Chapter 9

The Lyon and the Whang-doodle

On the evening of August 1 the Army of the West camped on the same site where nine days later it would engage in battle. Although there was no reason for Nathaniel Lyon to give special attention to the area, he probably noted its obvious features. Moving southwest, the Federals first crossed the extensive property of John Ray, which the Wire Road bisected. Continuing on, they encountered a ridge running parallel to the road on its right side. Just over half a mile from the Ray farmhouse, the road dropped into the broad valley formed by Wilson Creek.^* There the ridge ended abruptly. Atop its steep end was a small farmhouse or cabin recently occupied by a family named Winn (not Guinn, as given in many accounts). Nearby, the Wire Road crossed the creek at a shallow ford. On the western bank was the farm of William B. Edwards, whose flat land offered the best place to camp. As Lyon’s men pitched their tents, they could see that the dominant terrain feature on the western bank was an unnamed hill that lay north of the Edwards farm, running to the edge of the creek opposite the Winn farm and Ray’s cornfields farther upstream. The hill was covered with scrub oak and prairie grass, with occasional thickets and rocky bare spots. No one could anticipate that in the near future so many lives would be expended on its slopes that it would earn the name “Bloody Hill.”

Because Lyon’s forces had occupied an extensive semicircle of camps surrounding Springfield, some units marched farther than others to reach Wilson Creek. Eugene Ware, of the First Iowa’s Burlington Zouaves, estimated that his unit actually traveled eighteen miles. The trip took them nine hours, and they were so late reaching the camp that they simply went to sleep in ranks in the middle of the road. They enjoyed only three hours rest before the march resumed the next morning.¹

Lyon started his column moving early on August 2. Leaving the vicinity of the Edwards farm, the Federals crossed a small tributary of Wilson Creek called Skegg’s Branch. Beyond this the road rose up a steep bank, bringing them to a plateau on which sat the home of Joseph D. Sharp. From the Sharp farm the Wire Road climbed a low hill, wooded at the top, which overlooked the whole valley. As the Federals continued southwest, temperatures rose to almost no degrees Fahrenheit. “No water could be found and the dust covered us to such an extent that a companion could not be recognized except by his familiar voice,” one Regular testified. Although they marched only seven miles, artilleryman John Du Bois noted in his journal that fully two-thirds of Lyon’s men fell by the roadside from exhaustion before they reached their destination, Dug Springs, a watering hole that lay in a long, sheltered valley.²

Lyon’s advance scouts, who had skirmished with the enemy during the night, led him to expect that just beyond Dug Springs, near a farm belonging to a man named Hayden, he would find Rains’s Division of the Missouri State Guard, estimated to be three thousand strong. Believing that Price and McCulloch had not yet linked their forces, Lyon sought an opportunity to destroy them piecemeal, on ground of his own choosing, starting with individual portions of the State Guard. To ascertain the enemy’s exact strength and position he therefore formed a battalion from among his Regulars, sending it ahead as an advance guard. Commanded by Captain Frederick Steele, a balding forty-two-year-old West Pointer from Connecticut who had distinguished himself in the Mexican War, this consisted of four companies of infantry, a section of guns from Totten’s Battery, Captain Stanley’s cavalry, and a company of unassigned recruits commanded by a sergeant.³

Steele’s men approached Hayden’s farm cautiously around 9:00 A.M. But instead of Rains’s entire division, they found only a few scouts, who fled precipitously when Totten opened fire on them. Steele pursued, but his prey soon disappeared into the surrounding dense woods. When Lyon arrived shortly afterward, he ordered Steele to set up a line of defense, blocking the far end of the valley. For the rest of the day the exhausted Federals straggled into the camp at Dug Springs. Although they had eaten one full meal before leaving Springfield, they were now on half rations of everything except beef.⁴

