| |
Snead
Wilson's
Creek, rising in, and around, Springfield, flows westwardly some five miles
and then, turning to the south, flows nine or ten miles in that direction
before emptying into the james, an affluent of White River. A mile or so
above its mouth it receives the waters of the tyrel's creek, flowing into
it from the west; and a mile and a half further north a smaller stream, Skegg's
Branch, flowing likewise from the west, empties into it. The road from Cassville,
on which McCulloch was advancing toward Springfield(knows also as the
Fayetteville, or Telegraph Road) crosses both Tyrel's Creek and Skegg's Branch
just about their mouths. After crossing the latter, it runs northward along
the western bank of Wilson's Creek nearly a mile, and then, crossing the
creek at a ford, turns north-eastward toward Springfield, which is nine or
ten miles beyond. Between Tyrel's Creek and Skegg's Branch there is a
considerable valley, partly wooded, lying between the Fayetteville Road,
and Wilson's Creek....Between Skegg's Branch and the ford across Wilson's
Creek, the valley through which the road passes is quite narrow, and the
road runs within a few yards of the stream. Toward the west a hill, since
known as Bloody Hill, rises gradually from the creek to the height of nearly
a hundred feet, its sides deeply seamed with ravines, and dinted here and
there with sink-holes. At this time it was densely covered with undergrowth
through which was interspersed a species of scrub-oak (Black-Jacks), and
near its summit the rock cropped out in many places....The hill on the eastern
side of the creek rises abruptly to the height of about seventy-five
feet.
 McDonald
(interview
with WF Steele)
This
bottom where the army's tents were pitched, was partly cleared farm land,
then and there were two large cornfields on it. The rest of the bottom within
the camp was covered with rank weeds trampled by the army, and some scattering
growths of timber and brush.....Its top, several acres in extent, was solid
flat rock, which was bare in places and covered with thin layers of earth
in others, out of which grew "scrubby" Blackjack Oak brush and a few large
trees. The sides of the hill toward the camp were covered with scraggy Blackjack,
too, not as high as a man's head.
Blue
& Grey
(Pvt
John Dailey, Rifle Recruits)
The country
round about was hilly and rough, and was intersected by ravines. Sink-holes
were numerous;...
Lane
Here
we remained for several days actively engaged in the various duties of camp
life, and preparing for the coming battle. Wilson Creek afforded us water,
and the black oak trees and bushes around us with others furnished us with
wood; while the surrounding hills provided grass for our horses...After the
nights darkness had enveloped the earth and rendered other things invisible,
then the thousand fires from the adjacent hills and valley shot forth their
light like so many stars in the canopy of the sky, while the hum of thousands
of voices came wafted on the evening breeze and the hoarse challenge of the
camp sentinel echoing through the hills and valley around.
 |
Maj
Gen Sterling Price
Commander
Missouri State Guard |
Photo
from cdv
(It must be remembered
that this is very early in the Civil War. This "Confederate" force included
actual Confederate troops, led by McCulloch, troops loyal only to the state
of Missouri, led by Price, and troops loyal to the state of Arkansas, led
by Pearce. Eventually, most would join the Confederacy. In pre Civil War
days, most citizens were loyal to their state, not the Federal, or Confederate
government.)
Snead
"Now
sir," said Price, still in a loud, imperious tone, "I have commanded in more
battles than you ever saw, Gen. McCulloch. I have three times as many troops
as you. I have higher rank than you are, and I am twenty years your senior
in age. I waive all these things, Gen. McCulloch, and if you will march into
missouri I will obey your orders, and give you the whole command and all
the glory to be won there."
 |
Brig
Gen Ben McCullough
Confederate
States of America |
photo
courtesy
3rd Louisiana
Infantry History
McCulloch
...I
assumed command of the entire force, compromising my own brigade, the brigade
of Arkansas state forces under General Pearce, and General Price's command
of Missourians. My effective force was 5,300 infantry, 15 pieces of artillery,
and 6,000 horsemen, armed with flint-lock muskets, rifles, and shot-guns.
