On the 18th a determined attack in force was made. Colonel Mulligan wrote: "They came as one dark moving mass, their guns beaming in the sun, their banners waving, and their drums beating. Everywhere, as far as we could see, were men, men, men, approaching grandly. Our spies had brought intelligence and had all agreed that it was the intention of the enemy to make a grand rush, overwhelm us, and bury us in the trenches of Lexington." Mulligan's men sustained the shock bravely, and the enemy met such a deadly fire that they could not get to the works. But meanwhile they had interposed a force between the works and the river, shutting off the supply of water, and they kept up a heavy bombardment with sixteen pieces of artillery. They also took possession of a large house outside the lines which was used as a hospital, and filled it with sharp-shooters. Mulligan ordered two companies—one of home guards and one from the Fourteenth Missouri—to drive them out, but they refused to undertake so hazardous a task. He then sent a company from his Irish regiment, who rushed gallantly across the intervening space, burst in the doors, took possession of the house, and (under an impression that the laws of war had been violated in thus using a hospital for sharp-shooters) killed every Confederate soldier caught inside. Two hours later the Confederates in turn drove them out and again occupied the building. Firing was kept up through the 19th; and on the 20th the besiegers obtained bales of hemp, wet them, and rolling them along before them as a movable breastwork, were enabled to approach the intrenchments. Bullets would not go through these bales, and red-hot shot would not set them on fire. Yet the fight still continued for some hours, until the ammunition of the garrison was all but exhausted. For five days they had had no water except as they could catch rain when it fell, the provisions were eaten up, and there was no sign of the promised reinforcements. There was nothing to do but surrender. Mulligan had lost one hundred and fifty men killed or wounded; the Confederate report acknowledged a loss of one hundred, which probably was far short of the truth. A correspondent who was present wrote: "Hundreds of the men who fought on the Confederate side were attached to no command. They came in when they pleased, fought or not as they pleased, left when ready, and if killed were buried on the spot—were missed from no muster-roll, and hence would not be reckoned in the aggregate loss. The Confederates vary in their statements. One said they lost sixty killed; another said their loss was at least equal to that of the Federals; while still another admitted to me that the taking of the works cost them a thousand men. I saw one case that shows the Confederate style of fighting. An old Texan, dressed in buckskin and armed with a long rifle, used to go up to the works every morning about seven o'clock, carrying his dinner in a tin pail. Taking a good position, he banged away at the Federals till noon, then rested an hour and ate his dinner, after which he resumed operations till six P.M., when he returned home to supper and a night's sleep." The privates of Mulligan's command were paroled, and the officers held as prisoners.
In October the National troops stationed at Pilot Knob, Mo., commanded by Col. J. B. Plummer, were ordered to march on Fredericktown and attack a Confederate force there, two thousand strong, commanded by Gen. Jeff. Thompson. They arrived at that place in the evening of the 21st, and found that it had just been evacuated. They consisted of Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin troops, with cavalry and a battery, and numbered about three thousand five hundred. Three thousand more, commanded by Col. W. P. Carlin, marched from Cape Girardeau and joined them at Fredericktown. About half of the entire force was then sent in pursuit of the enemy, who was found just south of the town. An engagement was at once begun with artillery, and then the Seventeenth Illinois Regiment charged upon the Confederate battery and captured one gun. Then followed a running fight that lasted four hours, the Confederates stopping frequently to make a temporary stand and fire a few rounds from their battery. As these positions were successively charged or flanked, and attacked with artillery and musketry, they retired from them. At five o'clock in the afternoon the pursuit was discontinued, and the National forces returned to Fredericktown. They had lost seven men killed and sixty wounded. They had captured two field-pieces and taken sixty prisoners, and the next day they buried a hundred and sixty Confederate dead. Among the enemy's killed was Colonel Lowe, second in command.
A few days later there was a brilliant affair at Springfield, not far from the scene of General Lyon's defeat and death in August. There was a small, select cavalry organization known as General Frémont's body-guard, commanded by Major Charles Zagonyi, a Hungarian, who had seen service in Europe. On the 24th Zagonyi received orders to take a part of his command, and Major White's battalion of prairie scouts, and march on Springfield, fifty miles distant, with all possible haste. It was supposed that the Confederate troops there numbered four hundred. The order was obeyed with alacrity, and early the next day he neared the town. Here he captured half a dozen Confederate soldiers of a foraging party, and from them and certain Unionists among the inhabitants, he learned that the enemy in the town numbered two thousand instead of four hundred. Undaunted by this, he resolved to push forward. Some of the foraging party who escaped carried the news of his approach, and the Confederates made quick dispositions to receive him. Finding a regiment drawn up beside the road, he avoided it by a detour and came in on another road, but here also the enemy were ready for him. Placing his own command in the advance, with himself at the head, he prepared to charge straight into the midst of the enemy. For some unknown reason, White's command, instead of following directly, counter-marched to the left, and Zagonyi with his one hundred and sixty men went in alone. They began with a trot, and soon increased the pace to a gallop, unmindful of the fire of skirmishers in the woods, which emptied several of their saddles. The enemy, infantry and cavalry, was drawn up in the form of a hollow square, in an open field. Zagonyi's band rode down a lane, jumped a brook, threw down a fence, and then charged right across the field into the midst of their foes, spreading out fan-like as they neared them, and using their pistols and sabres vigorously. The Confederate cavalry gave way and scattered almost at once; the infantry stood a little longer, and then retreated. Major White with his command came up just in time to strike them in the flank, completing the rout. An eye-witness wrote: "Some fled wildly toward the town, pursued by the insatiate guards, who, overtaking them, either cut them down with their sabres or levelled them with shots from their pistols. Some were even chased through the streets of the city and then killed in hand-to-hand encounters with their pursuers." Zagonyi raised the National flag on the court-house, detailed a guard to attend to his wounded, and then retired to Bolivar. His own account of the fight, given in Mrs. Frémont's "Story of the Guard," is quaint and interesting.
