Battle of Wilson’s Creek

Shortly after 5 a.m., as the smell of boiling coffee and fried green corn wafted out over the Southern camps, the ground to the north began to rumble. A horseman galloped into General Price’s camp, spewing forth a harried report of ‘twenty thousand men and 100 pieces of artillery’ just to the north. McCulloch, who had postponed his own offensive due to the threat of rain and was now breakfasting, was not concerned. He had already dispatched a body of cavalrymen to investigate an earlier such report. But when Federal cannons began booming to the north and south, the generals mounted their horses and galloped off to organize a defense.

By the time Price and McCulloch had put down their breakfasts, the battle was unfolding on two fronts. Resuming the march at about 4 a.m., Lyon’s soldiers had trudged quietly along the western side of Wilson’s Creek, tramping through wet fields and scattering Southern foragers. With Captain Joseph Plummer’s battalion of Regulars on his left, Captain James Totten’s 2nd U.S. Artillery and the 1st Missouri in his front and the 2nd Missouri Battalion on his right, Lyon turned south, where the waterway bent in the same direction. The rolling ground immediately ahead of him rose gradually to a crest long known as Oak Hill, which would soon be rechristened ‘Bloody Hill.’ Covered with thigh-high prairie grass, rough underbrush and trees, it was awful ground for a fight — but it did limit the Southerners’ advantage in numbers, as nearly half the Western Army was mounted and armed accordingly. South of the height the ground sloped downward, intersected by a tributary of the creek (Skegg’s Branch) before rising sharply again to fields owned by local farmer Joseph Sharp. The area’s main thoroughfare, the Wire (or Telegraph) Road, ran southwest diagonally across the battleground, fording the creek southeast of Bloody Hill. The situation of Price’s camps put his men in a position to confront Lyon first.

As he approached the hill, Lyon ordered Plummer’s battalion and a handful of mounted Home Guards to cross the creek to the left and sweep up its eastern bank. He called up the 1st Kansas to replace Totten’s artillery in his center and pressed forward toward Colonel James Cawthorn’s shaky line of 700 dismounted cavalrymen, who had scrambled to slow the Union advance. Lyon sent a portion of his force — Major Peter Osterhaus’ 2nd Missouri (just 150 men), the 1st Iowa, Lieutenant John V. DuBois’ four-gun battery and another battalion of Regulars — sweeping around to the right, from where he planned to deploy them later. The 2nd Kansas formed his reserve. To the southeast Generals Price and McCulloch were just springing into action as Lyon’s infantry and artillery drove Cawthorn’s Missouri troopers from Bloody Hill.

Before Lyon could exploit his advantage, a Southern battery on a rise to the east began dropping shells on his advancing lines. Captain Totten, a hard-boiled Pennsylvanian and an extremely capable artilleryman, quickly swung his six guns around to answer. But the Arkansas men handling Captain William E. Woodruff Jr.’s Pulaski Battery bought desperately needed time for Price, who had by now reached the hill. As the Federal line slowed, Price’s militia units scrambled to respond to his calls for reinforcements. After rallying some of Cawthorn’s troopers near the foot of the hill, the general extended his line to the left with each Missouri unit that arrived, including 650 troops of Brig. Gen. William Y. Slack’s Division under Colonel John T. Hughes; battalions under Colonel John Burbridge and Colonel Joseph Kelly (of Brig. Gen. Mosby Parsons’ Division); and two more regiments under Colonels John Foster and Edmond Wingo (of Brig. Gen. James McBride’s Division). Captain Henry Guibor’s Missouri Light Artillery went into the line between Kelly and Foster. When Colonel Richard H. Weightman arrived with two regiments and plugged them into a gap on the right, Price had the makings of a tough defense.

His drive stalled, Lyon strengthened his line. Totten’s gunners moved forward to split the 1st Kansas, while the Iowans marched over from the right to anchor the left flank. DuBois also rushed his battery to the left rear, supported by Captain Frederick Steele’s Regulars. While Totten and DuBois dueled with their Arkansas counterparts to the east, Lyon’s troops surged through brush and high grass toward Price’s line. But a sheet of lead spat from 2,000 rifles, shotguns and various small arms in the hands of Price’s kneeling and prone militia stopped them cold. The next move was Price’s, and he sent McBride’s state guards circling around to assail Lyon’s right flank, held by Lt. Col. George Andrews’ 1st Missouri and Osterhaus’ 2nd Missouri Battalion. Twice Totten’s quick-firing gunners drove the attackers back into the woods west of Bloody Hill. McBride’s men seized the high ground on their third try, just as Parsons’ Division charged Andrews’ line on its front. Suddenly things looked bleak for the Federals. The tired 1st Missouri fell back toward the crest of Bloody Hill, pursued by infantry and Guibor’s artillery. But before the Southerners could blast into the gaps left by the retreating Missourians, the 2nd Kansas arrived to steel the line.

Meanwhile Plummer had been stopped cold. Hoping to silence Woodruff’s nagging guns, Plummer had led his men across the creek and south into the cornfield of local farmer John Ray. There, the bluecoats ran into the 3rd Louisiana and the 2nd Arkansas Mounted Rifles, led by McCulloch’s second-in-command, Colonel James McIntosh. After nearly an hour of confused firing McIntosh sent his two regiments howling through the corn, driving the Federals back across the creek. Nineteen Regulars were killed; DuBois’ four cannons firing from Bloody Hill saved the others from the same fate.

As if agreed upon beforehand by the opposing generals, the fighting suddenly stopped around 8:30 a.m. With Price in charge on Bloody Hill and Plummer’s force dealt with, McCulloch scrambled to take on Sigel. Hearing firing from the north at about 5:30 a.m., Sigel had unleashed his artillery on the Southerners’ camps, scattering sleepy-eyed Confederates. With his confidence brimming, the former German army officer had marched his men northwest, stopping briefly to scatter a body of enemy cavalry, until he struck the Wire Road. There, he had placed the 5th and 3rd Missouri regiments, plus four guns of Major Franz Backof’s Missouri Light Artillery, in a defensive position straddling the turnpike, about a half-mile south of the smoke-shrouded lines on Bloody Hill. A company of Regular cavalry guarded each flank. To Sigel, all that appeared to be left for his men to do was to gather up prisoners when Lyon sent them scurrying south.

With several units (the 3rd, 4th and 5th Arkansas State troops, plus the four guns of the Fort Smith Light Battery) of Bart Pearce’s command positioned on high ground covering the confluence of Skegg’s Branch, the Wire Road and Wilson’s Creek, McCulloch quickly rallied several companies of the 3rd Louisiana — which had just returned from its fight with Plummer — and rushed south down the Wire Road. At the last minute two eager regiments of Missouri state infantry and one of artillery attached themselves to McCulloch’s right flank. The Confederates would exploit a blind spot left unattended by Sigel, who often neglected to send out skirmishers or properly scout new ground.