CHAPTER XIV. LOSSES IN BATTLE—THE RETREAT.
We expected to pick up one or two of the wounded men into my wagon on our way back,” said Harry, “but found we did n't have to. The other wagons had followed close behind us, and gathered up all who could n't walk or take care of themselves. Some of the country people were out looking after them, too, and by this time everybody ought to be cared for in some way. But, of course, there 'll be a great deal of suffering under the best of circumstances, as there is a great number of wounded men on both sides.” And Harry was right; there was a great number of wounded in proportion to the number of men engaged. It has been said by students of warfare that down to that time there had never been in the United States a battle in which the proportion of casualties was as great as at Wilson's Creek, and without stopping to examine the histories of all previous battles this is a safe assertion. Let us look at the figures:
The total of the Union forces was not far from five thousand four hundred, including officers and men. They lost in the battle two hundred and fifty-eight killed, eight hundred and seventy-three wounded, and one hundred eighty-six missing, a total of casualties of one thousand three hundred and seventeen; or, deducting the missing, we have of killed and wounded on the field of Wilson's Creek, one thousand one hundred and thirty-one, or more than one in five of all who were present; and it is generally considered by military men that where the killed and wounded are one-tenth of the total on the field the battle is a severe one.
The rebel reports place their effective force on the tenth of August at ten thousand one hundred and seventy-five, of which two hundred and seventy-nine were killed and nine hundred and fifty-one wounded, a total of one thousand two hundred and thirty, or about one man in nine of the whole force. Even this was a heavy loss, but much smaller in proportion when compared with that of General Lyon's army.
Colonel Blair's regiment, the First Missouri, had seven hundred and twenty-six men under arms when it went into battle. Its loss was three hundred and thirteen, or almost one-half its entire number. Seventy-seven of its men were killed, ninety-three dangerously wounded, one hundred and twenty-six otherwise wounded, two were captured and fifteen were missing at the next roll-call. The First Kansas lost two hundred and ninety-six men out of seven hundred and eighty-five; the Second Kansas, the First Iowa, and in fact all the other regiments on the field lost severely, but not as heavily in proportion as did the First Missouri and the First Kansas.
Another notable circumstance of the battle was the large number of those engaged in it under Lyon who afterward rose to high rank. From that little army eight officers rose to be major-generals before the end of the war, and thirteen to be brigadier-generals. Many of the men who fought in the ranks became captains, majors and colonels. In 1863 thirty-two commissioned officers were in the service from one company of the First Iowa, and twenty-eight from one company of the First Missouri. And through all the noble records they made during the war for the preservation of the Union, one of their proudest boasts was, “I was at Wilson's Creek with Lyon.”
Among those who rose to be major-generals were Schofield, Stanley, Steele, Granger, Sturgis, Herron, Sigel and Osterhaus; while of the brigadier-generals were Carr, Plummer, Halderman, Mitchell, Dietzler, Sweeney, Totten, Clayton and Gilbert. Some of these officers covered themselves with glory in subsequent campaigns, and their names are familiar to the veterans of the war and will live in the history of the country.
All this, time we have left Jack and Harry talking about the battle, and particularly about the experience of the latter in accompanying the flag of truce.
Their conversation was cut short by an order to be in readiness to move at any moment. Evidently this meant that the army was to abandon Springfield, which it could hardly hope to hold for any length of time after the result of the day's fighting.
“If they 'll allow us,” said Jack, “we'll keep our wagons close together and help each other all we can.”
“Of course we will,” was the prompt reply. “We shall probably follow our regiment, unless the train gets mixed up on the road and the wagons are scattered.”
“I don't know much about it,” said Jack, “but it seems to me that the rebs could make it very lively for us if they wanted to. Here we've got a long train of wagons, we're a hundred and thirty miles from the end of the railway, and there's a river to cross on the way, besides lots of small streams and miles of woods, where they could drop on us at any time before we knew they were there.”
“Anyway, we 'll hope for the best,” responded Harry, “and see how things turn out. Wonder who's to command the army now that General Lyon's dead?”
“I don't know. We'll find that out, though, pretty soon.”
