The expedition to Paris—The forces engaged in it—Details of the movement to that place—Conduct of Colonel Williams and Lieut. Col. Blair, while there—They return rapidly to Shelbina—Green pursues and confronts them with a large force—Details of the affair at Shelbina—Colonel Williams retreats to Hudson, where he meets General Hurlbut with reinforcements—The propriety of the retreat discussed—The account of the Rebellion Record.

While we were marching from Kirksville to Shelbina, Colonel Williams received an order, it is said, from General Fremont, the precise nature of which I am not able to give. However, he collected his available force, which consisted of the fifty well men left at Brookfield by Colonel Scott, as many of the sick as had convalesced during the subsequent two weeks, and sixty men of Company C, who had been watching the enemy in the vicinity of St. Joseph. With this force he proceeded to Hannibal, where he was joined by six companies, or rather by a remnant of six companies of the gallant Second Kansas, decimated by losses at Springfield and the sufferings of the hard campaign of the Southwest, and now returning home by this route to recruit their numbers and rest. This battalion, one company of which was mounted, together with a company of Missouri cavalry under Captain Dolan, increased his force to 630 men; with which he returned as far as Shelbina, where he arrived at nightfall, and leaving the cars began an immediate night march toward Paris, the county seat of Monroe county, a flourishing inland town, where he arrived about daybreak and bivouacked for the day. Learning from reliable citizens that the enemy was in the vicinity with 1,200 men, he threw out pickets in the outskirts of town, and sent out the cavalry to reconnoiter. The latter had an affray with the enemy, and lost an officer captured.

That night both Colonel Williams and Lieut. Colonel Blair, were too much under the influence of liquor to be in a condition to command men. Colonel Williams is said to have behaved most ridiculously. He had his headquarters in the office of the Clerk of the Circuit Court. He told his officers that the force was in imminent danger of attack, and that they must not think of sleeping during the night. As to himself, he was so worn out with fatigue and anxiety, that it would be absolutely necessary for him to get a little sleep in order to be prepared for emergencies that might arise! The officers of the Third Iowa consulted together and decided that Colonel Williams was not in a fit condition to continue in command. Whereupon they reported this fact to Major Cloud, who informed them that Lieut. Col. Blair was in a like condition, and that he had already assumed command of the Kansas troops, and would assume command of the whole force; on which they mutually agreed to obey him should anything occur during the night. Before morning the camp was alarmed by the firing of the pickets, and the troops took position for action. Colonel Williams is said to have rode around the lines and delivered a few drunken orders, which were not heeded, the officers obeying Major Cloud.

Whatever we may say in justification of Colonel Williams' conduct on the following day, we do not attempt to justify this night's debauch. In this, both he and Lieut. Col. Blair committed a fault for which they should have been dismissed from the service. It was one of those faults which amount to a high crime. They got drunk in the presence of a superior enemy, and when they were expecting him to attack the forces under their command. That was the crime. The situation of this little force at best was a dangerous one. That very day Green crossed the railroad in his retreat from Hurlbut. That he united with the rebel force in the vicinity of Paris, and designed attacking Williams while in this isolated position, subsequent events place beyond doubt. Had the latter remained at Paris till noon the following day, it is certain that Green would have inflicted a heavy disaster upon him.

As it was, he began to retreat early in the morning toward Shelbina. The promptness and rapidity of this movement, can not be placed to his credit; for, though he had reason to believe he was followed, he had no knowledge of the presence of Green. He arrived at Shelbina about 2 P.M., and learned, doubtless with regret, of the departure of Hurlbut and Scott from that place for Brookfield the previous day.

He had not been here half an hour when a heavy cloud of dust made its appearance in the direction whence he had come; and soon the head of a column of cavalry began to emerge from the long line of timber which skirts the prairie of Shelbina about four miles to the south. This column, lengthening as it emerged, came stretching over the prairie, devouring, in expectation, the little band that was waiting to receive it. Through this prairie runs a small brook, in the valley of which the enemy disappeared in column and then reappeared, a formidable line of battle a mile in length, stretching to the north of the road and steadily advancing; at the same time bodies of troops began to appear to the south of the road, which, when deployed, extended so far as to reach the railroad to the east. The enemy now presented, with two or three slight intervals, a line of battle two miles in length, behind which could be seen, with the aid of a glass, a line of infantry a half mile in length drawn up as a reserve. Green then planted two pieces of cannon at different points, and sent to Colonel Williams by flag of truce a demand for the surrender of his force, giving him half an hour to decide. "Go to h——l!" is said to have been the laconic response of the Colonel. He then ordered the women and children out of the town.

Meanwhile he had been barricading the principal streets with lumber and rubbish to protect his men from the fire of small arms. At the expiration of the half hour, all eyes were strained with expectation in the direction of the enemy. A burst of smoke enveloped one of his pieces, and a nine pounder shot came screeching through the air. After several discharges with this, he opened with his second piece, and his extended flank began to advance, and close slowly toward our right and left. The cavalry and two light companies of the Kansas battalion made two or three slight demonstrations toward the enemy. An engine and a car filled with men went to the east and disturbed his flank resting upon the railroad. He made a demonstration on the railroad toward the right; but an engine with two cars filled with men went out and drove him off.

