If General Fremont was not tried by the crowning test of the soldier—­the battle-field—­it was not through fault of his.  On the very eve of battle he was removed.  His army was arrested in its triumphal progress, and compelled to a shameful retreat, abandoning the beautiful region it had wrested from the foe, and deserting the loyal people who trusted to its protection, and who, exiles from their homes, followed its retreating files,—­a mournful procession of broken-hearted men, weeping women, and suffering children.  With an unscrupulousness which passes belief, the authors of this terrible disaster have denied the presence of the enemy at Springfield.  The miserable wretches, once prosperous farmers upon the slopes of the Ozark Hills, who now wander mendicants through the streets of St, Louis, or crouch around the campfires of Holla and Sedalia, can tell whether Price was near Springfield or not.

Forty-eight hours more must have given to General Fremont an engagement.  What the result would have been no one who was there doubted.  A victory such as the country has long desired and sorely needs,—­a decisive, complete, and overwhelming victory,—­was as certain as it is possible for the skill and valor of man to make certain any future event Now, twenty thousand men are required to hold our long line of defence in Missouri; then, five thousand at Springfield would have secured the State of Missouri, and a column pushed into Arkansas would have turned the enemy’s position upon the Mississippi.  In the same time and with the same labor that the march to the rear was made, two States might have been won, and the fate of the Rebellion in the Southwest decided.

While I am writing these concluding pages, the telegraph brings information that another expedition has started for Springfield.  Strong columns are marching from Bolla, Sedalia, and Versailles, to do the work which General Fremont stood ready to do last November.  After three months of experience and reflection, the enterprise which was denounced as aimless, extravagant, and ill-judged, which was derided as a wild hunt after an unreal foe, an exploration into desert regions, is now repeated in face of the obstacles of difficult roads and an inclement season, and when many of the objects of the expedition no longer exist,—­for, unhappily, the loyal inhabitants of those fertile uplands, the fruitful farms and pleasant homes, are no longer there to receive the protection of our armies.  General Fremont’s military conduct could not have received more signal approval.  The malignant criticisms of his enemies could in no other manner have been so completely refuted.  Unmoved by the storm of calumny and detraction which raged around him, he has calmly and silently awaited the unerring judgment, the triumphant verdict, which he knew time and the ebb of the bad passions his success excited would surely bring.

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BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ., TO MR. HOSEA BIGLOW.