Chapter 15

A Perfect Hurricane of Bullets

At the same time that Joseph Plummer was fighting in John Ray’s cornfield and Franz Sigel was maneuvering toward a favorable position at the Joseph Sharp farm, events continued to unfold on Bloody Hill. It was essentially a race to determine whether Nathaniel Lyon could consolidate his forces on the crest and move forward to a position from which to assault the Southern camps before Ben McCulloch and Sterling Price could organize a counterattack.

Lyon and his subordinates had no direct knowledge of Sigel’s progress. Both Major John Schofield and Major Samuel Sturgis heard artillery fire to the south, from the ridge where Sigel was to launch his attack. They also believed that Sigel’s guns were being answered by two Southern batteries located on the opposite side of the valley, perpendicular to their line and at a slightly greater distance. After a discharge of ten to twelve rounds, all the guns fell silent. The Union high command therefore concluded that the Army of the West’s daring two-pronged attack was working. In reality, no Southern artillery was in position to respond to Sigel’s offensive. The nature of the terrain may have caused the sound of Sigel’s cannon to echo off the high ground above the Southern cavalry camps on the Sharp farm, fooling Schofield and Sturgis. This misinterpretation caused no harm, as Sigel’s advance was indeed going well at that moment.¹

By 6:30 A.M. the Union battle line on the crest was about 2,800 strong. Lieutenant Colonel William Merritt’s First Iowa Infantry held the far left. To its right were six companies of the First Kansas Infantry commanded by Colonel George Deitzler. Totten’s Battery—the six field pieces of Company F, Second U.S. Artillery, under Captain James Totten—anchored the center. The right half of the line consisted of the remaining four companies of the First Kansas, led by Major John Halderman, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Andrews’s First Missouri Infantry, and the Second Missouri Infantry battalion under Major Peter Osterhaus. Du Bois’s Battery, with four guns, had taken a position to the left rear of Totten. Its commander, Lieutenant John Du Bois, engaged the Southern troops in Ray’s cornfield, while Totten dueled Captain William Woodruff’s Pulaski Light Battery near the Winn farm. The Second Kansas, under Colonel Robert Mitchell, remained in reserve.²

At the base of the hill south of the Federals, Price struggled to rally Colonel James Cawthorn’s horsemen, who had abandoned the crest, and bring the infantry and artillery of the Missouri State Guard into line of battle. This would not have been an easy task under any circumstances, but the confusion caused by the unexpected attack and the men’s lack of experience combined to make it a difficult, time-consuming process. Although Boonville, Carthage, and Dug Springs had exposed perhaps four thousand State Guardsmen to combat, many present at those skirmishes had been engaged but briefly. The Mexican War veterans scattered throughout the Guard were the only ones who had experienced anything like the challenge the Missourians faced in assaulting Lyon atop Bloody Hill. Although the State Guard possessed well-drilled units such as the Washington Blues from St. Louis, there were hundreds of others whose training did not predate the camp at Cowskin Prairie. Under these circumstances, Price achieved a minor miracle by getting some two thousand men into line by the time Lyon completed his consolidation and the Federals renewed their attack.

Instead of sweeping forward with his entire force, Lyon initially ordered Andrews’s First Missouri and the six companies of the First Kansas led by Deitzler to advance. Together they numbered about 1,200 men. Lyon’s reason for diminishing his combat strength by moving only part of his men forward is unknown. It is possible that he feared the enfilading effect of the Southern artillery fire on his left flank (he ordered the infantry there to lie prone) and sent Andrews and Deitzler forward to probe the ground where the undulations of Bloody Hill might offer some protection. He may also have wanted to await the outcome of Captain Joseph Plummer’s activity across the creek before committing a full-scale assault on the Southern camp.³

Because Lyon failed to place either Andrews or Deitzler in charge of the movement, it was entirely uncoordinated. Andrews advanced first, in standard linear formation, two ranks deep. To take up a position on the Missourians’ left, Deitzler ordered his men into a column of companies. They marched at a double-quick step around the rear of Totten’s Battery, then continued toward the front in column. A tree-filled ravine sixty yards wide separated Andrews’s and Deitzler’s units as they proceeded. This caused them to lose contact and made mutual support impossible. The Kansans actually advanced slightly farther than the Missourians before halting to go into line of battle.⁴

