I am ready to carry out any lawful instructions in regard to fugitive slaves which my superiors may give me, and to enforce any law which Congress may pass. But I cannot make law, and will not violate it. You know my private opinion on the policy of confiscating the slave property of the rebels in arms. If Congress shall pass it, you may be certain that I shall enforce it.
Among other well-taken measures was the passage of a law by Congress authorizing the enrollment of citizens of Missouri into regiments to be armed, equipped and paid by the United States, but officered by the Governor of Missouri, and employed only in the defense of the State. This had many advantages besides giving the services to the Government of about 13,000 very good soldiers. It brought into the ranks many wavering young men who did not want to fight against the Union, nor did they want to fight against the South. To enlist for the "defense of the State" satisfied all their scruples.
The time had come when every young man in the State had to be lined up somewhere. He could not remain neutral; if he was not for the Union he would inevitably be brought into the Secession ranks.
The law authorized the necessary staff and commanding officers for this force, and prescribed that it should be under the command of a Brigadier-General of the United States selected by the Governor of Missouri.
Our old acquaintance, John M. Schofield, Gen. Lyon's Chief of Staff at the battle of Wilson's Creek, who had since done good work in command of a regiment of Missouri artillery, was commissioned a Brigadier-General to date from Nov. 21, 1861, and put in command of the Missouri Enrolled Militia, beginning thus a career of endless trouble, but of quite extended usefulness.
It will be remembered that Brig.-Gen. U. S. Grant, recently promoted from the Colonelcy of the 21st Ill., had been relieved from his command at Jefferson City, and sent to that of a new district consisting of southeast Missouri and southern Illinois. He had made his headquarters temporarily at Cape Girardeau, to attend to M. Jeff Thompson, who was determined to lead the way for Gens. Leonidas Polk and Gideon Pillow into St. Louis by the Mississippi River route. Grant, as we have seen, organized his movements so well that Thompson was driven back from Fredericktown and Ironton with some loss, and returned to his old stamping-ground at New Madrid, below Columbus, Ky., where Polk had established his headquarters and the fighting center of the Confederacy in the West.