Before the march began they ascertained that the retreat was to be conducted by General Sigel. Major Sturgis, who had assumed command immediately after Lyon's death, refused to hold it longer, on the ground that General Sigel's commission in the volunteer service was superior to his own as a major in the regular army. Accordingly General Sigel assumed command with the assent of all the regular officers, and ordered a retreat to Rolla.
Had the rebels chosen to give trouble they could have given a great deal. The road to Rolla was none of the best. It was crowded with the wagons of Union men who were fleeing in terror at the threatened approach of the rebels, and the army had a train of wagons nearly five miles long to encumber its movements. If the rebels had attacked it on the road, they would have had a great advantage over the soldiers who had been defeated at Wilson's Creek. Brave as these men were, a defeated army is never as good at fighting as one that has not suffered in that way.
But the retreating army was not molested, and in five days it had crossed the Gasconade river and was in a place of safety. As soon as it had passed the Gasconade Major Sturgis discovered that he was really the ranking officer, owing to the expiration of Sigel's commission, or some technicality concerning it, and therefore he demanded the command.
Sigel was disinclined to yield it then, but rather than have trouble he did so, though had he foreseen the result it is quite probable that he would have refused. The commanding officer was entitled to write the report of the battle, and accordingly the report was written by Major Sturgis. At that time there was a great deal of ill-feeling on the part of many of the regular officers toward the volunteers. They looked with contempt, often undisguised, upon the soldiers who had come from civil pursuits or had not made military matters the occupation of their lives. This feeling gradually wore away, though it was never entirely obliterated, but in the early part of the war there was much more of it than was good for the service.
General Lyon had none of this feeling, but this was far from being the case with the regular officers under him. And their contempt for volunteers was especially strong toward the Germans. They had few good words for the Teutons who wore the blue, especially when those Teutons were commissioned officers.
General Sigel, having brought the column from its perilous position at Springfield to a point where it was out of danger, certainly deserved to have something to say about the official report, especially when that report placed upon him the responsibility for the defeat of the Union forces and the victory of the rebels. It should be remarked that the official reports do not show any loss in killed and wounded on the part of the two companies of regular cavalry that accompanied Sigel in the battle of Wilson's Creek, though four men are reported missing from one of those companies. With the exception of these four missing men all the loss of Sigel's column was borne by his infantry and artillery, all volunteers and nearly all Germans.
At daybreak on the morning of the eleventh of August the head of the retreating army marched out of Springfield in the direction of Rolla and the rising sun. Five miles from Springfield there is a road coming in from the direction of Wilson's Creek, and it was feared that the rebels might have pushed on a force during the night to contest the passage of the fugitives beyond this point. Had they done so, the great wagon-train would certainly have been in peril.
But no enemy appeared, and there was an agreeable disappointment on the part of many of those in retreat. To none was this more the case than to Harry and Jack, who did not relish the idea of losing their wagons and the property in their charge. Somehow the horses and mules seemed to catch the spirit of retreat and to feel that they were in danger. One of the drivers declared that he had never known them to pull half as earnestly as they did on the first day out of Springfield. He was sure they were solid for the Union and did n't want to fall into Johnny Reb's hands.
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All along the road there was the wildest alarm among the inhabitants who had espoused the Union cause. They felt that their lives would be in peril as soon as the army had passed, and many of them had already packed their wagons and were fleeing toward Rolla with whatever household goods they could carry away. They abandoned homes and farms, everything that they were unable to carry, and the spectacle presented by these fleeing refugees was a pathetic one. They filled the road both in front of and behind the army, and for weeks and weeks afterward a steady stream of them poured into the Union lines. We shall have more to say about these unfortunates by and by.
At last, after many trials and tribulations, the disheartened and weary army was encamped at Rolla, where the welcome whistle of the locomotive resounded through the air. The campaign of the southwest was ended, and the footsore warriors had an opportunity to gain the rest they so greatly needed.
Jack and Harry parked their wagons with the rest of the train, and wondered what would happen next.
“We've had a lively time of it, Jack,” said Harry; “but I'm not sorry we came.”
“Nor I either,” was the reply; “and I'm in no hurry to go home. Let's wait here awhile and see what's going to turn up.”
This was agreed to, and they sat down to wait.
CHAPTER XV. IN CAMP AT ROLLA—A PRIVATE EXPEDITION INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY.
