Mountainous perplexities and burdens weighed upon Gen. Lyon during the
last days of July.
The country was hysterical over the safety of the National Capital, and
it seemed that the Administration was equally emotional. Every regiment
and gun was being rushed to the heights in front of Washington, and all
eyes were fixed on the line of the Potomac.
The perennial adventurer in Gen. Fremont did not fail to suggest to him
that the greatest of opportunities might develop in Washington, and he
lingered in New York until peremptorily ordered by Gen. Scott to his
command. He did not arrive in St. Louis until July 25.
Like Seward, Chase, McClellan, and many other aspiring men, Fremont
had little confidence that the untrained Illinois Rail Splitter in the
Presidential chair would be able to keep his head above the waves in the
sea of troubles the country had entered. The disaster at Bull Run was
but the beginning of a series of catastrophes which would soon call for
a stronger brain and a more experienced hand at the helm.
Then?
148
Mrs. Jessie Benton Fremont was not the only one to suggest that the man
for the hour would be found to be the first Republican candidate for
President--the Great Pathfinder of the Rocky Mountains!
Upon his arrival at St Louis Gen. Fremont was immediately waited upon by
the faithful Chester Harding and others who had been awaiting his coming
with painful anxiety. They represented most energetically Gen. Lyon's
predicament, without money, clothing or rations, and with a force even
more rapidly diminishing than that of the enemy was augmenting. They
revealed Gen. Lyon's far-reaching plans of making Springfield a base
from which to carry the war into Arkansas, and begged for men, money,
arms, food; shoes and clothing for him.
Fremont was too much engrossed in forming in the Brant Mansion that
vice-regal court of his--the main requirement for which seemed to be
inability to speak English--to feel the urgency of these importunities.
The country was swarming with military adventurers from Europe, men with
more or less shadow on their connection with the foreign armies, and
eager to sell their swords to the highest advantage. They swarmed around
Fremont like bees around a sugar barrel, much to the detriment of the
honest and earnest men of foreign birth who were rallying to the support
of the Union.
Next to his satrapal court of exotic manners and speech, Fremont was
most concerned about the safety of Cairo, Ill., a most important
point, then noisily threatened by Maj.-Gen. Leonidas Polk, the militant
Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana, and his subordinate, the
blatant Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, of Mexican War notoriety.
149
Gen. Fremont made quite a show of reinforcing Cairo, sending a most
imposing fleet of steamboats to carry the 4,000 troops sent thither.
Pretense still counted for much in the war. Later it burnt up like dry
straw in the fierce blaze of actualities.
Not being Fremont's own, nor contributing particularly to his
aggrandizement, Gen. Lyon's plans and aims had little importance to his
Commanding General.
Gen. Lyon saw clearly that the place to fight for St. Louis and Missouri
was in the neighborhood of Springfield, and by messenger and letter he
importuned that St. Louis be left to the care of the loyal Germans of
the Home Guards, who had shown their ability to handle the city, and
that all the other troops there and elsewhere in the State be rushed
forward to him, with shoes and clothing for his unshod, ragged soldiers,
and sufficient rations for the army, which had well-nigh exhausted the
country upon which it had been living for so long.
But Fremont frittered away his strength in sending regiments to chase
guerrilla bands which dissolved as soon as the trail became too hot.
Two regiments were ordered to Lyon from points so distant that they
could not make the march in less than 10 days or a fortnight, and some
scanty supplies sent to Rolla remained there because of lack of wagons
to carry them forward to Springfield, 120 miles away.
150
Later Gen. Fremont testified before the Committee on the Conduct of the
War that he had ordered Gen. Lyon, if he could not maintain himself at
Springfield, to fall back to Rolla, but singularly he did not produce
this order.
Though Gen. Lyon had marched his men 50 miles in one day to prevent the
junction of Gen. Ben Mc-Culloch's Arkansas column with the hosts Gen.
Sterling Price was gathering from Missouri, he was not able to interpose
between them.
On Saturday, Aug. 3, the Confederates had all gotten together on the
banks of Crane Creek, 55 miles southwest of Springfield, with general
headquarters in and around the village of Cassville.
How many were concentrated is subject to the same obscurity which
usually envelops Confederate numbers. Lyon estimated there were 30,000.