There were other horsemen with the army who were entirely unarmed, and instead
of being a help, were continually in the way.
Snead
We were
all young then, and full of hope, and looked with delighted eyes on the first
Confederate soldiers that we had ever seen, the men all dressed in sober
gray, and their officers resplendent with gilded buttons, and golden braid
and stars of gold. To look like these gallant soldiers, to be of them; to
fight beside them for their homes and for our own, was the one desire of
all the Missourians, who, on that summer day, stood on one of their own verdant
prairies, gazing southward.
 Spfld Leader Neville
Here
were gathered together a strange and heterogeneous host of southern defenders.
The Louisiana troops gave the confederate army its highest military tone.
The gallant sons of the creole state who had left luxurious homes to fight
in the ranks for Southern independence....From the western frontier of the
imperial lone star state, where the waters of the rio grande are musical
with a thousand memories of romantic adventure, the daring Texas ranger had
ridden all the way across the vast intervening plains to participate in this
glorious achievement of driving back the "northern invader". The bronzed
Indian fighter, attired in his broad sombrero, fringed buckskin pants, capacious
boots, jingling spurs and pistol belt was the most interesting spectacle
of the Confederate camp...Boasting of neither patrician birth, nor heroic
adventure, these ungainly sons of the Ozarks had left their homes to fight
for that glittering cause which allured all classes of men to the field of
death. The experience of these unlettered followers of the Confederate standard
had been narrow indeed. Beyond their primitive homes, made of oak and pine
logs, where the boys had been born and reared, their knowledge of the world
did not exceed far. The thrilling coon hunt, the shooting match, the camp
meeting and the christmas dances were the events that had given life its
coloring of adventure for the young mountaineers, who were now trying so
hard to master some of the simpler elements in the manual of arms.
Unidentified recruit
Missouri State Guard
Spfld,
MO 1861
Well
Colonel, ef its orders, I 'spose I'se bleeged to kerry the sticken thing.
But all them Yankees is Dutch, and if one of them Dutch gets close enough
to stick me with one of them things, and he don't run, I will.
Edwards
Our forces
were in sorry condition...At least 2,000 men had no weapons of any sort.
The balance had any kind of a gun they could pick up at home. Yeager's or
Mississippi rifles, which were in vogue during the Mexican War, and squirrel
guns were the principle arms.
Snead
Many
of them, when just emerging from boyhood, had fought under Price or Doniphan
in Mexico; many had been across the great plains, and were endured to the
dangers and privations of the wilderness; and many had engaged in the hot
strife which had ensanguined the prairies of Kansas. Among them there was...not
one who had not voluntarily abandoned his home with all its tender ties,
and thrown away all his possessions, and left father and mother, or wife
and children,...that he might himself stand by the South in her hour of great
peril, and help her to defend her fields and her firesides.And among them
all there was not a man who come forth to fight for slavery....There was
not one of them who expected or who wanted to be paid for his services, or
who ever was paid.
 |
Lt
Williamson Kilburn
Co K
3rd Texas Cavalry |
photo
courtesy of 3rd Texas Cavalry
Blocker
Old,
gray-headed men came in, armed with their old squirrel rifles, a pouch of
bullets, a string of patching already cut out, and a powder horn full of
powder, to help the boys whip the Yankees....
Snead
In all
their motley array there was hardly a uniform to be seen,...there was nothing
to distinguish their officers, even a General, from the men in the ranks,
save a bit of red flannel, or a piece of cotton cloth, fastened to the shoulder,
or to the arm, of the former....Many of them had not even enlisted, but had
only come out to fight; thousands of them had not been organized into regiments;
many of them were unarmed; none of them were uniformed; very few of them
had been drilled. Their arms were mostly shot-guns and rifles, and they had
no other equipments of any kind; no tents at all; no supplies of any sort,
and no depots from which to draw subsistence, or clothing, or ammunition,
or anything. They had no muster-rolls and they made no morning reports. They
bivouacked in the open air, they subsisted on the ripening corn, and they
foraged their horses on the prairie-grass.