The three-months troops whose terms had expired, or were about to expire, were sent home, and the post at Rolla left in charge of the three-years regiments that remained, together with a portion of the regular forces of the late army of the southwest. The First Iowa, as already stated, had been enlisted for three months, and soon after the arrival at Rolla it returned to its own state and was disbanded.
True to their determination to see more of the war, Jack and Harry remained at Rolla when the regiment departed. At the same time they wrote to their parents and sent messages by their comrades, explaining why they wished to stay in Missouri, and their reasons for not going home. “We are not enlisted,” Jack wrote to his father, “and so we don't have to get into danger like the soldiers do. We've nothing to do but drive wagons and stay around the camp, where everything is safe. The boys will tell you how it is when they get home, and you may be sure we won't take any risks we can keep out of.”
There was a good deal of special pleading in Jack's letter, as the reader plainly perceives. It was certainly a greater risk for the youths to remain at a frontier post than to go home, where they would be out of all danger. Furthermore, anybody knows that while the position of a teamster is safer than that of the soldier who goes into battle, it is by no means a situation of unalloyed security. Wagon-trains are liable to attack and capture in the enemy's country, and one of the favorite enterprises of a cavalry commander is to strike his enemy's wagon-train on frequent occasions. If the wagons can be taken away they become the enemy's property; if they cannot be secured they are destroyed, and, in either case, the unfortunate drivers fall into the enemy's hands and become prisoners of war.
The history of war is full of stories of attacks upon wagon-trains; one of the perplexing problems for the military commander to solve is how to keep open his line of communications when advancing into the region of war and protect the trains that bring forward the supplies for his troops. If an army could be maintained without food and ammunition, save what it could collect in the enemy's country, many a leader would be greatly relieved.
Through the recommendation of the officers of the First Iowa Jack and Harry obtained employment with the post quartermaster at Rolla. With the approval of the commander of the troops stationed there he issued new clothing and blankets to the youths, and they felt, to use an old phrase, “as proud as peacocks.”
A rumor came that a rebel army was assembling somewhere to the southward for the purpose of attacking Rolla and securing the valuable property stored there. The garrison was put at work to throw up defenses, cannon were sent from St. Louis, the hills around the village were cleared of brushwood, and everything about the place assumed the appearance of war.
One day Jack suggested to Harry that they would make an excursion into the neighboring country, just to see for themselves and have a little fun.
Harry agreed to the proposal, but said there was a difficulty in the way on account of their clothing. They didn't want to be known as belonging to the garrison of Rolla, for the double reason that the people would not talk freely with them, and, besides, they might be seized and carried off as prisoners; and furthermore, their suits were new and they didn't want to spoil them as long as spoiling could be avoided.
Fortune favored them. That very day a scouting party brought in a wagon-load of clothing which had been collected in a village a few miles away to be sent to a company from that village, and then serving under General Price. From this load of clothing the quartermaster allowed Jack and Harry to help themselves, and they managed to pick out two suits which fitted them about as well as one is ordinarily fitted in a ready-made clothing store.
Slouch hats added to these butternut garments completed their costume, and thus accoutered they set out on a tramp whose duration was an uncertainty. Their plan was to walk from Rolla to Ironton and back again. The distance between the two points was about a hundred miles, and they intended to take a different road on their return from the one followed on the outward journey.
Ironton was then the terminus of the Iron Mountain Railway, and was held by a garrison of Union troops. Colonel Wyman, who commanded the Thirteenth Illinois, then stationed at Rolla, promised to write to the commander of the post at Ironton and inform him of the proposed journey of the youths, so that their story would not be discredited on their arrival there. It was thought best that they should carry no letters or papers of any kind which might compromise them in case of capture. So they took nothing except sufficient money to pay their expenses on the way, and this was supplied by the commander of the post. The paper money of the state of Missouri was preferred to anything else by the inhabitants of the region through which they were to pass, and therefore they carried nothing which bore the stamp of the United States government, with the exception of a few small pieces of silver coin and some of the local “shin-plasters” that were then in circulation.
The story that they were to tell in case they were questioned was that they had come from the northern part of Missouri and were on their way to visit friends near Ironton. They would freely admit that they had come through Rolla, and Colonel Wyman gave them permission to tell all they knew about the garrison there, except to give a guess as to the number of troops at the post. To all questions as to the number of soldiers at Rolla, they were to reply that they “did n't know, but thought there were five or six thousand.”