Later estimates by competent men put the number at 23,000. Gen. Snead,
Price's Adjutant-General, put the number at 11,000, which would be a
severe reflection on the loyalty of the Missouri Secessionists to their
Governor, since Gen. McCulloch certainly brought up about 5,000 from
Arkansas, which would leave only 6,000 to respond to Gov. Jackson's
proclamation, and gather under the standards set up by his seven
Brigadier-Generals--Parsons, Rains, Slack, J. B. Clark, M. L. Clark,
Watkins and Randolph.
While Lyon had incomparable troubles, there was far from concord in the
camp of his opponents. Like thousands of other men, McCulloch's ambition
far transcended his abilities. He at once assumed the attitude that as a
Brigadier-General in the Confederate army he out-ranked Sterling Price,
who was a Major-General of state troops. This, at that early period
of the war, was a humorous reversal of the State Sovereignty idea, so
flagrant in the minds of those precipitating Secession.
151
Jefferson Davis and his school of thought had been fierce in their
contention that the part was greater than the whole, and that the
States were greater than the General Government. Yet Gen. McCulloch
was unflinching in his insistence that a Confederate Brigadier-General
outranked a State Major-General. The dispute became quite acrimonious,
but was at last settled by Price's yielding to McCulloch, so anxious was
he that something decisive should be done toward driving back Lyon and
"redeeming the State of Missouri." According to Gen. Thomas L. Snead,
his Chief of Staff, he went to Gen. McCulloch's quarters on Sunday
morning, Aug. 4, and after vainly trying to persuade McCulloch to attack
Lyon, he said:
"I am an older man than you, Gen. McCulloch, and I am not
only your senior in rank now, but I was a Brigadier-General
in the Mexican War, with an independent command, when you
were only a Captain; I have fought and won more battles
than you have ever witnessed; my force is twice as great as
yours; and some of my officers rank, and have seen more
service than you, and we are also upon the soil of our own
State; but, Gen. McCulloch, if you will consent to help us
to whip Lyon and to repossess Missouri, I will put myself
and all my forces under your command, and we will obey you
as faithfully as the humblest of your own men. We can whip
Lyon, and we will whip him and drive the enemy out of
Missouri, and all the honor and all the glory shall be
yours, All that we want is to regain our homes and to
establish the independence of Missouri and the South. If you
refuse to accept this offer, I will move with the
Missourians alone against Lyon; for it is better that they
and I should all perish than Missouri be abandoned without a
struggle. You must either fight beside us or look on at a
safe distance and see us fight all alone the army which you
dare not attack even with our aid. I must have your answer
before dark, for I intend to attack Lyon tomorrow."
152
Gen. McCulloch replied that he was expecting dispatches from the East,
but would make known his determination before sundown. At that time,
accompanied by Gen. Mcintosh, in whose abilities Gen. McCulloch had
the highest confidence, and was largely influenced by him, he went
to Price's headquarters and informed him that he had just received
dispatches that Gen. Pillow was advancing into the southeastern part of
the State from New Madrid with 12,000 men, and that he would accept the
command of the united forces and attack Lyon. Price at once published an
order that he had turned over the command of the Missouri troops to Gen.
McCulloch, but reserved the right to resume command at any time he might
see fit.
Their friends in Springfield kept Price and McCulloch well-informed as
to Lyon's diminishing force and perplexities.
Brilliant as McCulloch may have been in command of 100 or so men, he was
clearly unequal to the leadership of such a host. He was as much feebler
in temper to Lyon as he was inferior in force and grasp to Sterling
Price.
153
An audacious stroke by Lyon on Friday, Aug. 2, quite unsettled his
nerves. Getting information that his enemies were moving on him by three
different roads, Lyon formed the soldierly determination to move out
swiftly and attack one of the columns and crush it before the other
could come to its assistance.
Putting Capt. D. S. Stanley--of whom we shall hear much hereafter--at
the head with his troop of Regular cavalry, and following him with a
battalion of Regulars under Capt. Frederick Steele--of whom we shall
also hear a great deal hereafter--and a section of Totten's Regular
Battery, he marched out the Cassville Road with his whole force and at
Dug Springs, 20 miles away, came up with McCulloch's advance, commanded
by Brig.-Gen. J. S. Rains, of the Missouri State Guards, of whom, too,
we shall hear much. Col. Mcintosh, McCulloch's adviser, was also on the
ground with 150 men.