Sometime during the afternoon, Lyon sent at least two companies from the First Iowa to join Steele. The captain had chosen his ground well. He placed his artillery on a small rise, one gun on each side of the road, his infantry farther forward on ridges off to each side, forming a crescent-shaped line calculated to trap anyone approaching the valley. The Iowans joined Steele’s mounted troops, serving as a reserve. Although the Federals exchanged shots with enemy scouts throughout the day, nothing occurred until late afternoon. Around 5:00 P.M. a great cloud of dust became visible in the distance. The enemy was obviously approaching, but the size of its force could not be determined.⁵

Lyon’s foe Ben McCulloch had in fact spent most of August 2 consolidating his forces at Crane Creek, but his advance guard—six companies of cavalry from Rains’s Division—continued to scout the road ahead. When Steele drove a party of them away from Hayden’s farm, Rains reported the contact to McCulloch. The Texan did not want to be surprised, so he deployed his forces into better defensive positions and sent his adjutant, Colonel James McIntosh, to investigate. McIntosh took 150 men with him, probably drawn from his own Second Arkansas Mounted Rifles, reaching Rains’s position about 2:00 P.M. Once there he conducted his own reconnaissance and from a hilltop was just able to make out Lyon’s encampment at the far end of the valley. Uncertain about what he had seen in the afternoon haze, he ordered Rains to continue to probe the enemy’s position but not to bring on an engagement. As aggressive action was neither contemplated nor desired, McIntosh started back to report to McCulloch, taking his men with him.⁶

The order in which events next occurred is impossible to determine precisely, as both Rains and Steele insisted in their reports that they were reacting to movements made by the other. Apparently Rains’s probing movements, designed to collect information, made Steele afraid that he was being outflanked, and in response he called up his reserves and began adjusting his lines. Seeing movement in the woods and undergrowth, Rains also feared for his flanks and consequently launched an attack with most of his force. As a result, the Missouri State Guardsmen rode straight into Steele’s defensive position, where they received a withering fire into their flanks, while canister from Totten’s guns poured into their front. The Federals’ aim was deplorable, for none of Rains’s men were killed and only six were wounded; when some of Stanley’s troopers ignored orders and launched a countercharge, four of them were killed and six were wounded. Nevertheless, Rains’s entire command fled back down the Wire Road in abject panic. Many soldiers did not halt even when they encountered McIntosh’s men, who were still riding back toward the Western Army’s camp at Crane Creek.⁷

Militarily, the skirmish near Dug Springs was insignificant, but it had a major impact on the relationship between the Missouri State Guard and the rest of the Southern forces. Honor was all-important to these men, and ‘‘Rains’s Scare,’’ as the episode became known, reflected negatively on all Missourians. A Shreveport newspaper printed a letter from a soldier in the Third Louisiana stating that after Dug Springs the Confederate troops regarded the Missourians as ‘‘dastardly cowards.’’ A member of the Arkansas State Troops wrote home that the Missourians ‘‘ran like Scared dogs.’’⁸

Previously McCulloch had expressed doubts about Sterling Price’s capabilities, but now he questioned the reliability of the whole State Guard. When word of Rains’s flight reached him, apparently by a messenger riding ahead of the returning troops, he reacted strongly. According to one witness, ‘‘McCulloch dashed up the road fairly foaming with rage—exhausting his whole vocabulary of vituperation, and it is no meager one—in denunciation of the Missourians.’’ Although this fit of temper boded ill for future cooperation between McCulloch and Price, McIntosh’s actions were positively astonishing. In his report to McCulloch, written the following day, he not only stated that he had ‘‘expected’’ the Missourians to retreat, he also smugly described rejecting their request for assistance, writing, ‘‘General Rains had engaged the enemy unadvisedly, and had sent for my small command to re-enforce him, which I respectfully declined, having no disposition to sacrifice it in such company.” McIntosh was McCulloch’s most trusted subordinate. It reveals much about the relationship between the two men, and even more about their assessment of the Missourians, that McIntosh would admit to abandoning the Missouri State Guard on the field of battle and that McCulloch would not rebuke him for having done so.⁹

