me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him.  This was a view of the question I had never taken before; but it was one I never forgot afterwards.  From that event to the close of the war, I never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy, though I always felt more or less anxiety.  I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his.  The lesson was valuable.

Inquiries at the village of Florida divulged the fact that Colonel Harris, learning of my intended movement, while my transportation was being collected took time by the forelock and left Florida before I had started from Salt River.  He had increased the distance between us by forty miles.  The next day I started back to my old camp at Salt River bridge.  The citizens living on the line of our march had returned to their houses after we passed, and finding everything in good order, nothing carried away, they were at their front doors ready to greet us now.  They had evidently been led to believe that the National troops carried death and devastation with them wherever they went.

In a short time after our return to Salt River bridge I was ordered with my regiment to the town of Mexico.  General Pope was then commanding the district embracing all of the State of Missouri between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, with his headquarters in the village of Mexico.  I was assigned to the command of a sub-district embracing the troops in the immediate neighborhood, some three regiments of infantry and a section of artillery.  There was one regiment encamped by the side of mine.  I assumed command of the whole and the first night sent the commander of the other regiment the parole and countersign.  Not wishing to be outdone in courtesy, he immediately sent me the countersign for his regiment for the night.  When he was informed that the countersign sent to him was for use with his regiment as well as mine, it was difficult to make him understand that this was not an unwarranted interference of one colonel over another.  No doubt he attributed it for the time to the presumption of a graduate of West Point over a volunteer pure and simple.  But the question was soon settled and we had no further trouble.

My arrival in Mexico had been preceded by that of two or three regiments in which proper discipline had not been maintained, and the men had been in the habit of visiting houses without invitation and helping themselves to food and drink, or demanding them from the occupants.  They carried their muskets while out of camp and made every man they found take the oath of allegiance to the government.  I at once published orders prohibiting the soldiers from going into private houses unless invited by the inhabitants, and from appropriating private property to their own or to government uses.  The people were no longer molested or made afraid.  I received the most marked courtesy from the citizens of Mexico as long as I remained there.