From Springfield we moved out west a few miles, camping for a few days at a large spring called Cave Spring. Here several of our men were discharged and returned home. Among them James R. Taylor, brother of Captain, subsequently Colonel, Taylor of the Seventeenth Texas Cavalry, who was killed at the battle of Mansfield, La.
Southwest Missouri is a splendid country, abounding in rich lands, fine springs of pure water, and this year, 1861, an abundant crop of corn, oats, hay, and such staples had been raised. Nevertheless, a very unhappy state of things existed there during the war, for the population was very much divided in sentiment and sympathy—some being for the North and some for the South, and the antagonism between the factions was very bitter. Indeed, so intense had the feeling run, the man of one side seemed to long to see his neighbor of the other side looted and his property destroyed. Men of Southern sympathy have stealthily crept into our camps at midnight and in whispers told us where some Union men were to be found in the neighborhood, evidently wishing and expecting that we would raid them and kill or capture, rob, plunder or do them damage in some terrible manner. Such reporters seemed to be disappointed when we would tell them that we were not there to make war on citizens, and the Union men themselves seemed to think we were ready to do violence to all who were not loyal to the Southern Confederacy. When we chanced to go to one of their houses for forage, as frequently happened, we could never see the man of the house, unless we caught a glimpse of him as he was running to some place to hide, and no assurance to his family that we would not in any manner mistreat him would overcome the deep conviction that we would. This bitter feeling and animosity among the citizens grew to such intensity, as the war advanced, that life became a misery to the citizen of Missouri.
We moved around leisurely over the country from place to place, foraging and feeding a few days here and a few days there, and in the early days of September, passing by way of Mount Vernon and Carthage, we found ourselves at Scott’s Mill, on Cowskin River, near the border of the Cherokee Nation. At Mount Vernon we witnessed a farce enacted by Company D. Dan Dupree was their first lieutenant, and a very nice, worthy fellow he was, too, but some of his men fell out with him about some trivial matter, and petitioned him to resign, which he did. Captain Hale, supposing possibly they might also be opposed to him, and too diffident to say so, he resigned too, and the other officers followed suit, even down to the fourth and last corporal, and for the time the company was without an officer, either commissioned or non-commissioned. At this early stage of the war, for an officer to resign was a very simple and easy thing. He had only to say publicly to his company, “I resign,” and it was so. The company was now formed into line to prepare for the election of officers, and the mode of procedure was as follows: The candidates would stand a few paces in front of the line, their back to the men. The men were then instructed to declare their choice, by standing behind him, one behind the other, and when all votes were counted the result was declared. The outcome on this occasion was that Captain Hale and all the old officers were re-elected, except Dupree. Later in the year members of Company A petitioned their captain to resign, but he respectfully declined, and though many of his men were very indignant, we heard no more of petitioning officers to resign.