The Lone Star Defenders 6
In one of the storehouses we found a large lot of pig lead, estimated
at 15,000 pounds. This we confiscated for the use of the Confederate
Army. In order to move it, we pressed into service the only two
wagons we could find with teams, but so over-loaded one of them
that the wheels broke down when we started off. We then carried the
lead on our horses,—except what we thought could be hauled in the
remaining wagon,—out some distance and hid it in a thicket of hazelnut
bushes. We then, with our prisoners and the one wagon, returned to
camp. When the prisoners were marched up to regimental headquarters
Lieutenant-Colonel Lane said, “Turn them out of the lines and let them
go. I would rather fight them than feed them.”
This raiding party of two companies that made the descent upon
Little York was commanded by Captain Taylor, and the raid resulted,
substantially, as I have stated. Nevertheless, even the next day wild,
exaggerated stories of the affair were told, and believed by many
members of our own regiment as well as other portions of the army, and
in Victor Rose’s “History of Ross’s Brigade,” the following version
of the little exploit may be read: “Captain Frank Taylor, of Company
C, made a gallant dash into a detachment guarding a train loaded
with supplies for Lyon, routing the detachment, taking a number of
prisoners, and capturing the entire train.” And “the historian” was a
member of Company A, Third Texas Cavalry! From this language one would
infer that Captain Taylor, alone and unaided, had captured a supply
train with its escort!
On Friday, August 9, the determination was reached to move on
Springfield and attack General Lyon. We received orders to cook
rations, have our horses saddled and be ready to march at nine o’clock
P. M. At nine o’clock we were ready to mount, but by this time a slight
rain was falling, and the night was very dark and threatening. We
“stood to horse,” as it were, all night, waiting for orders that never
came. The infantry, also under similar orders, slept on their arms. Of
course our men, becoming weary with standing and waiting, lay down at
the feet of their horses, reins in hand, and slept. Daylight found some
of the men up, starting little fires to prepare coffee for breakfast,
while the majority were sleeping on the ground, and numbers of our
horses, having slipped their reins from the hands of the sleeping
soldiers, were grazing in the field in front of the camp.
Captain Taylor had ridden up to regimental headquarters to ask for
instructions or orders, when the enemy opened fire upon us with a
battery stationed in the timber just back of the field in our front,
and the shells came crashing through the small timber above our heads.
And as if this were a signal, almost instantly another battery opened
fire on General Price’s camp. Who was responsible for the blunder that
made it possible for us to be thus surprised in camp, I cannot say.
It was said that the pickets were ordered in, in view of our moving,
at nine o’clock the night before, and were not sent out again; but
this was afterwards denied. If we had any pickets on duty they were
certainly very inefficient. But there is no time now to inquire of the
whys and wherefores.
Captain Taylor now came galloping back, shouting: “Mount your horses
and get into line!” There was a hustling for loose horses, a rapid
mounting and very soon the regiment was in line by companies in the
open field in front of the camps. It was my duty now to “form the
company,” the same as if we were going out to drill; that is, beginning
on the right, I rode down the line requiring each man to call out his
number, counting, one, two, three, four; one, two, three, four, until
the left was reached. This gave every man his place for the day, and
every man was required to keep his place. If ordered to march by twos,
the horses were wheeled to the right, number 2 forming on the right of
number 1; if order to for fours, numbers 3 and 4 moved rapidly up on
the right of numbers 1 and 2, and so on. This being done in the face of
the aforesaid battery, with no undue haste, was quite a trying ordeal
to new troops who had never before been under fire, but the men stood
it admirably.
As soon as we were formed we moved out by twos, with orders to cross
the Springfield road to the hills beyond, where General Ben McCulloch’s
infantry, consisting of the noble Third Louisiana and the Arkansas
troops, some three thousand in all, were hotly engaged with General
Lyon’s command. General Lyon was personally in front of General
Sterling Price’s army of Missouri State Guards, being personally in
command of one wing of the Federal Army (three brigades), and Sigel,
who was senior colonel, commanded the other wing (one brigade). General
McCulloch was in command of the Confederate troops and General Price of
the Missourians.
We moved out through Mr. Sharp’s premises as we had come in, but
coming to the road we were delayed by the moving trains and the
hundreds of unarmed men who were along with General Price’s army,
rushing in great haste from the battlefield. The road being so
completely filled with the mass of moving trains and men rushing
pell-mell southward, it cost us a heroic effort to make our way across.
In this movement the rear battalion of the regiment, under Major
Chilton, was cut off from us, and while they performed good service
during part of the day, we saw no more of them until the battle ended.