When the enemy first made his appearance, Colonel Williams telegraphed to General Hurlbut a statement of his condition, to which the General replied, telling him to hold out, and promising to reinforce him before night. Two hours and a half had now elapsed without tidings of any assistance. The enemy was advancing his pieces and drawing his lines so as to envelop our flanks, and the situation was evidently becoming critical. The Colonel called together his officers and asked their advice. They were unanimously of the opinion that it was best to move on the cars out of range of the enemy and await the promised reinforcements. But Lieut. Col. Blair and Major Cloud expressed their determination to retreat with their battalion at all events. Col. Williams then said that if he could not induce the Kansas troops to remain, he would not remain with his own men. He therefore ordered a retreat. The men got hastily aboard the cars, leaving behind two or three baggage wagons and a small quantity of camp equipage. The enemy, before he discovered this movement, got his artillery quite close behind the screen of a cornfield, and began to throw grape and canister. The two trains moved rapidly toward the west, the cavalry galloping along on the side opposite the enemy. When the trains reached Clarence, the first station west of Shelbina, and twelve miles distant from it, they halted. But instead of waiting reinforcements here, the cavalry got hastily aboard the flat cars, and the retreat was continued with every evidence that some one was greatly frightened. When Colonel Williams arrived at Hudson (Macon City), he found General Hurlbut there with about 250 men on the way to reinforce him. General Hurlbut called the Colonel and his officers to account for their conduct on this occasion, and his personal conduct greatly increased the feeling against him, both among the officers and men.

Col. Williams has been greatly censured on account of this retreat from Shelbina, and there may have been some disposed to attach a stigma to our regiment in consequence of it. At least the name of a regiment always suffers more or less with that of its commanding officer. If the Colonel was to blame, his officers, and particularly Colonel Blair and Major Cloud were not less so; the former for advising him to retreat; the two latter for refusing to remain with him with the troops under their command. That he did not await General Hurlbut at Clarence is altogether inexplicable. In continuing the retreat beyond that place in the manner in which it was done, there is every evidence of panic and fright. Nothing could have been lost then by waiting the arrival of reinforcements, or the approach of night or the enemy. This would have supported the confidence of the men, and given it, in the eyes of the public, the appearance of an orderly retreat, instead of a disgraceful flight. If he had waited till night, without the appearance either of reinforcements or of the enemy, it might have been wiser then to resume the retreat than to run the risk of waking up in the morning to find himself surrounded, as Colonel Smith had been at Monroe, with the track torn up and the wires cut on either side of him. This undoubtedly would have happened to him, had he held out and remained that night at Shelbina. In passing judgment on this affair, we have to consider, first, that to hold out against a superior enemy hightens the morale of troops; and that it especially discourages men to be compelled to retreat from troops for whom they have a settled contempt, such as lawless insurgents, poorly disciplined and armed, and whom they have come to suppress; and, second, that a successful retreat, from whatever enemy, discourages them less than a disaster. Finally, considering the threatening approach of the enemy in such numbers, the non-arrival of reinforcements, and particularly the refusal of the Kansas field officers to remain, we can not see wherein Colonel Williams was to blame in abandoning Shelbina; but the flight from Clarence demands an explanation which has never been given to the men of the Third Iowa, who suffered a share in the general disgrace. A more resolute commander, one whose conduct on this occasion, as well as previously, had been such as to inspire the respect of all his subordinates, would not have given up the place without a severe fight. Before what happened in this case, the example of Sigel at Carthage or Mulligan at Lexington, would have been far preferable. The whole thing was badly managed. Hurlbut was to blame for not remaining at Shelbina the day before to support Williams. Williams was to blame for drunkenness at Paris, and for the imbecility of calling a council of officers during the progress of the action. And again, Hurlbut was to blame for not reinforcing him more promptly and with a larger force. To show how this affair figures in history, I give the account found in the Rebellion Record, which is also found in the N. Y. Commercial of September 10, 1861:

"This afternoon, Col. N. G. Williams, with eleven hundred troops, Kansas and Iowa Third, was attacked at Shelbina, Mo., by Martin Green, with from fifteen hundred to two thousand troops. Green commenced firing upon them with two pieces of artillery, and kept up fire for about one and a half hours. One man, (Federal), had his leg taken off with a cannon ball. Col. Williams retreated on two trains to Hudson, Mo., leaving a number of horses and a part of his camp utensils in the hands of the rebels. Col. Williams had no artillery. General Hurlbut got as far as Hudson, Mo., from Brookfield, with two hundred and fifty men, to reinforce Williams. When he arrived there, Williams was at Clarence on his retreat."

Our only comment on this is that Lieut. Schrader, acting commissary for the force, stated that he issued rations for 630 men, and that Green, after receiving the reinforcements which joined him south of the railroad, not including the riffraff who joined him for the occasion, could not have had less than 3,000; nor could he have made so formidable display of numbers with a less force. The casualty mentioned was that of a captain of the Kansas troops, who had his foot taken off by a cannon ball while attempting to rally some Missourians.