OUR FIRST BATTLE

On the March—Little York Raid—Under Fire—Our First Battle—Oak Hill (Wilson’s Creek)—Death of General Lyon—Our First Charge—Enemy Retires—Impressions of First Battle—Death of Young Willie—Horrors of a Battlefield—Troops Engaged—Casualties.

Well, eleven o’clock came, we mounted our horses and rode out on the road to Dug Springs, under orders to move very quietly, and to observe the strictest silence—and, when necessary, we were not even to talk above a whisper. The night was dark and we moved very slowly. About three o’clock in the morning an orderly came down the column carrying a long sheet of white muslin, tearing off narrow strips, and handing them to the men, one of which each man was required to tie around his left arm. From our slow, silent movement I felt as if we were in a funeral procession, and the white sheet reminded me of a winding sheet for the dead. As we were not uniformed these strips were intended as a mark of the Confederate soldiers, so we might avoid killing our own men in the heat and confusion of battle.

At daylight we were halted and informed that General Lyon’s forces had withdrawn from Dug Springs. After some little delay our army moved on in the direction of Springfield, infantry and artillery in the road and the cavalry on the flank,—that is, we horsemen took the brush and marched parallel with the road, in order to guard against ambush and surprises. We moved slowly in this manner nearly all day without coming up with the enemy—at noon we took a short rest, and dinner, and here many of us consumed the last of our three days’ rations.

Along in the afternoon, as we were considerably ahead of the infantry, we filed into the road and were moving slowly along, when suddenly we heard firing in our rear. Of course every one supposed the infantry had come up with the enemy and they were fighting. We were immediately halted, and Lieutenant-Colonel Lane came galloping back down the column shouting, “Turn your horses around, men, and go like h——l the other way.” Instantly the column was reversed, and the next minute we were following Colonel Lane at full speed. For two or three miles we ran our tired horses down the dusty road, only to learn that some of the infantry, who had stopped to camp, were firing off their guns simply to unload them.

We then retraced our steps and moved on up the road to Wilson’s Creek, nine miles from Springfield, and camped on the ground that was to be our first battlefield. We came to the premises of a Mr. Sharp, situated on the right hand or east side of the road. Just beyond his house, down the hill, the creek crossed the road and ran down through his place, back of his house and lot. On the left hand or west side of the road were rough hills covered with black jack trees, rocks, and considerable underbrush. Before coming to his dwelling we passed through his lot gates down in the rear of his barn and premises, and camped in a strip of small timber growing along the creek. In the same enclosure, in front and south of us, was a wide, uncultivated field, with a gradual upgrade all the way to the timber back of the field. Here we lived on our meager rations for several days. In the meantime the whole army then in Missouri, including General Sterling Price’s command, was concentrated in the immediate vicinity.

One day during the week we heard that a company of Missouri home guards, well armed, were at Little York, a small village six or seven miles west from our camps. Now, the home guards were Northern sympathizers, so one afternoon our company and another of the regiment, by permission, marched to Little York on a raid, intending to capture the company and secure their arms. We charged into the town, but the enemy we sought was not there, and we could find but four or five supposed members of the company. Anyway, we chased and captured every man in town who ran from us, including the surgeon of the command, who was mounted on a good horse, being the only man mounted in the company. Several of the boys had a chase after him, capturing his horse, which was awarded to John B. Long, who, however, did not enjoy his ownership very long, for the animal was killed in our first battle. We then searched for arms, but found none.

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 men had been shot for one day, we could only shame him and tell him that if he had had the manliness to take up his gun and fight for what he thought was right, as his neighbor had done, he would not be there to curse and abuse a helpless and wounded man, and that he should not insult him or abuse him any more while we were there. We continued our ride until satisfied for that time, and for all time, so far as I was concerned, with viewing a battlefield just after the battle, unless duty demands it.

Our train came up at night, bringing us, oh, so many letters from our post office at Fort Smith, but the day’s doings, the fatigue, hunger, thirst, heat, and excitement had overcome me so completely that I opened not a letter until the morning. Reckoning up the day’s casualties in Company C, we found four men and fifteen horses had been shot; Leander W. Cole was mortally wounded, and died in Springfield a few days later; J. E. Dillard was shot in the leg and in allusion to his long-leggedness it was said he was shot two and one half feet below the knee and one and one half feet above the ankle; T. Wiley Roberts was slightly wounded in the back of the head, and P. C. Coupland slightly wounded. Some of the horses were killed and others wounded. Roger Q. Mills and Dr. —— Malloy, two citizens of Corsicana, were with us in this battle, having overtaken us on the march, and remained with us until it was over, then returning home. Roger Q. Mills was afterwards colonel of the Tenth Texas Infantry. Dr. Malloy was captain of a company, and fell while gallantly fighting at the head of his company in one of the battles west of the Mississippi River.

I will not attempt to give the number of troops engaged, as the official reports of the battle written by the officers in command fail to settle that question. General Price reported that he had 5221 effective men with 15 pieces of artillery. General McCulloch’s brigade has been estimated at 4000 men, with no artillery, and this officer’s conclusion was that the enemy had 9000 to 10,000 men, and that the forces of the two armies were about equal. The Federal officers in their reports greatly exaggerated our strength, and, I think, greatly underestimated theirs, especially so since, General Lyon being killed, it devolved upon the subordinates to make the reports. Major S. D. Sturgis, who commanded one of Lyon’s brigades, says their 3700 men attacked an army of 23,000 rebels under Price and McCulloch, that their loss in killed, wounded, and missing was 1235, and he supposed the rebel loss was 3000. Major J. M. Schofield, General Lyon’s adjutant, says their 5000 men attacked the rebel army of 20,000. General FrÉmont, afterwards, in congratulating the army on their splendid conduct in this battle, says their 4300 men met the rebel army of 20,000. They give the organization of their army without giving the numbers. General Lyon had four brigades, consisting, as they report, of six regiments, three battalions, seven companies, 200 Missouri home guards and three batteries of artillery, many of their troops being regulars. Their army came against us in two columns.

General Lyon, with three brigades and two batteries, Totten’s six pieces, and Dubois, with four, came down the Springfield road and attacked our main army in front. Colonel Franz Sigel, with one brigade and one light battery, marched down to the left, or east of the road and into our rear, and attacked the cavalry camp with his artillery, as has already been stated. Poor Sigel! it would be sufficient to describe his disastrous defeat to merely repeat their official reports. But I would only say that his battery was lost and his command scattered and driven from the field in utter confusion and demoralization in the early part of the day and that it was followed some five miles by our cavalry and badly cut up, he himself escaping capture narrowly by abandoning his carriage and colors and taking to a cornfield. It was said by the Federals that he reached Springfield with one man before the battle was ended. But the forces led by the brave and gallant Lyon fought bravely. The losses are given officially as follows: Federals: killed, 223; wounded, 721; missing, 291. Total, 1235. Confederates: killed, 265; wounded, 800; missing, 30. Total, 1095.