Battle of Wilson’s Creek

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Washington, D.C., buzzed with war fever. Each day eager young would-be soldiers stepped off trains in the U.S. capital, around which a massive Federal army was being organized and trained. Technically, war on the ground had already begun: On June 10, 1861, a 2,500-man Federal force had clashed with 1,200 Confederates at Big Bethel, Virginia. The Union had lost 18 men and the Southerners only one — just the smallest foretaste of the national bloodletting that would begin at Bull Run six weeks later.

President Abraham Lincoln was still receiving reports of the fight the following morning as a small group of men met in the Planter’s House hotel in St. Louis to discuss the fate of Missouri. This key border state’s future had been hanging in the balance for months as uncompromising Unionists led by Captain Nathaniel Lyon and stalwart Republican Frank Blair Jr. struggled to prevent governor and Confederate sympathizer Claiborne Fox Jackson from leading it into the Confederacy. Political maneuvering and threats had already led to military action: On May 10, Lyon’s 7,000-man army of Missouri Home Guards, German volunteers and U.S. Regulars captured a pro-secessionist militia force camped on the city’s outskirts (see ‘Firebrand in a Powder Keg,’ June 2005). The subsequent increase in violence and military preparations on both sides had led to the Planter’s House meeting. Few thought any good would come of it.

The doubters were right. Governor Jackson and Sterling Price, a former Missouri governor now in command of the state militia, offered to cease all military preparations if Lyon would do the same. But Lyon and Blair were unwilling to compromise Federal authority in a bargain with Jackson — a man openly committed to Missouri’s secession. After several fruitless hours, Lyon, a red-bearded 20-year Army veteran with unshakable beliefs and a volcanic temper, rose and declared that due to ‘a failure on the part of the chief executive to comply with constitutional requirements,’ the time for talking had reached an end. Standing before Jackson, Lyon laid his cards on the table. ‘Better, sir, far better,’ he swore, ‘that the blood of every man, woman, and child within the limits of the state should flow, than that she should defy the federal government.’ With these stunning words still hanging in the air, Lyon added: ‘This means war. In an hour one of my officers will call for you and conduct you out of my lines.’

Within hours, Lyon was ready to unleash his small but grandly named Army of the West by rail and river. By moving quickly he hoped to encircle and capture Jackson, Price and whatever forces they could muster. Now a brigadier general of volunteers, Lyon would lead the main attack force — about 2,000 troops — west, securing the Missouri River and the northern part of the state. He planned to link up with Major Samuel D. Sturgis’ 2,300 Kansas volunteers and U.S. Regulars at Clinton as Sturgis moved southeast. Meanwhile, 500 men under Brig. Gen. Franz Sigel would ride the rails southwest toward Rolla, then continue overland to Neosho. With luck, the two wings would squeeze the secessionist forces between them above Springfield, in the state’s southwest corner.

Jackson and Price knew Lyon meant business and rushed back to Jefferson City, ordering key bridges burned and telegraph wires cut. On June 12, after issuing a statement to the press warning of the coming Federal offensive and calling for volunteers, the two raced north to Boonville, one of several key Missouri River towns. There, they expected to gather recruits and to find a small army prepared to at least stall Lyon’s advance. But the hard-charging Union commander was fast on their heels: Steaming out of St. Louis early on June 13, Lyon occupied the capital two days later, and on the afternoon of June 17 a detachment of his men humbled Colonel John S. Marmaduke’s inexperienced State Guards at Boonville, sending the governor and militia leader scrambling south to reorganize.

Everything was progressing smoothly for the Federals. In short order Lyon had secured the northern half of Missouri and sent his foes scurrying into the mouth of a trap. Meanwhile, nattily dressed newspapermen dashed off colorful reports on the progress of Lyon’s lightning campaign to Northern newspapers, which hailed the general as ‘evidently the right man in the right place.’

At Boonville, however, Lyon’s advance stalled, the nagging teeth of attrition nipping at his army. Short on wagons, horses, food and clothing, and also beset by heavy rain and muddied roads, the Federals were stranded until July 3. By the time Lyon’s army, which now included Sturgis’ men, arrived in Springfield 10 days later, a 4,000-man force under Governor Jackson’s personal command had defeated Sigel at Carthage, and the governor and General Price had traveled south to the Arkansas border in search of Confederate help. As for the supposed supply depot of Springfield, it held no relief for Lyon’s hungry and unpaid men, many of whom were dressed in rags. Worse yet, his three-month recruits were beginning to desert the cause in droves.