With his command in poor shape, Lyon had no more desire to bring on a fight late in the day than McCulloch did, and after the skirmish he ordered Steele to withdraw to the main camp. Perhaps because his troops were so tired, he made no attempt to maintain contact with Rains’s retreating men or to learn more about McCulloch’s location. Instead, to deny the enemy information about his own strength, he ordered that no fires be built during the night. About 2:30 A.M. on the morning of August 3, reacting to imagined movements in the darkness, the Federals sprang to arms and Totten fired shells down the road. Convinced that they had averted a dangerous situation, the Federals slept on their arms in line of battle in case the “attack” was renewed. Although no physical harm was done, Lyon’s already exhausted men were robbed of a night’s sleep that they sorely needed.¹⁰

Lyon resumed his offensive once it became light. After a three-mile march the column’s lead elements reached a point where the Wire Road “descended into a deep wide valley.” In the distance lay Curran Post Office, a “community” that consisted of a single house and a few adjacent rude shelters. There and in the nearby woods the Federals could see the camps of what appeared to be several hundred mounted men. Curiously, Lyon did not use his own cavalry to probe their position and estimate their numbers. Instead, he halted for about an hour for the tail end of his column to catch up. Although it was only mid-morning, the heat was intense; before the day ended, there would be several cases of sunstroke.¹¹

By 11:00 A.M. Lyon had formed a portion of his infantry into successive lines of battle off to the side of the road, while Totten’s Battery was positioned on a nearby hill. The First Iowa was the leading unit, and Ware recalled Totten’s characteristic language as be brought his guns into position: “Take that limber to the rear, G—d d—n you, sir. Wheel that caisson around, G—d d—n you, sir.” With the artillery providing cover fire, the infantry advanced cautiously. Although the Southerners in the open spaces around Curran Post Office itself fled almost immediately, it took the Federals two hours to clear the surrounding woods. Casualties were slight, but the skirmish was so heated that the Federals were occasionally pushed back, despite their massive superiority in numbers. “The 1st Iowa behaved badly & came running back,” artillerist John Du Bois noted critically. But “the other regiments did as well,” he added. Still, Lyon’s success was complete, and the hungry victors made good use of the spoils they found in the enemy’s camps. This included corn, oats, cured pork and beef, saddles, blankets, hats, shoes, socks, and miscellaneous weapons.¹²

Avoiding the previous day’s mistake of losing contact with the enemy, Lyon dispatched the Second Kansas in quick pursuit, leaving the remainder of the army to follow more slowly. By late afternoon, the Army of the West was concentrated once more, two miles farther down the Wire Road at a roadside store and farm operated by a man named McCullah. This had previously been the site of Rains’s headquarters. Because the hour was late and he was still uncertain of the location of the enemy’s main camp, Lyon stopped operations for the day. His soldiers’ sense of frustration was tempered by a belief that their two days of skirmishing constituted great victories, and they cheered their commander whenever they saw him.¹³

The men who faced the Federals on August 3 were mostly from Churchill’s First Arkansas Mounted Rifles, and they had a different interpretation of what had occurred. Far from being defeated in the day’s fighting, they had deliberately given ground, hoping to draw Lyon into a carefully prepared trap that McCulloch had positioned just north of Crane Creek. Significantly, McCulloch had deployed only his Confederate and Arkansas State Troops for this operation, leaving the Missouri State Guard in camp. When Churchill sent word that evening that Lyon had halted at McCullah’s store, the Texan allowed his advanced force to prepare its own dinner. Just before dark, he moved the men even farther forward, to some elevated rocky ground perhaps a mile from the Union camp. There they deployed in line of battle and went to sleep on their arms. McCulloch credited his enemy with initiative and aggressive instincts, as he fully expected to be attacked during the night. To avoid confusion, each man in his Confederate units, and possibly those in the Arkansas State Troops as well, tied a band of white cloth around his left arm (many members of the Missouri State Guard already “wore a red badge on their shoulder” for identification).¹⁴