The fact was a reinforcement was expected in a few days, but this was unknown to the youths, and therefore the colonel was quite willing the boys should give whatever information they could, and in saying that they did n't know the number of soldiers at the post they would be strictly within the lines of truth. On their part they were to learn all they could about what the secessionists were doing in the region between Rolla and Ironton, and to what extent it was sending recruits to the rebel forces in the field.
The only baggage either of them carried was an overcoat, if an overcoat can be called baggage. Jack wanted to add a tooth-brush and a cake of soap to his outfit, but the proposal was vetoed by Harry.
“Don't you see,” said Harry, “you'd be giving yourself away at once? These fellows here don't use soap, or so rarely that it is an exception; and as for tooth-brushes, I don't believe a quarter of the people have ever heard of'em. Suppose they search us or see us using soap and tooth-brushes; they'd know right off that we were not of their kind.
“And did n't you hear about how soap-boxes caused a lot of ammunition to be seized?” Harry added.
“No; what was that?”
“It was about the time of the Camp Jackson affair, when the state authorities were laying their plans for taking the state out of the Union and getting ready to fight. The Union commanders at St. Louis were trying to stop the shipment of arms and ammunition to the interior of the state, and all packages of goods going in that direction were examined. At first only the outside of the packages was looked at, but one day something happened to require a more careful inspection.
“The examining officers found some boxes labeled 'soap' on a steamboat bound for Lexington, on the Missouri river. Had there been only one or two boxes he would not have been suspicious, but when he found more than one hundred boxes he 'smelt a mouse.' He naturally wondered why the people in that part of Missouri could want so much soap, and from wondering he ordered some of the boxes opened.
“Every box was found to contain canisters of gunpowder instead of soap. The whole lot was seized, and after that no goods were allowed to go forward without a careful inspection. If the shipper had labeled the stuff 'whisky' instead of 'soap,' nobody would have been suspicious, as whisky is a staple article of commerce and consumption in that region.”
Jack admitted the force of the argument about soap, but insisted that a tooth-brush would not be suspicious or betray their real character.
“Don't be so sure of that,” replied Harry. “One of these Union men from the very region we're going through said the other day that he thought the colonel of the Illinois regiment was a very nice man, until he saw him come out in front of his tent one morning with a glass of water in one hand and a little stick with some bristles on it in the other.
“'He came out there,' said the man, 'and stood round for five or ten minutes pushing that little stick round in his mouth and hawking and spitting and sloshing that 'er water among his teeth till it made me feel sick. I don't think he's much of a nice man after that.'”
Jack laughed, and agreed that the tooth-brush must be left behind, as well as the soap, and thus it happened that they started with neither of those adjuncts of a civilized toilet.
They took the road leading in a southeasterly direction from Rolla, starting one morning before daybreak, so as to be well on their way before anybody in the village was stirring. The sergeant of the picket on the road they were to travel had been notified to let them go on without question, and he did so on their presentation of a pass duly signed by the commandant of the post. By sunrise they were a good three miles out of town, and had met nobody.
The first man they met was a Union refugee, who was making his way to the post to escape persecution of his secession neighbors; at least that was what the youths inferred, though he was too cautious to say so until he had reached the protection of the Stars and Stripes. He asked if he was on the right road for Rolla, and on being assured that he was he appeared greatly relieved.
“I don't know where you-'uns are going,” said he, “but you 'll find lively times if you get down into Arkansas.”
“How so?” one of the boys asked.
“Why,” was the reply, “everybody's going to the army, and they don't talk about nothing else. They say they'll be up here soon and drive the Yanks out of Rolla and everywhere else.”
“They're used to driving,” said Jack; “there's a lot of'em at Rolla that's just been driven in from Springfield, and don't act as though they were going back again in a hurry.”
“Yes, I've heard so,” replied the stranger; “p'r'aps they don't want to go back there yet awhile.”
The conversation lasted for ten or fifteen minutes, and was as non-committal as possible on both sides. Neither party was willing to admit friendliness for the Union side, as each was fearful of after consequences. The stranger was the first to move on, as he evidently distrusted the youths and wanted to get away from them.