When the Federals began their movement, they were perhaps eight hundred yards from the battle line Price was forming. The waist-high prairie grass, scattered scrub oaks, and occasional dense thickets prevented the opponents from seeing one another clearly. One soldier recalled: “Large black-oak trees grew all over the field, but on Bloody Hill the probable average space between them was fifty yards, with a dense undergrowth between two and three feet high, and here and there bare spots covered with flint stones.” But the Southerners were warned when they heard the commands of the Federal officers and the noise made by the infantry crashing through the underbrush. Price was content to await the Federal attack. As only a portion of his command was in line, ready to fight, and ammunition was limited, he had no reason to engage Lyon’s men before it was necessary. Discipline within the State Guard was far from perfect, however, and a few soldiers carrying rifles, whether military arms or hunting weapons brought from home, took long-range shots at the Federals. Once the enemy got close, the State Guard line erupted in a blaze of gunfire.⁵

For the next thirty minutes the southern slope of Bloody Hill was the scene of fighting that was continual when measured across the broad front, yet highly episodic and sometimes brief in relation to individual units. Although soldiers on both sides described the fighting as heavy, most lacked perspective or experience. Actually, the combat did not match the intense fighting of later, large battles that are the basis for most assumptions regarding “typical” combat during the Civil War. The most important factor influencing the nature of the fighting was the scarcity of ammunition among the Southern soldiers. The conflicts at the Ray and Sharp farms had been too brief for this to be significant, but it shaped the battle on Bloody Hill throughout the day. With only twenty-five rounds per man on average, the Southerners could have expended their ammunition in less than an hour had they averaged even one shot every two minutes. They did not do so because they usually waited until they were quite near the enemy, then fired in bursts, with many lulls in between. Soldiers at different locations on the field estimated that they began shooting at distances of one hundred, forty, thirty, and even as close as twenty yards. The majority of comments focus on the closeness of the combat. One Kansan stated simply, “The lines were within shotgun range.” Private John Bell of the Missouri State Guard recalled, “The continual caution of our officers was ‘save your ammunition; don’t fire without taking steady aim.’” Bell claimed to have fired only five shots all day. More typical was Private Henry Cheavens, who fired eight times in one encounter with the enemy and considered it a major accomplishment. On several occasions the soldiers did produce a substantial volume of rapid fire, which understandably left a strong impression on those receiving it, but such episodes were never of long duration.⁶

On both the Federal and Southern sides, the relative inexperience and lack of training on the part of officers as well as men also slowed movements and added an element of caution to their operations. The soldiers’ sense of the battle’s ferocity probably stemmed in part from the almost constant boom of artillery. The batteries’ ammunition was relatively plentiful, even among the Southerners. Lieutenant George Sokalski reported that his two guns, which formed one section of Totten’s Battery, fired 240 times during the battle, an average for each gun of one shot every three minutes throughout the day. Although such statistics do not exist for other batteries, it is clear that, except for occasional brief lulls, artillery fired continuously.⁷

When directing their men, the officers on both sides tried to set the personal example expected of them. As the Federals approached, General John Clark of the Missouri State Guard ordered his men to hold their fire until they could “see the whites of their eyes, then aim at their belt buckles.” He rode back and forth behind his infantry, shouting words of encouragement and cracking jokes. Yet the work was grim enough for the most sanguine hearts. When Captain Daniel Mclntrye of the Calloway Guards fell wounded, the unit’s first lieutenant, John Haskins, took over. Within minutes Haskins’s struggle to keep the men in linear formation proved fatal. A friend recalled: “Seeing some of his men bunched behind a tree he rushed to them to scatter them, but too late. His last words were: ‘Scatter, boys, you are making a target for their cannon.’” An incoming round beheaded two of the men and tore Haskins nearly in two. The adrenaline rush that accompanied participation in battle sometimes allowed soldiers to ignore frightful wounds. Robert Tanner, a teenager in the State Guard, suffered a fractured femur, but as his company sergeant carried him from the field he shouted, “Put me down! put me down! I want to kill some more Yankees!” Yet even in the midst of such fury, kindness toward the enemy’s wounded was still possible. At one point the Calloway Guards encountered a badly injured Federal captain. As they had left their camp in haste without canteens, no one could respond to his pleas for water. But one soldier was able to share some whiskey and received the officer’s blessing in response. Private Joseph Mudd noted the irony inherent in the Good Samaritan’s actions: “The man gently placed the captain’s head on the ground, stepped over him, and with us, who had stopped to watch the scene, went on to renewed murder.”⁸