Lyon not only made no assault during the night, he had his men build extra campfires to fool the enemy into overestimating his numbers. In fact, he was in such a quandary about his next move that he called a council of his top officers. The effects of fatigue and the weight of responsibility appear to have eroded much of Lyon’s self-confidence. For the first time since his initiation of war in Missouri, the self-appointed instrument of God’s wrath for the punishment of traitors sought earthly advice. He had captured a number of Southerners during the day’s running fight, and two deserters had entered his lines. These informed him that McCulloch’s force in his front contained between 10,000 and 15,000, many of them cavalrymen who might easily slip around the Union flanks and cut the line of communications to Springfield. Lyon had left the city only lightly garrisoned, and the freely moving Southern horsemen might even strike his supply base there. Moreover, on the basis of reports from scouts sent out earlier over a wide area, he still believed that McCulloch and Price had not yet combined their total available strength, and that a considerable body of the Missouri State Guard was near Sarcoxie, potentially threatening his rear. Lyon concluded that McCulloch’s cavalry had merely been making demonstrations in his front while the Southerners awaited the arrival of these reinforcements, which might bring their total number to more than 20,000.¹⁵

During the council of war, Lyon’s officers considered all of the possibilities, openly debating the benefits of advance or withdrawal. Though all of them favored fighting a pitched battle, the Union army’s critical shortage of supplies made retreat the only prudent option. Lyon accepted their advice. The common soldiers had a more direct perspective. Hearing the news, William Branson of the First Iowa wrote in his diary, “General Lyon has come to the wise conclusion that it is all foolishness to march his men any further south, as he is killing more men every day marching them through the hot sun than by bullets.”¹⁶

The return to Springfield began on the morning of August 4. Throughout the day Southern cavalry worried Lyon’s flanks and during the afternoon even attacked his rear guard. The need to take precautions against ambush combined with temperatures reaching 105 degrees made the march both slow and miserable. “Orders were now issued to lighten the wagons of every superfluous article,” recalled Joseph Cracklin of the Second Kansas. “As the day advanced the heat became intense and the dust insufferable.” According to journalist Thomas Knox, a number of men died from heatstroke and scores dropped behind, delirious from thirst. He wrote: “When the army reached a small farm with a spring, all discipline broke down and the soldiers fought over the limited supply of water. This included the Regulars as well as the volunteers. A soldier who obtained a canteen full of water from a hog trough was offered five dollars in gold for it by an officer. He refused. . . . To such a frenzy were the men driven by thirst that they tore up handfuls of moist earth, and swallowed the few drops of water that could be pressed out.” Finally, after marching twelve miles, the Federals obtained blessed relief from their sufferings when they reached Moody’s Springs. The water from the springs flowed into nearby Terrell Creek, which ran east for less than a mile before emptying into Wilson Creek.¹⁷

Reveille roused the camp at 4:00 A.M. the next morning, August 5. Once again Missouri’s hot sun bore down on the column as temperatures soared to 110 degrees. Whenever possible the mounted units rode in the withered prairie grass parallel to the road, but the wagons were forced to continue on the road’s dusty surface. Their teams and the steady tread of the infantry kicked up a thick yellow-brown haze that filled the ears, eyes, and mouths of the men and animals. It was nearly sundown as they approached Springfield. Four miles from the town Lyon stationed a covering force of about two thousand men under Major Samuel Sturgis. The rest of the troops trudged on to occupy their old camps in and around the city, but Lyon was so afraid of an immediate attack that he had all of his men sleep on their arms that night.¹⁸

This continued state of heightened alert prevented the rest that the Federals desperately needed. Lyon’s performance as a commander was steadily deteriorating. Since reaching Springfield, most of his decisions had been bad. Although his operations in June and July had neither trapped nor crushed the Missouri State Guard, he had secured the strategic areas of northern and central Missouri. Had he then withdrawn to Rolla because of his logistical difficulties, no one would have criticized his decision, and the showers of praise being heaped on him would have continued unabated. Lyon, however, not only refused to abandon Springfield, but he also continued to advance despite the deplorable physical condition of his men, first sending Sweeny to Forsyth, then taking the entire Army of the West into the field in search of battle. The war in Missouri had become a personal vendetta that warped Lyon’s judgment.

