Fraternity-Testvériség, 1961 (39. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1961-12-01 / 12. szám
4 FRATERNITY “All those stars”, he murmured dreamily, “they shine so. But they don’t make a sound.” He stood a little away from her to look up into her face. “Do you remember — in the song — ‘the world in solemn stillness lay’?” The starlight showed him clear, his honest, little-boy eyes wide, fixed trustingly on his mother’s, and in them she saw the miracle — the miracle of an awakening soul. He had not known that he had an inner sanctuary. Now he stood in it, awe-struck at his first sight of beauty, and opened the door to his mother. As naturally as he breathed, he put into her hands the pure rounded pearl of a shared joy. “I thought I heard them singing — sort of”, he whispered. FREMONT REPORTS VICTORY AT SPRINGFIELD THE CIVIL WAR AS REPORTED 100 YEARS AGO Compiled by John W. Stepp REPRINTED FROM “THE EVENING STAR MAGAZINE”, WASHINGTON BACKGROUND John Charles Fremont had been commander of the Union’s Department of the West for four months. The period had been the most hectic, ill-organized and unfortunate months of his life including the adventurous years he blazed trails in the Great West beyond the Mississippi. He had too few troops, and these few lacked arms and equipment. In trying to supply his army as quickly as possible, Fremont frequently was rooked by shady contractors. In his headlong rush to do what he could with what he had to hold Missouri for the Union, he stepped on many loyal toes, some belonging to the politically powerful. As his enemies connived against him in St. Louis, the secessionist enemy menaced his scattered forces from southeastern and southwestern Missouri. The Confederates were under the overall command of Albert Sidney Johnston, with Sterling Price and Ben McCulloch in direct charge. To meet their threat, Fremont rallied practically all his field generals — John Pope, Franz Sigel, Jim Lane, Samuel Sturgis — to beat the Rebels to an offensive. The objective was Springfield, in southwest Missouri. In the Federal vanguard was the cavalry of Major Charles Zagonyi, one of the numerous foreign-born officers Fremont liked to have around him. Zagonyi was a Hungarian. He organized Fremont’s personal cavalry “bodyguard”. He had plenty of dash.