Because of their poor alignment, the First Missouri and the First Kansas fought separately. The Kansans reached the vicinity of Colonel Benjamin Rives’s abandoned camp, near a sinkhole, before they halted. Within moments they were trading close-range volleys with a State Guard battle line that grew ever stronger as Price led additional units into position. It was a historic confrontation. Deitzler’s battalion included the Scott’s Guards and the Oread Guards (or “Stubbs”) from Lawrence. The “Stubbs” had been founded after proslavery forces, including Missourians, sacked Lawrence in 1856. Now the Kansans faced infantry from Clark’s Division, Slack’s Division, and elements of Cawthorn’s dismounted troopers. This force included units raised in the Missouri River valley counties where slavery was concentrated. Companies such as those from Carroll County under Captain James A. Pritchard, from Howard County under Captain H. A. Martin, and from Chariton County under Captain W. C. Maddox probably had soldiers on their rolls who had been in Lawrence. They certainly contained men who made no distinction between abolitionists and Kansans generally, seeing their presence on Missouri soil as a continuation of the earlier “Bleeding Kansas” conflict. Deitzler doubtless saw it that way, as he had barely escaped Lawrence with his life in 1856.⁹

Within minutes of the first fire, clouds of white smoke began to fill the space between the battle lines. After a short time, Lyon ordered Major Halderman and the remainder of the First Kansas to join Deitzler. He may have done this in response to a plea from Deitzler, or perhaps the volume of fire reminded him that his forward line was dangerously thin. In any case, Halderman’s men were glad to change position. While supporting Totten’s Battery, they had suffered a number of casualties without being able to return fire. Halderman had ordered the men to lie down for safety, but he remained mounted. Private Joseph M. Lindley of the All Hazard company was inspired by the major’s coolness in the face of danger. “I looked every moment for him to be knocked off his horse,” he later wrote. Lindley was not impressed, however, when Halderman assured the Kansans that any man killed in the line of duty would go directly to heaven. “I had not made up my mind that I wanted to go that day,” he recalled. Whatever their individual trepidations, the men from Atchison, Leavenworth, and Wyandotte went forward with a cheer, anxious to meet the enemy at close quarters. They formed on Deitzler’s left, and the reunited regiment held its position. The struggle was intense, but the men stood to their work, thanks in no small part to the leadership of their officers and their strong sense of corporate honor. Private Joseph W. Martin remembered the courage displayed by First Lieutenant Camille Angiel after he was mortally wounded: “His last words were ‘give it to them, boys; remember your promise to the Atchison folks. Never disgrace your town.’ Such was the feeling of us all.” Also killed was Lieutenant Levant Jones. The Lawrence attorney-turned-soldier was at his post with the Scott’s Guards when he suddenly turned to First Sergeant Joseph Gilford and said, “Joe, I am shot.” Gilford asked him the location of the wound, and Jones replied that he had been hit in the hip. But at that moment a bullet passed close by Gilford’s head and struck Jones in the chest, killing him instantly.¹⁰

The departure of Halderman’s command left Totten’s Battery without infantry support. Lyon therefore shifted Captain Frederick Steele’s battalion of Regulars to replace the Kansans. Because this change, in turn, made Du Bois’s Battery vulnerable, the First Iowa moved into position on the left end of Lyon’s line to protect the artillery. While these maneuvers were taking place, the Federal batteries kept up a steady fire. As the contest in Ray’s cornfield drew to a close, Totten and Du Bois concentrated against Woodruff’s Pulaski Light Battery across the valley. Foliage partially obscured the position of the Southern guns, but the fire and smoke from their discharges provided aiming points for counterbattery fire.¹¹