Equally disturbing was the evidence from recent events that Lyon was a poor tactician. He consistently misused his mounted troops, giving them combat roles rather than using them to locate the enemy, report its strength and position, or cut its line of communications. Following the skirmish at Dug Springs on August 2, he failed to maintain contact with Rains’s retreating horsemen. Bereft of knowledge, he huddled in a fireless camp that night, calling his weary men into line of battle in reaction to false alarms. On August 3 at Curran Post Office, his cavalry sat idle while his infantry advanced over unknown ground. Worse still, he ordered Totten’s guns to fire directly over the heads of these advancing troops. Because of the composition of Civil War artillery ammunition and the fact that it was prone to explode short of its target, this needlessly exposed the Federals to the dangers of friendly fire. No one was injured, but Lyon’s men resented the experience.¹⁹ Once the skirmishing ended, Lyon had held his cavalry in camp, sending the Second Kansas to pursue the Southerners and maintain contact with them. Although this unit included a single mounted company that was doubtless put to good use, Lyon’s troop dispositions reflected considerable inexperience, if not outright ineptitude.

Little improved once the Federal forces returned to Springfield. On the evening of August 5 Lyon learned from one of the emissaries he had sent to St. Louis that General John Frémont had no intention of sending him reinforcements. Although the need to retreat to Rolla was obvious, Lyon was “gripped by indecision.” The day ended with the future of the Army of the West in doubt. Lyon might have slept more peacefully had he known how much favorable news coverage his recent skirmishes would receive in the national and regional press. Reported as victorious battles, they fed the hunger of a Northern populace eager for good news to balance the recent Union debacle at Manassas. For enthusiasm, frontier slang, and parody, none of these newspaper accounts outdid the Atchison Freedom’s Champion, which proclaimed: “The news from South-West Missouri is glorious. It thrills us like the blast of a trumpet. Gen. Lyon has met the terrible-and-grand-hobgoblin of Secessia, Ben. McCulloch, and routed him! The forces of treason are in full retreat, and the Federal troops are pursuing them. . . . ‘The Lyon roareth, and the Whang-doodle fleeth to the mountain of Hepsedam, where he shall gnaw a file!’”²⁰

The events of August 3 further widened the rift between Ben McCulloch and Sterling Price. The following evening Captain John Wyatt, an assistant surgeon in Foster’s Infantry of McBride’s Division, wrote in his diary, “Today looked gloomy for a while in consequence of disagreement among the Generals. No one in particular having charge.”²¹ Dr. Wyatt’s vantage point doubtless allowed him to pick up current rumors, but he was ignorant of the actual command situation. McCulloch was in charge. The problem was that Price tended to forget it.

A confrontation occurred between McCulloch and Price on August 4, but precisely what happened is unclear. Twenty-five years after the battle, when both McCulloch and Price were no longer living, Colonel Thomas Snead of the Missouri State Guard wrote of witnessing a highly dramatic encounter between the two generals. According to Snead, Price learned that McCulloch was considering a retreat, rode to the Texan’s headquarters, and delivered an ultimatum:

Snead wrote that when faced with this challenge, McCulloch gave in and ordered the army forward. But Snead was hardly a neutral observer. He had served as an aide to Governor Jackson before becoming Price’s adjutant general and chief of ordnance. Despite what Snead wrote, one cannot imagine McCulloch, who was noted for once “smashing a chair over the head of an antagonist in the dining room of a Washington hotel,” sitting still for the insults Snead described, nor would a crafty politician such as Price likely use such language to a man of McCulloch’s reputation. More important, Snead is contradicted not only by the accounts of McCulloch and Pearce, which have McCulloch taking command of the combined forces on July 30, but also by his own wartime correspondence as adjutant, written on July 30 and 31, which indicates that on those dates the units of the Missouri State Guard were intermingled with McCulloch’s Confederates and Pearce’s Arkansas State Troops to form brigades under McCulloch’s command.²³

