_The Battle of Lexington._
When within a few miles of Warrensburg, we learned that a portion of
Mulligan's force was camped there. We camped for the night and next
morning discovered that the detachment had gone during the night to
join the main force at Lexington. Gates was ordered to follow them. We
traveled all day on a forced march, and when within a short distance
of Lexington were fired upon from both sides of the road from behind
corn shocks. We hastily dismounted and commenced shooting at the corn
shocks. The firing from behind then soon ceased and the men hurried
away towards Lexington. We followed, but as we were then less than a
mile from the town we thought it unwise to go too close until our main
force came up.
Next day Price came up and made his headquarters in the fair ground
just south of town. We camped there three days picket-fighting but
getting ready all the time to attack Mulligan behind his breast-works.
We had to mold our bullets and make our cartridges and when sufficient
ammunition had been prepared we were ready. We marched up and were met
at the edge of the town where the fighting began. We marched down the
sidewalks on each side of the streets with a battery in the center of
the roadway. Mulligan's men fought well and kept the street full of
musket balls, but when the battery would belch out its grape shot they
had to go back. I well remember, that at every opportunity we would
jerk the picket fences down and go in behind the brick walls to shun
the bullets. When the end of the wall was reached we had to step out
on the sidewalk and face the music. They made a great effort to keep
us out of town before they went behind their breast-works, but they
had to go.
When Mulligan reached and went behind his fortifications we closed in
and surrounded him except upon the side next the river. Price sent
a regiment up the river and one down the river. They charged and
captured those portions of the breast-works which prevented us from
getting to the river front and thus in their rear. This was done late
in the evening and Gates' regiment lay on the hillside behind a plank
fence all night to prevent a recapture. They made several attempts
during the night but failed each time.
The warehouses were full of hemp bales, and next morning we got
them out and rolled them up the hill in front of us--two men to the
bale--both keeping well down behind it. When we got in sight of their
ditches we had a long line of hemp bales two deep in front of us, and
then the fight commenced in earnest. They shot small arms from their
ditches and cannon balls from their batteries. Sometimes a ball would
knock down one of our top bales, but it soon went back in place. We
brought our battery up behind the breastworks and by taking the top
bale off we made an excellent porthole for the muzzles of our guns.
The fight went on some two or three hours in this way. They in their
ditches and we crouched behind our hemp bales. Every time a man showed
his head half a dozen took a shot at him. They soon learned to keep
their heads down, but they would put their hats on gun sticks and hold
them up for us to shoot at, but we soon discovered this device and
wasted very few bullets afterwards.
If this situation continued it looked as if the siege might last a
month, so we decided to move closer. The top bales were pushed off and
rolled forward with two men lying nearly flat behind each bale. When
within forty yards of the trenches the front row halted and waited
for the rear line of bales to come up. It took but a moment to hoist
the one upon the other and thus we put our breastworks in much better
position. Our batteries came up with little trouble, as we covered the
opposite line so completely that no one dared to raise his head and
shoot. Their batteries were posted on an exposed hill some two hundred
yards away, but not a man was to be seen about them. Their gunners had
all gone to the trenches. Our only suffering was when moving our hemp
bales up the first time, and again when we advanced them the second
time, as at these times we were too busy to return the fire, but we
were well protected and lost very few men.
We lay in this position for three days. Mulligan's trench must have
been nearly two miles long. We had no idea what was going on at any
other point, but guessed the situation was very much the same along
the whole line. We could hear through the woods a single gun now and
then, reminding us more of a squirrel hunt than a battle. At the end
of three days Mulligan surrendered. We were glad to see the white
flag, not so much because it meant victory for us as because we were
hungry and tired.
Mulligan marched his men out and had them stack arms. Then we marched
them away from their arms and lined them up unarmed. Price took charge
and put a guard around them, and then paroled them and sent them home.
Some of them went back to Buchanan County where they told friends of
ours that Price had no privates in his army; that they saw nobody
under a lieutenant. They may have reached this conclusion from the
way all left the hemp bales and went up to see the surrender.
Price went back to Springfield and Gates and his company came home.
