BRIGADIER-GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON. The Hero oi the West in 1861. Killed at Wilson’s Creek.
the 10th, and about 4 o’clock struck Bains’s most advanced picket, which escaped and gave warning of the attack, of which General Price was informed just as he was about to breakfast. Captain Plummer’s battalion of regular infantry was the advance, followed by Osterhaus’s two companies of the 2d Missouri Volunteers, and Totten’s battery. A body of 200 mounted Home Guards was on Plummer’s left. Having reached the enemy’s pickets, the infantry was deployed as skirmishers, Plummer to the left and Osterhaus to the right, and Lieutenant-Colonel Andrews, with the 1st Missouri Infantry, was brought up in support of the battery. Advancing a mile and a half and crossing a brook tributary to the creek, the Union skirmishers met and pushed the Confederate skirmishers up the slope. This disclosed a considerable force of the enemy, along a ridge perpendicular to the line of march and to the valley of the creek, which was attacked by the 1st Missouri and the 1st Kansas, assisted by Totten’s battery, who drove back the Confederates on the right to the foot of the slope beyond.
Plummer on the left early became separated from
BY WILLIAM M. WHERRY, SIXTH IT. S. INFANTRY, BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL, U. S. V.
At Wilson’s Creek aide-de-camp to General Lyon.
camps, when they turned to the south across the prairie. The head of the main column reached the point where the enemy’s pickets were expected to be found, about 1 A. M., and went into bivouac. Sigel’s force, consisting of ■ 1200 men and six pieces of artillery, moved I four miles down the Fayetteville road, and then, making a long détour to the left by a |] by-road, arrived within a mile of the enemy’s camp and rear at daylight.
In the vicinity of the Fayetteville road crossr ing, the creek acquires considerable depth, and in most places has rough, steep, and rather high banks, rendering fording difficult.
On the left side the hills assume the proportion of bluffs ; on the right or western bank, the ground is a succession of broken ridges, at that time covered for the most part with trees and a stunted growth of scrub oaks with dense foliage, which in places became an almost impenetrable tangle. Bough ravines and deep gullies cut up the surface.
The Confederates were under command of General Ben. McCulloch. On the west side of the stream, “Old Pap” Price, with his sturdy Missourians, men who in many later battles bore themselves with a valor and determination that won the plaudits of their comrades and the admiration of their foes, was holding the point south of Wilson’s Creek, selected by Lyon for attack. Price’s command consisted of five bodies of Missourians under Slack, Clark, Parsons, McBride, and Bains, the last-named being encamped farther up the stream. On the bluffs on the east side of the creek were Hebert’s 3d Louisiana and McIntosh’s Arkansas regiment, and, farther south, Pearce’s brigade and two batteries, while other troops, under Greer, Churchill, and Major, were in the valley along the Fayetteville road, holding the extreme of the Confederate position.
Lyon put his troops in motion at early dawn on
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^BOUT the middle of July, 1861, the Army of the Union in southwest Missouri, under General Nathaniel Lyon, was encamped in and near the town of Springfield, and numbered approximately 6200 men, of whom about 500 were ill-armed and undiscip»■ lined “Home Guards.” The organized troops were in all 5868, in four brigades. By the 9th of August these were reduced to an aggregate of about 5300 men, with the 500 Home Guards additional. . . .
On the 8th of August a march in force was planned for the following night, to make an attack on the enemy’s front at Wilson’s Creek at daylight. From this intention General Lyon was dissuaded, after having called together the principal officers to receive their instructions. Many of the troops were exhausted, and all were tired; moreover, some supplies having arrived from Bolla, it was deemed wise to clothe and shoe the men as far as practicable, and to give them another day for recuperation.
On the 9th it was intended to march that evening with the whole force united, as agreed upon the 8th, and attack the enemy’s left at daylight, and Lyon’s staff were busied in visiting the troops and seeing that all things were in order. During the morning Colonel Sigel visited Lyon’s headquarters, and had. a prolonged conference, the result of which was that Colonel Sigel was ordered to detach his brigade, the 3d and 5th Missouri, one six-gun battery, one company of the 1st U. S. Cavalry, under Captain Eugene A. Carr, and one company of the 2d Dragoons, under Lieutenant Charles E. Farrand, for an attack upon the enemy from the south, while Lyon with the remainder of his available force should attack on the north.
The troops were put in march in the evening; those about Springfield immediately under General Lyon moving out to the west on the Little York road until joined by Sturgis’s command from their
WILSON’S CREEK, AND THE DEATH OF LYON.
OFF TO THE WAR.
SCENE OF OPERATIONS IN SOUTHWESTERN MISSOURI AND NORTHERN ARKANSAS IN 1861 AND 1862.
NARRATIVE OF EVENTS IN 1861.
VIRGINIA.—Major-General George B. McClellan, during the early summer, had defeated the Confederates in West Virginia and thus gained control of the State. Owing to the prestige of his successes here he was appointed to the command of the Army of the Potomac, which was organized immediately after McDowell’s defeat at Bull Run.
On the 31st of October General Scott resigned the command of the armies, and McClellan was appointed to succeed him. McClellan performed the duties of General-in-Chief until March, 1862, and in that capacity directed the operations of all the armies east and west.
During the fall General W. S. Rosecrans opposed Robert E. Lee in West Virginia. The affair of Ball’s Bluff on the Upper Potomac took place between a detachment of the Army of the Potomac under General C. P. Stone and a Confederate force belonging to Gen. Jos. E. Johnston’s army. In the meantime operations were progressing elsewhere.
MISSOURI.—On May 10 Captain Nathaniel Lyon dispersed a Confederate camp near St. Louis and saved the Missouri Arsenal. The Missouri Confederates, under Sterling Price and Governor Claiborne F. Jackson, were forced across the border into Arkansas. On the 5th of July Colonel Franz Sigel, who had followed on the heels of the retreating Confederates with a small force, was defeated at Carthage in southwestern Missouri by Gov. Jackson. On the 25th of July General John C. Fremont reached St. Louis as the commander of the Western Military Department, which embraced Missouri. The main Union army in the field in the State at that time was at Lexington. It was commanded by Lyon, who had been promoted to brigadier-general. The Confederates confronting Lyon numbered about 10,000.
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