For these reasons Snead’s narrative of the meeting cannot be trusted. Historians have apparently credited it because Price published an order on August 4 announcing that henceforward the Missouri State Guard was “under the direction of General Ben. McCulloch, whose orders as commander-in-chief of the combined armies will, during such time, be obeyed by all officers and men of the Missouri forces in the field.” Indeed, on hearing this Dr. Wyatt rejoiced, writing “At last Gen. McCulloch was given supreme command of all the forces and gave orders for a march.” The surgeon’s remark suggests that although Price had agreed to serve under McCulloch’s leadership on July 30, he had made no formal announcement of the arrangement to his troops.²⁴

In the context of Snead’s wartime writings rather than his postwar account, Price’s August 4 announcement actually reads like a capitulation to McCulloch rather than a triumph over him. For Price’s order allowed McCulloch to give commands directly to State Guard officers, bypassing Price entirely. Although no one can be certain what actually happened at the fateful meeting, the two generals probably compromised. Because Price had already agreed to serve under McCulloch, he could not have offered to do so on August 4 as Snead wrote. Apparently, the Missouri general threatened to withdraw from their previous arrangement unless McCulloch advanced the army immediately. McCulloch acquiesced but demanded unquestioned, direct authority over Price’s units in return. Price therefore issued orders to that effect.

McCulloch’s reluctance to move forward is understandable. He was struggling uncomfortably with the necessity of making decisions based on incomplete information and bothered by the prospect of continuing the campaign under less-than-optimum conditions. He confronted an aggressive, unified enemy erroneously thought to be superior in numbers, arms, and discipline, comprised in large part of Regulars, and firmly anchored on a bountiful supply base at nearby Springfield. By contrast, the Western Army was a conglomeration of units with extreme variety in their weaponry and discipline. Indeed, “Rains’s Scare” suggested that portions of the Missouri State Guard were little better than an armed mob. The Southerners’ base at distant Fort Smith had limited resources, and due to the rugged mountain roads between there and Crane Creek, supplies were more than a week in transit. Meanwhile, an overreliance on green corn foraged locally, dehydration, and the effects of prolonged extreme heat combined to debilitate both the soldiers and the army’s draft animals.²⁵

One biographer concludes that McCulloch probably intended to withdraw on August 4, “leaving Price to his folly.” This is unlikely. Although he had failed to induce Lyon to attack him the day before, McCulloch still held excellent defensive ground and had supplies for several days. No immediate decision was necessary, and the Southern forces could easily have remained at Crane Creek for a while longer. But circumstances changed, involving more than just the confrontation with Price. McCulloch received word that General Gideon Pillow was advancing north from New Madrid with twelve thousand Confederates, a movement that might cut Lyon off from supplies and reinforcements via Rolla and St. Louis. Although Pillow would have a long, time-consuming march, it might be possible to trap Lyon between Pillow’s forces and McCulloch’s command if McCulloch could occupy Lyon’s attention sufficiently for the next few days. Equally encouraging was the presence of Colonel Elkanah Greer, whose long-awaited South Kansas-Texas Cavalry now rode into Crane Creek, completing their forced march from Fort Smith. Greer’s men were obviously weary, but the presence of these fellow Texans seems to have restored some of McCulloch’s confidence.²⁶

Whatever his reasons, McCulloch issued orders for the Western Army to march at midnight. His plan was simple. Colonel Louis Hébert’s Third Louisiana and Captain William Woodruff’s Pulaski Light Battery would act as the vanguard and “attack the enemy as soon as seen.” The infantry, artillery, and mounted troops would follow. Once contact was made, the cavalry of the Missouri State Guard would move off to the left, while the Confederate and Arkansas State Troops horsemen moved to the right. The Federals would be struck from the front and both flanks simultaneously. McCulloch apparently made no attempt to locate and utilize as guides or scouts Missouri State Guardsmen who were familiar with the area. This may reflect his continuing distrust of the State Guard or perhaps an assumption that contact would be made so quickly that such an effort was unnecessary.²⁷