This duel between Totten and his former pupil Woodruff had significant consequences, as it fixed the Federals in position. Totten’s guns served as the anchor on which Lyon was gradually forming his battle line on Bloody Hill. Yet this was a poor position. Because the hill was broad, the Federals could not see its base from the crest. Lyon’s deployment near the top of the hill rather than farther down the slope left a wide blind spot, a zone of relative safety that provided protection for the Missouri State Guard units struggling to get into the battle. Ironically, the opposing artillerists did almost no damage to each other. Woodruff lost only four men to Totten’s fire, while the Federal gunners escaped unscathed, as both batteries consistently overshot their targets.¹²

As time passed, Totten left the artillery duel to Du Bois and reoriented his fire to support the Federal infantry’s advance on the southern slope of Bloody Hill. Pressure on the Federals there was growing, due in some measure to Captain Henry Guibor’s Missouri Light Artillery. This battery, which had been camped with the bulk of the Missouri State Guard at the Edwards farm, was the first Southern artillery west of Wilson Creek to go into action. Guibor deployed in a position left of the center of Price’s growing battle line, where his fire struck the First Missouri. The Federals held firm for some time. In fact, Andrews was preparing to charge the Southern battery when he saw State Guard infantry moving around his right flank. He adjusted his line accordingly and began a fighting withdrawal back toward Totten’s position at the crest of the hill.¹³

The infantry threatening Andrews was commanded by General James H. McBride, the circuit court judge with no military experience. His staff officers were of little assistance, as most were former country lawyers. As a result, McBride’s Division was perhaps the most poorly drilled and least-disciplined element of the Missouri State Guard. Although he was described by one officer as a “clear-headed, silent, courageous man,” McBride’s success in confronting the Federals was largely accidental, for the maneuvers of the State Guardsmen were as poorly coordinated as those of their foe. Price’s intent was clear. After ordering Slack’s Division to hold the right flank, anchored on Wilson Creek, he worked to extend his front gradually to the left, by placing Clark’s, Parsons’s, and McBride’s Divisions on line in succession. But reality did not always conform to this plan. Individual units moved out as soon as they were organized, entered the thick underbrush covering the lower slopes of Bloody Hill, and sought their appropriate place in line.¹⁴

McBride’s command consisted of the First Infantry, 300 men under Colonel Edmond T. Wingo, and the Second Infantry, 305 men led by Colonel John Foster. Price ordered them to take a position on the left of Guibor’s Missouri Light Artillery. Foster led the advance. A soldier in Clark’s Division, watching them pass by on their way to the front, had both criticism and praise for McBride’s men. “I remember our boys laughing at their odd appearance,” he wrote. “All had deer rifles and they knew how to use them. They couldn’t stand in a straight line, but all the shells that Totten’s battery threw into them could not make them give back a step.” Through some misunderstanding, instead of supporting Guibor’s Battery, Foster marched past it, crossed a small ravine, and then moved directly up Bloody Hill. Wingo’s regiment followed, and by this accidental maneuver they outflanked the Federals. McBride apparently accompanied Wingo and did not realize that anything was wrong until they came to close quarters with the enemy. Indeed, many of the officers and men were so confused about their position in relation to the Southern battle line that they feared they were being fired on by other units of the State Guard and initially hesitated to reply.¹⁵

McBride’s situation was potentially perilous. He was isolated, his flanks were vulnerable, and there were no mounted troops nearby to scout the ground ahead. Had he been driven back, his repulse could have started a panic reverberating down the length of Price’s line. Yet, in retrospect, McBride’s action, causing Andrews to withdraw, marked the turning point in the struggle for Bloody Hill. Up to this point, Lyon had been on the offensive. Now the emphasis shifted. For the remainder of the battle the Federals would be on the defensive while the Southerners mounted ever larger attacks against them.

Having sent word to Totten of the enemy’s advance, Andrews halted to receive the Southern assault. He positioned the right half of the First Missouri facing west, “at right angles with the line of battle.” The remainder of the regiment faced south, toward Guibor’s Battery, which continued to shell Andrews’s men. When some of these rounds failed to explode, curious Federal soldiers examined them. Word soon swept through the ranks that the defective shells had been identified as coming from Sigel’s artillery—implying that Sigel’s part in the battle had gone astray. How volunteer infantrymen thought they could differentiate between Northern and Southern artillery projectiles is unclear, but according to Andrews the rumor caused “no little uneasiness.” They soon had even more to worry about, as the enemy’s infantry surged forward.¹⁶