Lyon sent waves of letters and junior officers to new Department of the West commander Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont in St. Louis in a desperate bid for help. None was forthcoming. ‘Everything seems to combine against me at this point,’ the exasperated general wrote on July 17. In another letter Lyon described what he foresaw if his army was not supported: ‘Loyal citizens will be unprotected, repressed treason will assume alarming boldness, and possible defeat of my troops in battle will peril the continued ascendancy of the Federal power itself, not only in the State, but in the whole West.’

By August 1, Lyon faced a tough decision: retreat and risk pursuit by growing enemy forces, or stage a hit-and-run attack designed to leave his enemy too stunned to pursue him. Desperate to punish the secessionists while he still had the semblance of an army, Lyon chose to go on the offensive. On August 2, his advance guard encountered a body of Southern cavalry at Dug Springs and sent it scurrying. But his exhausted and thirsty men could stand little more, and Lyon returned to Springfield.

Lyon’s struggling army had nearly come to grips with a larger force recently assembled on Missouri’s southern plains. This new Western Army totaled about 12,000 men, including Price’s Missouri militia, Brig. Gen. Ben McCulloch’s Confederate Brigade and Brig. Gen. Nicholas B. ‘Bart’ Pearce’s Arkansas state troops. It was a shaky alliance from the start. After fleeing headlong across Missouri, the 52-year-old Price was eager to turn the tables on his pursuer. But the fiery 50-year-old McCulloch, whose service in Texas’ fight for independence, the Mexican War and with the Texas Rangers had made him a legend in the Southwest, was hesitant to attack.

The truth was, McCulloch thought little of Price’s ragged militia, with their decrepit old fowling pieces, shotguns and hunting rifles — especially on the heels of the Dug Springs debacle. But when he received word of a possible Confederate movement farther into Missouri from New Madrid to the east, the emboldened general decided to strike. In the early hours of August 5, McCulloch’s Western Army set off in search of Lyon’s Federals. A day later blinding heat forced him into camp again, this time on Wilson’s Creek, 10 miles southwest of Springfield. The Southern army remained there until August 9, when McCulloch — pressed by the impatient Price — ordered an attack for the following morning on Springfield, where Lyon’s army was now known to be situated.

But fate and weather would combine to deny McCulloch the initiative. As the Southern soldiers molded bullets and tinkered with their weapons that evening, Lyon’s legions were already lining up to take the offensive. Lyon’s staff had taken heart from the words of fiery, one-armed Captain Thomas Sweeny, who had vowed to ‘eat the last bit of mule flesh and fire the last cartridge before we think of retreating.’ Now, riding slowly up and down his lines on his conspicuous gray charger, Lyon addressed his weary men by company. His words — a straightforward, common-sense reminder of a soldier’s duty — suited his style and personality: ‘Men, we are going to have a fight. We will march out in a short time. Don’t shoot until you get orders. Fire low — don’t aim higher than their knees; wait until they get close; don’t get scared; it is no part of a soldier’s duty to get scared.’

Lyon’s attack plan was risky. While his subordinates all favored taking the fight to the enemy, each had opposed a proposal by Sigel to divide the army and attack from two sides. But Lyon — perhaps hoping that backing Sigel would produce greater results from his adoring German troops, or for a smashing victory to throw in the face of Frémont, who had apparently abandoned him — decided to roll the dice. Lyon’s wing totaled about 4,300 men, most of them infantry, and 10 cannons. Trying to preserve surprise, the general ordered complete silence in the ranks and directed that the wagon wheels be muffled. At about 1 a.m. on August 10, Lyon halted his army within reach of the enemy’s camps. Meanwhile, Sigel’s 1,100-man column managed to swing wide around the Southerners’ right flank and make camp, perched on the enemy’s southernmost doorstep.

As his men tried to sleep, a melancholy Lyon sat alongside Major John Schofield, his chief of staff. Weeks of frustration, worry and anger over his army’s plight had eaten away at his vigor and confidence. ‘I am a believer in presentiments,’ he confessed to his aide, ‘and I have a feeling that I can’t get rid of that I shall not survive this battle.’ After a few minutes’ reflection he admitted, ‘I will gladly give my life for a victory.’

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