Billy Bridgeman, a nephew of mine who lived near Bigelow, in Holt
County, was with us and when we reached my home he wanted me to go
on with him to his home. It was a dangerous trip. St. Joe, Savannah,
Forest City and Oregon were full of soldiers. We left home in the
morning about daylight, passed up east and north of St. Joe, crossed
the Nodaway River just above its junction with the Missouri, hurried
across the main road between Oregon and Forest City, where we were
most apt to be discovered, and reached his home on Little Fork, about
night. We remained there about three days when some zealous female
patriot saw us and reported us. We learned that we had been reported
and kept a close watch all day and at night, feeling sure that the
Forest City company would try to capture us, we saddled our horses
and rode out away from home. It was bright moonlight, and when about
two miles from home we heard them coming and stopped in the shadow of
some trees. When they got within forty yards of us we fired into them
with our navies, and kept it up until we had emptied our six-shooters.
They whirled and ran back as fast as their horses could carry them.
We loaded our guns and followed. The first house they passed one man
jumped off his horse and left him standing in the road. We stopped at
the fence and called. A woman came out of the house. I asked her if
any soldiers had passed there. She said--I use her words just as she
uttered them: "Yes, they went down the road a few minutes ago like
the devil was after them." Billy and I did not know we had scared them
so.
The fine mare Billy's father had given him hurt her foot in some way
and was limping badly, so he pulled off the saddle and bridle and
turned her loose. She started at once for home, and Billy saddled up
the horse that had been left and we started on. It was then midnight
and we had sixty miles before us. It was dangerous to ride in
daylight, but more dangerous to stop anywhere on the road as we had no
friends or acquaintances on the way. We could do nothing but go on and
take chances. When, early in the forenoon, we reached the ford of the
Nodaway on the old Hackberry road leading from Oregon to Savannah, we
met a man who told us that a regiment of soldiers had left Savannah
that morning for Oregon. We crossed the river and turned to the
right, leaving the main road and picking our way to the bluffs of the
Missouri and down along these bluffs to a point just above St. Joseph.
There we left the bluffs and went across the country to Garrettsburg
on Platte River and reached home just at night. I called our old black
woman out of the house and asked her if she had heard of any soldiers
in the neighborhood and if she thought it would be safe for us to stop
for supper. She said she had heard of no soldiers and she thought
there would be no danger, but that Brother Isaac and George Boyer were
up at Brother James' house waiting for us, so we rode on up there.
We watered and fed our tired and hungry horses and had a good
supper--the first mouthful since supper the night before--and all sat
down to rest and talk. The house was a large two-story frame building
fronting north, built upon a plan that was very popular in those
days. A wide hall into which the front door entered from a portico,
separated two large rooms--one on the right and the other on the left.
A long ell joined up to the west room or end and extended back to
the rear. A wide porch extended along the east side of the ell and
along the south side of the east room of the front or main part of
the building. A door in the rear of the front hall opened upon this
porch, while doors from each of the rooms in the ell also led out
upon the porch. We were all in the east front room with Brother James
and his family. Brother Isaac and I were talking over our business
affairs. Bridgeman had lain down upon a sofa and dropped off to sleep,
and Boyer and Brother James and his family were chatting pleasantly,
when a company of soldiers sneaked up and stationed themselves around
the house. After they were sufficiently posted the captain gave us
the first notice of their presence by calling out in a loud voice,
"Come out, men, and give yourselves up, you will not be hurt." We knew
by that call that a good strong force was outside and that trouble
was at hand. We hurriedly lowered the window shades and blew out the
light and remained perfectly still. The captain called again, urging
that we would be treated as prisoners of war if we would surrender.
We knew too well the value of such a promise made by the captain of a
self-appointed gang of would-be regulators, who did not know the duty
of captors toward their prisoners, and if they had known were not to
be trusted. Besides we had no notion of surrendering as long as our
ammunition held out.
When the captain found we were not to be coaxed out by his false and
flattering promises, he began to show his real intentions. He said,
"Come out! G-- d---- you, we have got you now." We still gave no
answer. Then he said if we did not come out he would burn the house
down over our heads. When that failed he called on us to send the
women and children out so he could burn the house. We accommodated
him that much and sent them out. I told them to go out at the front
door and to be sure and close it after them. When the women were gone
we opened the door and passed into the hall and then to the back or
south door, Bridgeman in front. He opened the door just enough to
peep out. He had a dragoon pistol in his right hand and a Colt's navy
in his left. When the door opened a man stepped up on the porch with
his bayonet fixed and told Billy to come on. Billy gave him an ounce
ball and he fell back off the porch. The fight was then on and had to
be finished. Just after Billy fired the shot he accidentally dropped
his navy from his left hand and it fell behind the door in the dark.
