October, 1861.
CHAPTER V
THE WAR IN THE WEST
While the Army of the Potomac in the east was imitating the manœuvres of the King of France, stirring times were enacting in the west. Missouri was torn with dissension. The state had voted against secession in February, but the governor, C. F. Jackson, was doing everything he could to throw it into the Confederacy. General Nathaniel Lyon raised a force of loyalists, and a number of skirmishes ensued.
THE LITTLE DRUMMER[9]
'Tis of a little drummer,
The story I shall tell;
Of how he marched to battle,
Of all that there befell,
Out in the west with Lyon
(For once the name was true!)
For whom the little drummer beat
His rat-tat-too.
Our army rose at midnight,
Ten thousand men as one,
Each slinging off his knapsack
And snatching up his gun.
"Forward!" and off they started,
As all good soldiers do,
When the little drummer beats for them
The rat-tat-too.
Across a rolling country,
Where the mist began to rise;
Past many a blackened farmhouse,
Till the sun was in the skies;
Then we met the rebel pickets,
Who skirmished and withdrew,
While the little drummer beat, and beat
The rat-tat-too.
Along the wooded hollows
The line of battle ran,
Our centre poured a volley,
And the fight at once began;
For the rebels answered shouting,
And a shower of bullets flew;
But still the little drummer beat
His rat-tat-too.