So the general called into his service eight river steamboats, loaded them with an abundance of provisions, camp equipage, ammunition and arms, and put on board about five thousand soldiers, infantry and artillery. The Stars and Stripes waved proudly over each boat, while over the “City of Alton,” “the flag steamer,” on which were the general and his staff, waved also the Union Jack and a broad pennon. On August 1st this warlike fleet, to us an unusual and imposing sight, began to move down the Mississippi.[50] The crowds on the levee cheered, waved handkerchiefs, and threw up hats. But not a few of the more thoughtful, shaking their heads, said, “We believe that Lyon, whose urgent pleadings have been unheeded, and to whom no re-enforcements have been sent, is right in thinking that the main invading rebel force is not at New Madrid, in the southeast, but comes from the southwest to attack him and his brave little army at Springfield.” And “This ostentatious expedition of Fremont,” they added, “is in utter contrast with the silent, swift, effective movements of the neglected Lyon.” Moreover, some of the ablest Union men of the city, half disheartened by the display on the river, exclaimed, “Fuss and feathers!” Their criticism may have been somewhat passionate, and perhaps uncalled for, but the event justified their main contention. There was only a handful of the enemy at New Madrid. But these Confederates had shrewdly played their game. They had diverted the attention of the Union general from McCulloch and Price to themselves, and made it difficult for him now to re-enforce Lyon before he must meet the enemy. Enlightened by experience, Fremont ordered his fleet back to St. Louis. Still, his expedition was not bootless. While he found but a few hundred rebels at New Madrid, and these escaped him unscathed, he laid, as he wisely intended to do, the foundation of a military encampment across the river at Cairo, Illinois, from which later began the great campaign under Grant down the east bank of the Mississippi. Nevertheless the general’s ostentatious and ill-starred movements disgusted many of the loyal of the city. Perhaps they did not fully understand him, but they saw enough to evoke their heated opposition to him; some indeed defended him, for he had true and warm friends, but others sharply condemned him; while the overawed and silenced secessionists, still by thousands among us, looked on with satisfaction.