Rains attempted to put into operation the tactics employed against Sigel
at Carthage, but Steele and Stanley were men of different temper, and
attacked him so savagely as to scatter his force in wild confusion.
Lyon marched forward to within six miles of the main Confederate
position, and lay there 24 hours, when, not deeming it wise to attack so
far from his base, retired unmolested to Springfield.
This startling aggressiveness quite overcame Gen. McCulloch, and
the conduct of the Missourians disgusted him. He was strong in his
denunciation of them and quite frank in his reluctance to attack
Gen. Lyon without further information as to "his position and
fortifications," and complained bitterly that he could get no
information as to the "barricades" in Springfield and other positions
he might encounter. He said that "he would not make a blind attack on
Springfield," and "would order the whole army back to Cassville rather
than bring on an engagement with an unknown enemy."
154
Gen. Price was strenuous in his insistence upon attack, and
finally McCulloch consented to meet all the general officers at his
headquarters. In the council McCulloch was plain in his unwillingness to
engage Lyon or to enter on any aggressive campaign, but Price, seconded
by Gens. Parsons, Bains, Slack and McBride, were most determined that
Lyon should be attacked at once, and declared that if McCulloch
would not do it he would resume command and fight the battle himself.
McCulloch finally yielded, and ordered a forward movement, and on
the morning of Aug. 6 the entire force was in camp along the bank of
Wilson's Creek, about six miles south of Springfield. This position
was taken largely because of its proximity to immense cornfields, which
would supply the troops and animals with food.
Wilson's Creek, rising in the neighborhood of Springfield, flows west
some five miles, and then runs south nine or 10 miles in order to empty
into the James River, a tributary of White River. Tyrel's Creek and
Skegg's Branch, which have considerable valleys, are tributaries of
Wilson's Creek. Above Skegg's Branch rises a hill, since known as Bloody
Hill, nearly 100 feet high. Its sides are scored with ravines, the rock
comes to the surface in many places, and the hight was thickly covered
with an overgrowth of scrub-oak. There are other eminences and ravines,
generally covered with scrub-oak and undergrowth, and the Confederates
were camped in an irregular line along these for a distance of about
three miles up and down Wilson's Creek, from the extreme right to the
extreme left. Here they remained three days, with the much-disturbed
McCulloch riding out every day with his Maynard rifle slung over his
shoulder for a personal reconnoissance, which, as far as could be judged
from his conversation on his return, was quite unsatisfactory.
155
He had little stomach for the attack, and naturally found reasons
against it.
Price and his Generals, on the other hand, were fretting over the delay.
Price's accurate information of Lyon's condition made him sure that Lyon
would do the obvious thing--retreat. It was the warlike thing to do
to attack at once, which had every chance of success. Success meant as
telling a stroke for Secession in the West as Bull Run had been in
the East It would be quite as sensational, for there was no refuge or
rallying point for the beaten Union army short of Rolla, 120 miles away,
and the rough country, cut by innumerable valleys, gorges and streams,
would enable the swarming mounted force to get in its wild work, and not
permit the escape of a man, a gun or a wagon.
McCulloch, yielding to Price's importunities, ordered the army forward,
and at dawn of Aug. 19 he and Mcintosh were sitting down to breakfast
with Price and Snead, preparatory to leading their forces forward, when
they were startled by their pickets being driven in. McCulloch, who had
hated Rains from Old Army days, and despised him and his Missourians
since the Dug Springs affair, remarked contemptuously, "O, it's only one
of Rains's scares," and turned to his meal.
156
But the matter instantly became more pressing than breakfast. Gen.
Lyon had returned to Springfield Monday, Aug. 5, to meet an intense
disappointment. Not a thing had been sent to meet his desperate needs.
Fremont had ordered one regiment from Kansas and from the Missouri River
to go forward to him, but they could hardly reach him in less than
a fortnight. There were at that time some 44 regiments in
Missouri--regiments commanded by men whose names afterward shine in
history--U. S. Grant, John Pope, S. A. Hurlbut, John M. Palmer, John
B. Turchin, S. B. Curtis, Morgan L. Smith, O. E. Salomon, John McNeil,
etc.,--but they were kept garrisoning posts, chasing guerrillas, and at
almost everything else than hurrying forward toward him, as they should
have been.