He stooped to feel for it and Brother Isaac asked, "Billy was that
you shot?" I told him that it was. He then said, "we must get out of
here now." With that, and before Billy found his gun, I jerked the
door wide open and went out. Brother Isaac followed me, Boyer next and
Billy last. There was no one to be seen but the dead man by the side
of the porch. The others had taken shelter behind the east end of the
house and the south end of the ell. I went south along the ell porch
and Isaac followed close behind me. When I got to the end of the porch
I jumped off and there I found about a dozen men lined up. They fired
at me but the blaze went over my head. I turned my face to them and
took a hand myself. By that time Brother Isaac was at my side, and,
although unaccustomed to warfare, he did good service. We opened fire
and they turned and ran. We followed them around the house and ran
them off the premises and out into the public road.
When Billy found his navy and came out, he saw men at the east end of
the house firing across at us from the rear so he ran down the porch
that led to that end of the house. Just as he reached the end of the
porch a man stepped from behind the house and raised his gun to shoot
at us. Quick as a flash Billy stuck the end of his navy within six
inches of the man's face and shot him in the mouth. The man dropped
down on the ground and bawled like a steer. At this the men farther
around in the chimney corner broke and ran and Billy followed. They
did not stop running and Billy did not stop shooting until they were
well off the premises.
Boyer who was the third man out of the house afterwards related his
experience to me. He jumped off the porch and ran out through the back
yard. He stumbled and fell over a bank of dirt that had been thrown
out of a well, but Brother Isaac and I were keeping all of them so
busy that no one seemed to notice him. He was up in a moment and going
again. When he got to the rear of the smoke house he ran over a man
who lay hid in the weeds. The fellow jumped up and ran and Boyer shot
at him, but both kept on running. Boyer reached a corn field and lay
hid the remainder of the night.
After the fight was over Billy, Brother Isaac and I went down into
the woods and sat for a long time talking it over. We had no idea how
many men were in the company, but were confident that it went away
somewhat smaller than when it came. They got our horses and saddles
and, as we had fired all the loads out of our pistols in the fight, we
had nothing but the clothes on our backs and our empty revolvers. We
didn't dare go back to the house, so, late in the night, we started
out first to replenish our ammunition. We stopped at Jack Elder's,
a mile to the west. He gave us powder and bullets, but he had no
caps. We then went over to Judge Pullins' who had a good supply and
furnished us plenty of them. After loading our guns we went north to
the home of Joe Evans. Evans was a lieutenant in the Southern army,
and his wife, who was Nelly Auxier, was at home with her children. We
had known her from childhood, so we went in and went to bed. Nelly
sat up the remainder of the night and kept watch. This was the first
sleep in nearly forty-eight hours. At seven she woke us for breakfast.
About ten o'clock Judge Pullins, who knew where we were, brought over
the morning St. Joe paper. It contained a long account of the fight,
and said that Penick's men had gone down into "the hackle" the night
before and killed two of the Gibson boys and captured the remainder of
the "gang." This was amusing news, and about as near the truth as most
reports of that kind.
Although it was dangerous for us to travel by daylight, we concluded
we might, with proper caution, get back over the ground and see for
ourselves what had been done. We kept well in the timber and reached
Brother James' house about noon. The house was considerably scratched
up by bullets and blood was strewn all around it. Four men had been
killed and five wounded. Harriet, our old negro woman, told us the
soldiers had first stopped at father's old place and inquired for us.
She started across the fields at once to notify us, but could not make
the half mile on foot in time and had reached only a safe distance
from the house when the fight began.
We remained in the neighborhood, hidden at first one place and then
another for several days. Brother Isaac, being rather too old to go in
the army left home and went to Illinois for safety, as he knew there
would be no peace for him after the fight, no matter how conservative
he had been in the past or how well behaved he might be in the future.
The unfortunate circumstance which, on account of his association with
us, had compelled him to fight for his life, had rendered his efforts
to remain at home out of the question. Billy and I, having lost our
horses, saddles and blankets, were compelled to remain, in spite of
the fact that soldiers were hunting us like hounds, until we could get
properly equipped to leave. We were not long in doing this, and then
we set out on horseback through a country patroled by many soldiers to
join our company at Springfield.