Gen. Fremont’s Departure

It is announced that news from Gen Fremont’s departure is to be looked for before many days. Gen. Fremont is at Wheeling, Virginia, where he has issued general orders, assuming the command of his division and assigning to Gen. Kelly the Command of the railroad district, including the north eastern counties of the State. The Wheeling Press of the 31st. Ult says:

“Gen. Fremont comes among us in the face of considerable popular prejudice growing out of his prior political status and associations. But he is a patriot and a skillful officer, a man of determined and untiring energy, and has the advantage of birth and education in the South, and enlarged experience in mountainous regions, and among mankind generally; which will enable him to appreciate the wants and peculiar position of our people; and we have confidence that he will rightly fulfill his mission in the mountain department.”

Gen. Rosecrans, relieved of his command by the appointment of Gen. Fremont, addressed a general order to his troops, taking leave of them in which he says:

“Companions in arms: In this vast department of mountains and forests, in the rains of summer, and cold and storms of winter, for nine months I have witnessed your uncomplaining patience, zeal and activity – your watchings, your marchings and your combats. Under God, to your bravery and good conduct it is due that not a single reverse has attended our arms in all three vast regions. Wherever I go, I shall bear with me the remembrance of men, who, leaving home and all its endearments, against the force of all former tastes and habits, have undertaken to inure themselves to the toils, privations, hardships and dangers of military life, and have succeeded. But, comrades, proud as I am of the manly energy you have thus displayed, I am prouder still to bear testimony to the pure and lofty patriotism which has called it forth. No mean and sectional spirit, no low truckling to reckless leadership, no blind and ignorant fanaticism has animated you. By your intelligence, your magnanimity and forbearance toward those whom the rebellion has misled, you have shown that you entered into the conflict with a conviction that the interests of free government and even of freedom itself, opposed by arbitrary and despotic will – by rebellion in favor of despotism – lay in the issue, and that you fought for the liberties of all, both North and South. Such men deserve to be and will be free themselves, or, dying will bequeathe liberty and a glorious name to their posterity. That it may be your happy lot, in the Union under the Constitution and the laws, to be happy yourselves, and to bequeathe freedom and happiness and a glorious name to your children, is my cherished hope.”

– Published in the Burlington Daily Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Wednesday, April 9, 1862 & in the Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 12, 1862