| FORTIFICATIONS AND INTRENCHMENTS AT PILOT KNOB, MO. |
| CHARGE OF FRÉMONT'S BODY-GUARD UNDER MAJOR ZAGONYI, NEAR SPRINGFIELD, MO. |
"About four o'clock I arrived on the highest point on the Ozark Mountains. Not seeing any sign of the enemy, I halted my command, made them known that the enemy instead of four hundred is nineteen hundred. But I promised them victory if they will be what I thought and expected them to be. If any of them too much fatigued from the fifty-six miles, or sick, or unwell, to step forward; but nobody was worn out. (Instead of worn out, it is true that every eye was a fist big.) I made them known that this day I want to fight the first and the last hard battle, so that if they meet us again they shall know with who they have to do and remember the Body-Guard. And ordered quick march. Besides, I tell them, whatever we meet, to keep together and look after me; would I fall, not to give up, but to avenge mine death. To leave every ceremonious cuts away in the battlefield and use only right cut and thrust. Being young, I thought they might be confused in the different cuts, and the Hungarian hussars say, 'Never defend yourselves—better make your enemy defend himself and you go in.' I just mention them that you know very well that I promised you that I will lead you shortly to show that we are not a fancy and only guard-doing-duty soldiers, but fighting men. My despatch meant what I will do. In the hour I get the news my mind was settled. I say, Thank God, if I am to fight, it is not four hundred! but nineteen hundred! I halt my men again and say, 'Soldiers! When I was to recruit you, I told you you was not parade soldiers, but for war. The enemy is more than we. The enemy is two thousand, and we are but one hundred and fifty. It is possible no man will come back. No man will go that thinks the enemy too many. He can ride back. (I see by the glimpsing of their eye they was mad to be chanced a coward.) The Guard that follow me will take for battle-cry, "Frémont and the Union," and—CHARGE—!' Running down the lane between the cross-fire, the First Company followed close, but the rest stopped for a couple seconds. I had not wondered if none had come—young soldiers and such a tremendous fire, bullets coming like a rain.
"As I arrived down on the creek I said aloud, 'If I could send somebody back I would give my life for it. We are lost here if they don't follow.' My Adjutant, Majthenyi, hearing, feared that he will be sent back, jumped down from his horse and busy himself opening the fence. I expected to find the enemy on the other end of Springfield, but, unexpectedly coming out of the woods to an open place, I was fired on in front of mine command. Halted for a minute, seeing that, or a bold forward march under a cross-fire, or a doubtful retreat with losing most of my men, I took the first and commanded 'March!' Under a heavy cross-fire (in trot), down the little hill in the lane—two hundred yards—to a creek, where I ordered the fence to be opened—marched in my command—ordered them to form, and with the war-cry of 'Frémont and the Union,' we made the attack. The First Company, forty-seven strong, against five or six hundred infantry, and the rest against the cavalry, was made so successfully, that, in three minutes, the cavalry run in every direction, and the infantry retreated in the thick wood, and their cavalry in every direction. The infantry we were not able to follow in the woods, so that we turned against the running cavalry. With those we had in different places, and in differing numbers, attacked and dispersed—not only in one place, but our men were so much emboldened, that twenty or thirty attacked twenty, thirty times their numbers, and these single-handed attacks, fighting here and there on their own hook, did us more harm than their grand first attack. By them we lost our prisoners. Single-handed they fought bravely, specially one—a lieutenant—who, in a narrow lane, wanted to cut himself through about sixty of us, running in that direction. But he was not able to go very far. Firing two or three times, he ran against me, and put his revolver on my side, but, through the movement of the horse, the shot passed behind me. He was a perfect target—first cut down and after shot. He was a brave man; for that reason I felt some pity to kill him. We went to their encampment, but the ground was deserted, and we returned to the Court-house, raised the company-flag, liberated prisoners, and collected my forces together—which numbered not more, including myself, than seventy men on horseback. The rest—without horses, or wounded, and about thirty who had dispersed in pursuit of the enemy—I could not gather up; and it was midnight before they reached me—and some of them next day. I never was sick in my life, Madame, till what time I find myself leaving Springfield, in the dark, with only sixty-nine men and officers—I was the seventy. I was perfectly sick and disheartened, so I could hardly sit in the saddle, to think of so dear a victory. But it ended so that fifteen is dead—two died after—ten prisoners, who was released, and of the wounded, not one will lose a finger. In all seventeen lost.
"The bugler (Frenchman) I ordered him two three time to put his sword away and take the bugle in his hand, that I shall be able to use him. Hardly I took my eyes down, next minute I seen him, sword in the hand, all bloody; and this he done two or three times. Finally, the mouth of the bugle being shot away, the bugler had excuse for gratifying himself in use of the sword. One had a beautiful wound through the nose. 'My boy,' I told him, 'I would give any thing for that wound.' After twenty-four hours it was beautiful—just the mark enough to show a bullet has passed through; but, poor fellow, he cannot even show it. It healed up so as to leave no mark at all. He had also five on his leg and shoulder, and the fifth wound he only found after six days; he could not move easy, for that reason he was late to find there was two wounds in the legs."