394 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



General Pope we marched to Florida, Missouri, for a 

 night attack, but the enemy took to the woods, leaving 

 their fires burning. While resting in the rebel camp next 

 day a squadron of cavalry rode into our camp. We took 

 them for Missouri Union Militia, but Colonel Moore, 

 afterwards of the Twenty-first Missouri, saw that they 

 were rebels who were returning to what they supposed 

 was their own camp, and firing at once commenced, lead- 

 ing to great excitement. The enemy got away and our 

 hard march was in vain. Mark Twain was one of the Con- 

 federates under General Harris, and after this expedition 

 he concluded to go west and grow up with the country in 

 Nevada, where he began his literary career upon a mining 

 newspaper. 



Our regiment had a small battle at Hagar 's Woods and 

 another at Monroe. I had been left behind on guard at 

 Brookfield. James was in these actions, and the first Iowa 

 soldier killed in the war, Cyrus B. West of Company H, 

 fell at Monroe. The guard was ordered to board a train 

 and reenforce the regiment at Shelbina. I was corporal 

 of the guard, having been made fourth corporal, and 

 James eighth corporal, so that I had a small command of 

 twelve men of Company H, under Lieutenant Crossley, 

 afterward Lieutenant-Colonel Crossley. We met the regi- 

 ment near Shelbina, but the fighting was over and the en- 

 emy had retired. 



Colonel U. S. Grant came out to reenforce us with the 

 Twenty-first Illinois, and we little thought the history 

 that he would make in the next four years. 



In September Colonel Atchison of the Confederate 

 army started to Lexington, Missouri, with his new levies 

 of troops, and the Sixteenth Illinois and Third Iowa were 

 ordered to march after him. We expected to make a 

 junction at Liberty, but the Sixteenth Illinois was not on 

 time, and after waiting several hours Colonel Scott con- 