Greene
The officers
of the staff, who were small county lawyers, conducted their several departments
somewhat after the fashion of a loosely kept county court. Colonels could
not drill their regiments, Captains their companies, and many officers could
neither read nor write. There was a drum and fife in the corps, which sounded
all the calls in one discordant tune; companies were paraded in the
manner of convening a court of justice, the sergeants rushing out, exclaiming,
"O yes! O yes! All who belong to Captain Brown's company, parade heer!" The
officers and men messed together, they approached the General commanding,
without salute, squatted on their haunches listlesly around his quarters
and not infrequently addressed him as "Jedge". These men were armed with
the squirrel rifle, and their accoutrements consisted of a powder horn, a
cap puch, a string of 'patcher" and a hunter's knife....Like all primitive
people thier ignorance was compensated by a shrewd, quick mind, a rapid instinct,
caution and cunning, and like all back woodsmen their courage was serene
and steady.
Harry
(Col. Randolph
Harrison Dyer, MSG)
Our troops
have born all sorts of privation, almost naked, barefooted, without sugar
or coffee. In fact nothing but beef and half rations of bread and that half
the time without salt.
Pearce
Here,
a group would be molding bullets - there, another crowd dividing percussion-caps,
and, again, another group fitting new flints to their old muskets.
(Much
of the lead used by the Missouri State Guard to make bullets for this battle
had been recently mined from the lead mines in nearby Granby, MO. This area
had been secured with the victory over Sigel at Carthage)
Snead
".....furnished
a few loose, round shot. With these for a beginning, Guibor established an
"arsenal of construction." A turning-lathe in Carthage supplied sabots; the
owner of a tin-shop contributed straps and canisters; iron rods which a
blacksmith gave and cut into small pieces made good slugs for the canisters;
and a bolt of flannel, with needles and thread, freely donated by a dry-goods
man, provided us with material for our cartridge bags. A bayonet made a good
candle-stick; and at night,... The men went to work making cartridges; strapping
shot to the sabots, and filling the bags from a barrell of powder placed
some distance from the candle....My first cartridge resembled a turnip, rather
than the trim cylinders from the Federal arsenals, and would not take a gun
on any terms. But we soon learned the trick and, at the close range at which
our next battle was fought, our home-made ammunition proved as effective
as the best.
 |
Bugler
Albert Blocker
Co A
3rd Texas
Cavalry |
photo
courtesy of 3rd Texas Cavalry
Cater
Armed
with shotguns and squirrel rifles, with their powder horns and shotbags,
they must dispute the invasion of their country by well armed, equipped,
and disciplined Federal soldiers; and face them on the battlefield.
Stafford
All were
eager to meet the enemy of their country and try the rights of the rebels
to their so oft boasted claims.
Under Both Flags
It is
a matter of surprise to many persons that two armies, after traversing hundreds
of miles in search of each other, the troops on both sides confident of
superiority and clamoring for battle, should spend so much time in devouring
their food when a few hours' march would bring them together. The reasons
for this inactivity were not widely known....
Ryan
We were
armed with old squirrel rifles, mostly flintlocks. We all had large homemade
knives in scabbards by our sides.
 Wyatt
It is
really sickening just to think of only 10 miles between us and the enemy
and the men all keen to advance and give him battle, and the commanders holding
back in this way. Too bad. Too bad....I believe they are afraid to attack,
this is my opinion privately expressed by the by.
Snead
While
the army lay here waiting...McCulloch would every day sling his Maynard Rifle
across his shoulder and reconnoiter towards Springfield, sometimes in force,
and sometimes almost alone....He could learn nothing positive as to either
Lyon's strength, or as to the defences of Springfield. To all the entreaties
of Price and the Missourians that he would advance he only replied that he
"would not make a blind attack upon Springfield"....
Wyatt
Breakfast
is over and no orders about moving. Hell and damnation what do they mean.
Suspense is killing us all.
Snead
On Thursday,
the 8th, Price received information that Lyon was greatly perplexed; that
he was in constant expectation of being attacked; that he kept his men under
arms all the time; and that he was getting ready to abandon Springfield.
|
KS
TX