By the time we crossed the road the battle had become general, and the
fire of both artillery and musketry was constant and terrific. The
morning was bright and clear and the weather excessively warm, and as
we had been rushed into battle without having time to get breakfast
or to fill our canteens, we consequently suffered from both hunger
and thirst. After crossing the road we moved up just in the rear of
our line of infantry, and for five hours or more were thus held in
reserve, slowly moving up in column as the infantry lines surged to
the left, while the brave Louisiana and Arkansas troops stood their
ground manfully against the heavy fire of musketry and artillery. As
our position was farther down the hill than that occupied by the line
of infantry, we were in no very great danger, as the enemy’s shot and
shell usually passed over us, but, nevertheless, during the whole time
the shots were passing very unpleasantly near our heads, with some
damage, too, as a number of the men were wounded about the head. One
member of Company C was clipped across the back of the neck with a
minie ball. After hours of a most stubborn contest our infantry showed
some signs of wavering. Colonel Greer at this critical moment led us
up rapidly past their extreme left,—had us wheel into line, and then
ordered us to charge the enemy’s infantry in our front. With a yell
all along the line, a yell largely mixed with the Indian warwhoop, we
dashed down that rough, rocky hillside at a full gallop right into the
face of that solid line of well-armed and disciplined infantry. It was
evidently a great surprise to them, for though they emptied their guns
at us, we moved so rapidly that they had no time to reload, and broke
their lines and fled in confusion. The battery that had been playing
on our infantry all day was now suddenly turned upon us, otherwise
we could have ridden their infantry down and killed or captured many
of them, but we were halted, and moved out by the left flank from
under the fire of their battery. Their guns were now limbered up and
moved off, and their whole command was soon in full retreat towards
Springfield. During the engagement General Nathaniel Lyon had been
killed, and the battle, after about seven hours’ hard fighting, was at
an end. The field was ours.
Thus ended our first battle. Would to God it had been our last, and the
last of the war! General McCulloch called it “The Battle of Oak Hill,”
but the Federals called it “The Battle of Wilson’s Creek.”
This first battle was interesting to me in many ways. I had been
reading of them since my childhood and looking at pictures of
battlefields during and after the conflict, but to see a battle in
progress, to hear the deafening roar of artillery, and the terrible,
ceaseless rattle of musketry; to see the rapid movements of troops,
hear the shouts of men engaged in mortal combat, and to realize the
sensation of being a participant, and then after hours of doubtful
contest to see the enemy fleeing from the field—all this was grand and
terrible. But while there is a grandeur in a battle, there are many
horrors, and unfortunately the horrors are wide-spread—they go home to
the wives, fathers, mothers, and sisters of the slain.
After the battle was over we were slowly moving in column across
the field unmolested, but being fired on by some of the enemy’s
sharpshooters, who were keeping up a desultory fire at long range,
when young Mr. Willie, son of Judge A. H. Willie, a member of Company
A, which was in advance of us, came riding up the column, passing us.
I was riding with Captain Taylor at the head of our company, and just
as Willie was passing us a ball from one of the sharpshooters’ rifles
struck him in the left temple, and killed him. But for his position the
ball would have struck me in another instant.
After all the Federals capable of locomotion had left the field, we
were moved up the road on which Sigel had retreated, as far as a mill
some five miles away, where we had ample witness of the execution
done by our cavalry—dead men in blue were strewn along the road in a
horrible manner. On returning, late in the afternoon, we were ordered
back to the camp we had left in the morning. As we had witnessed
the grandeur of the battle, Felps and myself concluded to ride over
the field and see some of its horrors. So we rode leisurely over the
field and reviewed the numerous dead, both men and horses, and the few
wounded who had not been carried to the field hospitals. General Lyon’s
body had been placed in an ambulance by order of General McCulloch,
and was on its way to Springfield, where it was left at the house of
Colonel Phelps. His horse lay dead on the field, and every lock of
his gray mane and tail was clipped off by our men and carried off as
souvenirs.
Further on we found one poor old Missouri home guard who was wounded.
He had dragged himself up against a black jack tree and was waiting
patiently for some chance of being cared for. We halted and were
speaking to him, when one of his neighbors, a Southern sympathizer,
came up, recognized him and began to abuse him in a shameful manner.
“Oh, you d——d old scoundrel,” he said, “if you had been where you
ought to have been, you wouldn’t be in the fix you are in now.” They
were both elderly men, and evidently lived only a few miles away, as
the Southerner had had time to come from his home to see the result of
the battle. I felt tempted to shoot the old coward, and thus put them
on an equality, and let them quarrel it out. But as it seemed enough
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