CHAPTER 53 My Boyhood's Home.
WE took passage in one of the fast boats of the St.Louis and St.Paul Packet Company, and started up the river.
When I, as a boy, first saw the mouth of the Missouri River, it was twenty-two or twenty-three miles above St.Louis, according to the estimate of pilots; the wear and tear of the banks have moved it down eight miles since then; and the pilots say that within five years the river will cut through and move the mouth down five miles more, which will bring it within ten miles of St.Louis.
About nightfall we passed the large and flourishing town of Alton, Illinois; and before daylight next morning the town of Louisiana, Missouri, a sleepy village in my day, but a brisk railway center now; however, all the towns out there are railway centers now.

I could not clearly recognize the place.

This seemed odd to me, for when I retired from the rebel army in '61 I retired upon Louisiana in good order; at least in good enough order for a person who had not yet learned how to retreat according to the rules of war, and had to trust to native genius.

It seemed to me that for a first attempt at a retreat it was not badly done.

I had done no advancing in all that campaign that was at all equal to it.
There was a railway bridge across the river here well sprinkled with glowing lights, and a very beautiful sight it was.
At seven in the morning we reached Hannibal, Missouri, where my boyhood was spent.