While the great mass of our fellow-citizens were not acquainted with the facts that were already in possession of our commander, rumors of a secret organization of the disloyal began to get abroad. This was just enough to fire the popular imagination, and to keep the people standing on tiptoe and craning their necks for news. And while filled with apprehension, they were not a little disturbed by seeing the troops that had been faithfully guarding our city sent elsewhere. The masterful campaign of Grant in Virginia had begun. The general-in-chief and his great lieutenants, Sherman and Canby, were all clamorous for soldiers, and each in turn urgently pressed General Rosecrans to send them regiments from our State and city. He generously responded to these calls, until he had sent them nearly all of the troops in and around St. Louis.[99] When still further pressed for recruits by the generals in the field, knowing, as they did not, the powerful hostile secret organization intrenched in every part of our State, he pathetically pleaded that he could not safely spare any more; that he must not abandon, but must protect, the loyal citizens in the various counties of our commonwealth, who remained unflinchingly true to the Union while confronted with manifold perils. Grant, underestimating our dangers and needs, and intent on his great work, accused Rosecrans of acting in violation of orders; but later he softened his accusation by merely declaring that in his judgment Rosecrans might have granted what he asked without so much correspondence.[100] One marked fault of our general was his great proneness to irritating disputation. Nevertheless both of these patriotic generals were doing their level best. But we must bear in mind this denuding our city of troops, if we would justly appreciate the administration of General Rosecrans, and fully understand the events that soon followed. As early as March ugly rumors were flying about the city that small roving bands of guerrillas and bushwhackers had begun to appear in various parts of the State. Information concerning this daily became more definite. On the 3d of April, a lieutenant-colonel of the 61st enrolled Missouri militia reported from Columbia that rebel officers and guerrillas had been coming into that region from the South and that they were re-enforced from Illinois. That patriotic Illinois was taking a hand in this clandestine, hostile invasion seemed to the uninitiated incredible. But the announcement was unequivocal, and the invaders were reported as operating in small squads, robbing and pillaging in all directions. The disloyal in that part of the State, stirred to wrath on account of the enlistment of negroes in the army and the prospect of a draft, were receiving these desperadoes hospitably. And along with these specific reports of devastation there was a persistent rumor that Price was coming with a large army.[101]