at the residence of Colonel Phelps, the member of Congress from this district, and our tents are now grouped in front and at the sides of the house.  The wagons did not come up until midnight, and we were compelled to forage for our supper and lodging.  A widow lady who lives near gave some half-dozen officers an excellent meal, and Major White and myself slept on the floor of her sitting-room.

This afternoon the Guardsmen were buried with solemn ceremony.  We placed the sixteen in one huge grave.  Upon a grassy hill-side, and beneath the shade of tall trees, the brave boys sleep in the soil they have hallowed by their valor.

We are so far in advance that there is some solicitude lest we may be attacked before the other divisions come up.  Sigel has no more than five thousand men, and the addition of our little column makes the whole force here less than six thousand.  Asboth is two days’ march behind.  McKinstry is on the Pomme-de-Terre, seventy miles north, and Pope is about the same distance.  Hunter—­we do not know precisely where he is, but we suppose him to be south of the Osage, and that he will come by the Buffalo road:  he has not reported for some time.  Price is at Neosho, fifty-four miles to the southwest.  Should he advance rapidly, it will need energetic marching to bring up our reinforcements.  Price and McCulloch have joined, and there are rumors that Hardee has reached their camp with ten thousand men.  The best information we can get places the enemy’s force at thirty thousand men and thirty-two pieces of artillery.  Deserters are numerous.  I have interrogated a number of them to-day, and they all say they came away because Price was retreating, and they did not wish to be taken so far from their homes.  They also say that the time for which his men are enlisted expires in the middle of November, and if he does not fight, his army will dissolve.

SLAVERY.

Springfield, October 30th.  Asboth brought in his division this morning, and soon after Lane came at the head of his brigade.  It was a motley procession, made up of the desperate fighters of the Kansas borders and about two hundred negroes.  The contrabands were mounted and armed, and rode through the streets rolling about in their saddles with their shiny faces on a broad grin.

The disposition to be made of fugitive slaves is a subject which every day presents itself.  The camps and even head-quarters are filled with runaways.  Several negroes came from St. Louis as servants of staff-officers, and these men have become a sort of Vigilance Committee to secure the freedom of the slaves in our neighborhood.  The new-comers are employed to do the work about camp, and we find them very useful,—­and they serve us with a zeal which is born of their long-baffled love of liberty.  The officers of the regular army here have little sympathy with this practical Abolitionism;