The reports left by Price and his subordinates are so sketchy and incomplete that it is unclear how the first Southern assault on Bloody Hill began. While either Price or one of his division commanders may have given orders for a simultaneous advance, it is also possible that McBride’s errant movement sparked the attack, the State Guard units to his right moving up en echelon to support. However it occurred, Missourians from the divisions commanded by Generals McBride, Parsons, and Clark pushed cautiously through the underbrush. As units advanced at different speeds according to their discipline, the terrain, and the resistance they encountered, any coordination that may have existed at the beginning of the assault soon evaporated.¹⁷

Henry Guibor’s experience illustrates the confusion that accompanied the Southern endeavors. General Parsons ordered the commander of the Missouri Light Artillery to examine some high ground to the left as a possible position for the battery. While on this mission, Guibor became “surrounded by the enemy” and was able to escape only by riding north toward the Federal rear. This took him out of action for the rest of the battle, and command of the battery passed to Lieutenant William P. Barlow.¹⁸

Once the Southern assault began, the First Missouri’s position on the Federal right flank was crucial. As the Southern attack pressed home, Andrews walked along the length of his line. “As I passed each company,” he recalled, “I found it well up to its work, both officers and men cool and determined, using their arms with care and precision.” When the color sergeant was killed, Corporal Richard Kane rescued the banner and with it the regiment’s honor. Casualties mounted steadily. They were particularly heavy among the officers, eventually approaching 50 percent. Captain Nelson Cole of Company E displayed particular fortitude. Though wounded in the lower jaw and unable to speak, he continued to encourage his command through the use of body language as he was being removed from the field. The regiment’s surgeon, Dr. F. M. Cornyn, exposed himself recklessly while struggling to move the wounded to safety in the rear. His behavior was unorthodox, for on several occasions he grabbed the musket of a fallen soldier and fired a round to avenge his death.¹⁹

The First Missouri’s struggle was typical not only in its ferocity, but also in the potential for confusion that existed across the battlefield. At one point Captain Cary Gratz, commanding a company on the left flank, “discovered a body of the enemy approaching, led by a mounted officer, carrying a Union flag.” The identity of this unit is a mystery, but given the Federal position, Gratz’s opponents were probably either Colonel Joseph Kelly’s Infantry from Parsons’s Division or Colonel John Q. Burbridge’s foot soldiers from Clark’s Division. Because Missouri had not left the Union and the State Guardsmen were citizens of the United States, not the Confederacy, there was no reason why they should not display the Stars and Stripes. If Gratz was confused by the banner, he did not remain so for long, for he brought the officer down with a shot from his revolver. After hitting the ground, the man immediately sprang to his feet and raced back through his lines. Gratz then fired a second shot, “pitching him headlong out of sight.” The opposing lines may have been only thirty or so yards apart. After the captain fired his second shot, the enemy returned fire and Gratz “fell, pierced by five shots.”²⁰

When Andrews reached Company G, which was in an advanced position guarding the regiment’s left flank, Captain John S. Cavender reported several enemy attempts to turn his line. Shortly after this, Andrews was wounded. He was able to keep his horse and rode back toward the right end of his line, where he met Captain Theodore Yates of Company H. Andrews warned Yates that he might have to assume command. Feeling faint, he turned around, rode to the left of the First Missouri, “and obtained a stimulant.” While riding back, his horse was killed. The falling animal pinned Andrews to the ground, but several members of the First Missouri were able to free him.²¹

The Southern assault that began McBride’s movement against the Federal flank also brought the Missouri State Guard into a close-quarters struggle against the First Kansas, which had gone from column into line of battle. Sergeant George W. Hutt of Atchison’s All Hazard company remembered “a perfect hurricane of bullets.” Lieutenant Rinaldo Barker was struck three times but refused to go to the rear. With “blood streaming down his face and body,” he continued “waving his sword high in the air, urging the men to deeds of valor.” Nearby, in the Leavenworth Fencibles, Lieutenant James Ketner picked up a double-barreled shotgun from the battlefield. Standing calmly as if on parade, ignoring “the terrible shower of iron and lead,” he used the weapon “with telling effect upon the advancing lines of the enemy, until a ball struck the rammer out of his hand and passed through his blouse in rather close proximity to his breast.” With these and other acts of bravery, the Kansans maintained their position until the retreat of the First Missouri forced them to withdraw as well to avoid being outflanked. As the two units pulled back, the right flank of the Kansans and the left flank of the First Missouri briefly became entangled. This was a dangerous situation, as the Southerners continued to press forward. “For a few minutes the struggle was terrible and anxiety was exhibited on all faces,” Hutt recalled. But order was soon restored, and the Federals consolidated their line on the crest.²²