Two of his regiments--the 3d and 4th Mo.--took their discharge and
started for St. Louis. The 1st Iowa's time was out, but Lyon asked the
men to stay with him a few days longer, and they did to a man.
Aside from the military reasons for holding Springfield there were
others which appealed to Lyon's mind with equal power. His heart had
bled over the outrages committed by the Secessionists upon the Union
people in that section of the State. The presence of his army was the
only security that the loyal people had that their farms would not
be robbed and themselves murdered. Hundreds of them had gone into
Springfield to be under his protection. How they could be ever gotten
back to a place of safety in retreat was the gravest of problems. Gen.
Schofield, at that time his Adjutant-General, and who disapproved of
fighting the battle of Wilson's Creek, thinks that this consideration
had more weight with him than the military reasons, and induced him to
fight where the judgment of the soldier was against it.
157
Four anxious days longer Lyon remained at Springfield. He called a
council of his principal officers, and the unanimous decision was that
the army should retreat.
On Aug. 9 he sent the following letter to Gen. Fremont, the last he ever
wrote:
General: I retired to this place, as I before informed you,
reaching here on the 5th. The enemy followed to within 10
miles of here. He has taken a strong position, and is
recruiting his supply of horses, mules, and provisions by
forages Into the surrounding country, his large force of
mounted men enabling him to do this without much annoyance
from me. I find my position extremely embarrassing, and am
at present unable to determine whether I shall be able to
maintain my ground or be forced to retire. I can resist any
attack from the front, but if the enemy move to surround me
I must retire. I shall hold my ground as long as possible,
though I may, without knowing how far, endanger the safety
of my entire force, with its valuable material, being
induced by the valuable considerations involved to take the
step. The enemy showed himself in considerable force
yesterday five miles from here, and has doubtless a full
purpose of attacking me.
N. LYON, Commanding.
168
The simple, soldierly dignity of this is pathetic. There is no murmur of
complaint, such as a man treated as he had been was eminently justified
in making. After sending this note, Gen. Lyon received intelligence that
one of his cavalry parties had been attacked by rebel cavalry, but
after a brief fight had beaten them off. He thereupon sent out a
reconnoitering party to learn if the Secessionists had moved forward,
and the party presently returned with two Texan and two Tennesseean
prisoners, from whom Lyon learned for the first time of the junction of
McCulloch's forces and Price's. He at once decided upon a bold stroke.
Everything was prepared as if in readiness for retreat, with the tents
struck and the Quartermaster's and Commissary's stores in the wagons.
Quartermaster Alexis Mudd went to headquarters and asked Gen. Lyon:
"When do we start back?"
The General fixed his keen blue eyes upon the Quartermaster and said,
clearly and firmly:
"When we are whipped back, and not until then."
An order was at once issued for every man to be prepared to march at 6
o'clock that evening, without any luggage, and with all the ammunition
he could carry.
Calling a council of officers, Gen. Lyon announced his intention to move
out and attack the enemy in his chosen position. Gen. Sigel proposed
that he be allowed to take his regiment and Col. Salomon's to move
independently and take the enemy in flank and rear. The other officers
strongly opposed this, while Gen. Lyon withheld his consent, but finally
yielded to Sigel's entreaties and authorized the movement, giving Sigel
1,400 infantry, two companies of cavalry and six pieces of artillery, to
move along the Fayetteville Road until he should reach the right flank
and rear of the enemy, and at daybreak attack them vigorously.
Lyon was to retain 3,700 men and 10 pieces of artillery and move down
the Mount Vernon Road and attack in the morning on the left front and
flank simultaneously with Sigel's attack on the right.
159
A force of 250 Home Guards with two pieces of artillery was left at
Springfield to guard the trains and public property. Col. Sigel's column
moved out at 6:30 o'clock in the evening by the left and arrived at
daybreak of the 10th within two miles of the extreme right and rear of
the enemy's camp, where they proceeded to cut off and bring into camp
some 40 stragglers who were out foraging. This was done to prevent their
carrying intelligence into camp.
Gen. Lyon with the First, Second and Third Brigades, set out about the
same hour, and by 1 o'clock in the morning came within sight of the
enemy's camp-fires, where they halted until morning. Capt. Plummer was
ordered to deploy his battalion to act as skirmishers on the left, while
Maj. Osterhaus did the same on the right with his battalion of the 2d
Mo.
160