"In his camp," as one has recently written, and as I have myself
heard him state, "he permitted no profanity; no man of loose morals
was suffered to remain there, unless, indeed, as a prisoner of war.
'I would rather,' said he, 'have the small-pox, yellow-fever, and
cholera, all together in my camp, than a man without principle....
It is a mistake, sir, that our people make, when they think that
bullies are the best fighters, or that they are the fit men to oppose
these Southerners. Give me men of good principles,--God-fearing
men,--men who respect themselves, and with a dozen of them I will
oppose any hundred such men as these Buford ruffians.'" He said
that if one offered himself to be a soldier under him, who was
forward to tell what he could or would do, if he could only get
sight of the enemy, he had but little confidence in him.
He was never able to find more than a score or so of recruits whom
he would accept, and only about a dozen, among them his sons, in
whom he had perfect faith. When he was here, some years ago, he
showed to a few a little manuscript book,--his "orderly book" I
think he called it,--containing the names of his company in Kansas,
and the rules by which they bound themselves; and he stated that
several of them had already sealed the contract with their blood.
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