McCulloch’s orders contained admonitions to the common soldiers that appear melodramatic by today’s standards. Reminding them of the recent Confederate victory at Manassas, Virginia, he wrote: “Look steadily to the front. Remember that the eyes of your gallant brothers-in-arms who have so nobly acquitted themselves in the East are upon you. They are looking for a second victory here. Let us move forward, then, with a common resolve, to a glorious victory.” But these were not superfluous platitudes. These soldiers had been raised at the community level and were imbued with a high sense of honor. McCulloch’s words reminded each man that as he marched to battle he carried the weight not only of his own reputation, but that of his hometown and state as well. Willie Tunnard of the Pelican Rifles remembered the anxiety felt by the men of the Third Louisiana: “Last messages were delivered to those detailed to remain with the wagons, packages for the loved ones at home made up, and the men laid down to what many deemed their final living sleep, ere the march commenced.”²⁸

As it turned out, the events of August 5 were a frustrating anticlimax. The Western Army had gone but a short distance when scouts reported that the Federals were in full retreat. In anticipation of battle, McCulloch had ordered all baggage left in camp and the men had only a day’s rations in the haversacks. But he was now so committed to the offensive that he ordered a forced march pursuit, leaving the wagons to catch up as best they could. The chase, which lasted all day but produced nothing more than some skirmishing with the Federals’ rear guard, was as tiring for the Southerners as the retreat was for Lyon’s men. Artillery commander William Woodruff recalled: “It was fearfully hot and the men were at the verge of exhaustion. The tired Third Louisiana swarmed about our guns on the road, hoping and begging to ride. Our officers were compelled to refuse—the teams had to be protected.”²⁹

McCulloch shifted Greer’s Texans to the front to scout the way, and he sometimes joined them in taking shots at the Federals in the distance. But by the time the column reached Moody’s Springs, it was obvious that Lyon had escaped. Because of the abundance of fresh water there and the exhausted state of the Southern army, McCulloch canceled the pursuit. The halt came not a moment too soon. Tunnard testified that “the men and animals made an indiscriminate rush for the water, which was fortunately abundant and fine.” Woodruff recorded that his soldiers “fell where they halted, and went to sleep where they lay, supperless; and it was only by personal exertions of the officers that the teams were unharnessed and picketed.”³⁰

The supply wagons were still far to the rear, and Lyon had made sure that the Southerners found little forage. “The enemy is laying waste as he goes,” Dr. Wyatt wrote. “Thousands on thousands of bushels of corn [are] being burned up. Oats, wheat and corn all the same.” While most of the army rested, Greer continued to scout up the Wire Road. When his men reached the point where the road crossed Wilson Creek, they noted the fields of corn and other grains on the adjacent farms. As the Western Army contained just over 12,000 men and more than 4,000 horses, requiring approximately 70 tons of supplies and forage daily, these resources could not be ignored. Word went back to McCulloch, and on the morning of August 6 the Southerners set out to establish a new camp along the banks of Wilson Creek.³¹

For approximately two months units from as far away as Iowa, Texas, and Louisiana had traveled hundreds of miles by foot, horseback, steamboat, and rail to reach southwestern Missouri. Some seventeen thousand soldiers were on a collision course, taking with them their deeply held political convictions, as well as the pride, honor, and reputations of their various units and those units’ home communities. A climactic battle might have erupted anywhere along the Wire Road from Crane Creek to Moody’s Springs between August 2 and 5, but a combination of circumstances postponed the confrontation. The events that occurred from August 6 through 9 ultimately led Lyon and his men to confront the Southerners in their camps along Wilson Creek on the tenth.

Note

^* Wilson Creek was usually misnamed “Wilson’s Creek” by soldiers, and the mistake stuck in references to the battle. In this book, “Wilson’s Creek” refers to the battle and “Wilson Creek” to the stream.