Lyon’s forward movement with the First Kansas and First Missouri had ended in failure, and by 7:30 A.M. the Federals were essentially back where they had started. The First Iowa retained its position anchoring the left. The Burlington Rifles and the Burlington Zouaves were deployed as skirmishers. To the right, the line formed an arc consisting of Du Bois’s Battery, the First Kansas, four of Totten’s guns, and the First Missouri. Soklaski’s section of Totten’s Battery had been detached to support the Missourians. The Second Kansas stayed in reserve.²³

As a result of this contraction, Deitzler’s First Kansas now faced the brigaded infantry from Rains’s Division, which had marched from its camps near the Caleb Manley farm. Commanded by Colonel Richard Weightman, one of the best officers in the Missouri State Guard, these men were drawn from a tier of counties either near or adjacent to the Kansas border, running from the Missouri River south to the Arkansas state line. Organized as the First, Second, and Fifth Infantry under Colonels Thomas Rosser, Jonathan Graves, and James Clarkson, respectively, the brigade included companies that wore blue uniforms and others that wore gray. Their combined ranks numbered over one thousand men. As the confusion was great and all Civil War units tended to have at least a few skulkers, it is unlikely that 100 percent of them exited their camps and reached the battle line in time for the first Southern push up Bloody Hill. But enough of them did so to cause the Federal commander the gravest possible concern.²⁴

Lyon immediately ordered his reserve unit, the Second Kansas, to the front. He apparently feared that the reserves would not be able to get into line in time to avert the danger, for in a desperate move he then commanded the First Kansas to fix bayonets and charge. Deitzler promptly obeyed. Through some confusion, however, fewer than two hundred men actually made the movement. Captain Bernard Chenoweth’s Elwood Guards, Captain Powell Clayton’s Leavenworth Light Infantry, and a portion of the Phoenix Guards under Second Lieutenant Matthew Malone followed Deitzler down the slope, while the rest of the Kansans remained in place. The attack could easily have ended in disaster, but the movement caught the Southerners by surprise, and the units facing the Kansans fell back several hundred yards. Nevertheless, success brought danger. Deitzler was wounded and carried off the field, leaving the diminutive assault force without a commander. The Kansans’ flanks were vulnerable, but thanks to the noise and smoke, and even more to the underbrush and undulating terrain, the Southern troops to their right and left failed to notice them. Recognizing the botched execution of the charge and the peril in which it left the Kansans, Lyon quickly ordered them back to the crest.²⁵

The Elwood Guards and Phoenix Guards returned safely to the regiment, but the men of the Leavenworth Light Infantry experienced one of the strangest incidents of the battle. Having become separated from the others, they failed to hear Lyon’s recall. After the momentum of their original charge petered out, Clayton dressed the company’s ranks and continued marching south in search of the enemy. When a unit wearing gray uniforms approached perpendicular to his left flank, he assumed that it was Sigel’s men breaking through the Southerners’ rear. Actually, it was Clarkson’s Fifth Missouri, apparently sent by Weightman to counterattack. Clarkson, in turn, took it for granted that the blue-coated Kansans were fellow members of the Missouri State Guard. When he asked Clayton the direction of the enemy, the Federal captain pointed southwest. The two opposing units then formed a single line and blithely marched off in that direction. They had not gone far before Clayton noticed that each of the gray-clad men wore a red flannel badge on his left shoulder, a distinction not used by any of the Union troops. Far from panicking, Clayton showed remarkable presence of mind. After voicing a loud complaint that his ranks were being pressed too closely, he ordered his men to march to the right oblique until a gap of thirty yards developed between the two forces. This action aroused the suspicions of Clarkson’s adjutant, Captain Michael W. Buster. Riding up, he ordered the Kansans to halt and identify themselves. Clayton brought his men to a stop, but he then yanked Buster off his horse and placed a revolver to his chest, shouting, “Now, sir, God damn you, order your men not to fire on us, or you are a dead man.” The adjutant fully matched Clayton in bravery and coolness. Turning, he saw that Clarkson was wheeling the Fifth Missouri to face the Kansans, having obviously realized their true identity. “There, sir, is my Colonel,” Buster calmly replied—at which point the Missourians opened fire. Amazingly, Buster was unharmed by this closerange volley. He suffered only a slight wound when Clayton shot him at point-blank range and a second one from the bayonet of Sergeant Patrick Brannon, who lunged at him. The Federals were intent only on escape. Clayton yelled for his men to “run for their lives,” and they did just that, rejoining the rest of the regiment in disorder. For reasons that are unclear, Clarkson did not pursue the Federals.²⁶

