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Text originally published in 1961 under the same title.
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Publishers Note
Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.
We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.
REBELLION IN MISSOURI: 1861NATHANIEL LYON AND HIS ARMY OF THE WEST
BY
HANS CHRISTIAN ADAMSON
The Rise of Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon, USA, who saved Missouri from Secession in the Civil War
FOREWORD
The story of General Nathaniel Lyon, whom the author aptly calls a Missouri Yankee, is a drama of stirring political-military events breaking on the Western Border in the spring of 1861. In exactly 90 days, Missouri was forever lost to the Confederacy.
The Lyon story is high tragedy staged at the sanguine second battle of the American Civil WarWilsons Creek.
There should be no finis to the Lyon story without an inquiry into the might-have-beens but for his tragic, heroic election to play the role of a captain of infantry and thereby sacrifice himself that torrid August 10, 1861, at Wilsons Creek.
Colonel Hans Christian Adamson in Rebellion in Missouri combines all the necessary elements in the dramatic story. He expertly re-examines Lyons generalship of the Union Army of the West. He ably reflects upon the significance of the Battle of Wilsons Creek now, a century later, in the light of all the evidence. Moreover, he brings to us, during the centennial year of Lyons death, a monumental biography of Lyon. The others are eulogistic and written in the stilted and artificial speech of the eighteen sixties.
In early 1861 Missouri was a large slaveholding State with a government indicating strong Southern sympathies and a plan to cooperate with the other Southern States. To this end, Governor Claiborne F. Jackson called the State Militia to assemble at Camp Jackson in Saint Louis.
In the pro-Union city of Saint Louis, Lyon, a militant Unionist and commander of the Arsenal, allied with Congressman F. P. Blair, Jr., in the interest of stamping out the secessionist movement headed by Jackson and General Sterling Price.
After Lyon captured Camp Jackson, he took command in the field. The State Troops under Price and Jackson withdrew to Cowskin Prairie in the southwest comer of the state.
Some believed that Lyon did not plan to fight; however, this belief quickly disappeared when Lyon wrote Colonel Francis Sigel from Huffmans Crossing on the Osage River just above the mouth of Sac River on July 10, 1861: Hang on Jacksons flank or rear if he advances to meet me. This is evidence that Lyon moved toward southwest Missouri to fight. In fact, Lyon appeared so anxious to fight that he forced one of the severest marches in the annals of warfare from the Grand and Osage River crossings to Springfield. By the 20th of July, Lyon was firmly encamped at Springfield, with 6,000 troops consisting of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Missouri, the 1st Iowa, the 1st and 2nd Kansas, and several companies and batteries of regulars from Fort Leavenworth.
In the meantime, Price had been given command of all the Missouri Militia, numbering 5,000 troops, now drilling and recruiting on Cowskin Prairie. On July 28, General Bart Pearce, with over 2,000 Arkansas troops, and General Ben McCulloch, with about 3,000 Confederate troops, including Colonel J. D. Walkers Texas Rangers, and Colonel Louis Hberts Louisiana Pelicans, united with Price, now removed to Cassville, Missouri, about 60 miles southwest of Springfield. On August 1, these combined forces began their approach march eastward, their objective being to capture Lyons army at Springfield, and to regain control of the State Government. On August 6, most of the Southern forces reached Wilsons Creek and went into camp along its banks close to the ripening corn in the bottom land, 12 miles southwest of Springfield.
On the morning of August 9, Lyon, still at Springfield, called a council of war and said: I propose to march this evening with all our available force...and marching by the Fayetteville road, throw our whole force upon the enemy at once and endeavor to rout him before he can recover from his surprise. The plan was accepted, but the single-pronged assault idea was canceled.
At the insistence of Sigel, the battle plan was changed and the force divided into two columns with a lack of communications and a divided command. The substitute plan was a departure from accepted principles but agreed to by Lyon because of Sigels supposedly great military ability and wide experience.
Thus did the final plan prescribe a desperate thrust in the face of an order from the Western Department in Saint Louis by his superior, General John C. Frmont, directing a withdrawal to Rolla. What compelled Lyon to override Frmont and to execute instead this substitute plan of a divided attack on his adversary whom he believed to hold a numerical superiority of five to one?
On the night before the battle on the road to surprise the Confederates at Wilsons Creek, Lyon en bivouac shared a rubber coat with his Chief of Staff and spoke clearly of his responsibility to the citizens of southwest Missouri. John M. Schofield, later to be General of the Armies, says: This night Lyon was oppressed with the responsibility of this situation, with anxiety for the cause, and with sympathy for the Union people of that section, when he should retreat and leave to their fate those who could not forsake their homes.