Meanwhile, the men of the Second Kansas began to enter the fray for the first time. Their time in reserve had been uneventful, with one exception. Long after the war, John K. Rankin, who had served as a Third Lieutenant in the Olathe Union Guards, remembered how an unidentified man rode rapidly up to them from the rear. “Our boys were dressed in such a motley fashion that it was impossible for a person to tell our side, whether we were Federal or rebel,” Rankin wrote. “This stranger came to the head of our line, halted to make an inquiry, saw that we were Federals, turned and tried to make away. Several of the men fired upon him unsuccessfully, until Capt. [Avra P.] Russell [of the Emporia Guards] drew his revolver, and as I have always regretted, was marksman enough to fatally wound him. He died almost immediately. We never learned the identity of the man, who was in civilian dress and rode a fine horse.”²⁷ In all likelihood, the mystery rider was a member of one of the Missouri State Guard cavalry units dispersed at the beginning of the battle.

When Lyon’s orders to advance reached Colonel Mitchell, he ordered the Kansans to their feet and marched them over the crest of Bloody Hill. After the strain of waiting, action brought tremendous emotional release. “How the blood leaped in our veins then,” one soldier wrote. “Some thought of our once happy country—of the institutions we were bound to perpetuate; some thought of Kansas—of the blood of brothers spilled in ’56. During that short quick march we thought of everything but fear and defeats Actually, optimism was hardly universal. As the Second Kansas passed behind Totten’s Battery, one Irish-born gunner, standing hatless and coatless with his shirtsleeves rolled up, called out grimly, “Ah, boys, it’s a devil of a hot place ye’s goin’ into, and it’s many a one of ye kids that’ll never come out o’ that.” The effect of such prognostication on the spirits of the men can be imagined. In one instance, the Irishman’s use of the term “kid” was literally appropriate. Private Robert A. Friedrich, only fourteen years old, was rather shocked by the words of encouragement the regiment received from brigade commander, Captain Thomas Sweeny, as they went into line. “Give ’em—, boys,” the captain exclaimed, “give ’em—. Aim at the—scoundrels right below their belts; give em—, I tell you.” Friedrich thought Sweeny “the most hardened and reckless man I had ever known, else he would not dare to use such profanity under circumstances so serious.”²⁸

After taking a position on the flank of the First Missouri, the Second Kansas opened fire. Some of the companies were armed with large-bore flintlocks that had been converted to percussion. These fired “buck and ball,” a cartridge containing one large musket ball and three buckshot. Although outdated by 1861, such ammunition was ideally suited for the close range combat on Bloody Hill. It gave the 600-odd Kansans devastating firepower. “There was a puff of blue smoke along the entire front of the regiment,” according to Friedrich. “I have a clear recollection of the effect of that first volley on myself. I was pleased beyond measure; here was an actual ‘sure enough’ battle commenced, and they were going to let me be in it.” His enthusiasm cooled, however, the moment he saw a fellow soldier wounded. “How cruel and heartless it seemed!”²⁹

The arrival of the Second Kansas combined with the charge of its sister regiment to break the impetus of the uncoordinated Southern assault. A lull developed as Price began realigning his troops at the base of the hill. Near the crest, Lyon did the same. He might hold his position for some time, but to accomplish anything more seemed doubtful. It was about 8:00 A.M., and there had been no word from Sigel.³⁰