Tales of the War: Maj. Emory S. Foster’s
Graphic Account of the Battle of Lone Jack
The part of the village occupied by the Federal force is known as New
Town, the older part of the village lying farther northward. The new town is
located on the summit of a high prairie ridge, overlooking the surrounding
country. On the east of this new town is a field of growing corn, surrounded
by a hedge of Osage orange, strong and tall. The hedge row, which bounds
this field on the west, lies only a few yards behind the houses along the
eastern line of the street. These buildings, abandoned by their owners who
find shelter farther north, are at once occupied by the Federals, expecting an
attack from the west. Behind these buildings—between them and the hedge—
they take position, the center of their line resting on a blacksmith shop—an
excellent support. Here is the artillery commanding the street from end to
end. This line, protected by wooden walls in front, is guarded from attack in
the rear by the hedge, impassable save at the entrance to the field in the
rear of the blacksmith shop. The horses are in the field east of us among the
growing corn, surrounded by the hedge. This disposition of the small force
seems to one without military experience or special strategic ability not
wanting in advantage, and perhaps the best that could be made with so
short a time for examination of the field.
On the western line of the street are buildings, and behind these a field of
hemp, or rank-growing weeds. It is the season when such vegetation has
reached its largest growth, and a man on horseback might hide himself in
this field.
I passed along the whole line, observing the temper of the men. Many of
them had never been under fire. Their very inexperience gave them an air
of confidence and enthusiasm. Others, however, had seen service, and
these, after the manner of experienced soldiers, having, since the coming of
daylight, quietly accepted death, were no longer either enthusiastic or
afraid. Such men are cool and efficient fighters. It may be a fault in a
commanding officer to be careless of danger, but it certainly lends strength
and courage to the soldier to no longer fear wounds or death.
On the right of our line were the detachments from Colonel Huston’s
regiment. On the left were the companies of the Sixth M.S.M., and in the
center with the artillery were the men of the Seventh and Eighth and of
Nugent’s battalion. Perhaps 740 men are in line.
About forty minutes after the pickets came in the battle was commenced
with fury by the left wing of the Confederate force, which, advancing
through the hemp field on the west, attempted to turn our right. Crossing the
street without order, a considerable body of men on foot, and armed with
shotguns, funning and firing as they ran, sought to pass on the north of our
position to our rear, a plan well conceived but prevented in execution by an
unlooked-for obstacle. They found the hedge impenetrable, and they found
behind the hedge—hurried there from the center—Captain Long with part of
his battalion.
Suddenly the assailants found themselves assailed by Brawner on the south
and by Long on the east, and being without shelter they quickly recrossed
the street and disappeared in the tall hemp. Thus the attack was perhaps
intended to deceive us as to the real intention of the Confederates, and while
it was in progress was supplemented by a similar maneuver south of us.
There several hundred men, well mounted and apparently well armed,
crossed the street from the west, and passing into the corn field, which at
the point was protected only by a rail fence, threatened our left. Captain
Slocum, with two companies, was sent southward on the east line of the
hedge in our rear to a point perhaps a hundred feet south of the left of our
line, where the hedge, turning sharply, ran through the tall corn eastwardly.
Behind this hedge—on the north side of it—Slocum, with his men lying silent
and immovable, awaited the horsemen riding up from the south through the
corn.
This cavalry force was Quantrill’s battalion, three hundred strong, the most
reckless fighters ever known in Missouri. As they came onward they called
to each other in wild, half-barbaric fashion. Suddenly a strange and deadly
thing occurred. The charging column, reaching the unseen and treacherous
hedge, recoiled upon itself. Furious cries and fearful maledictions, mingled
with the sharp rattle of Slocum’s rifles, told of confusion on the one side and
deadly determination on the other of that green wall. Here was one of the
deadliest spots on the bloody field of Lone Jack. But the killing here was all
done by Slocum, for so great was the confusion amount the guerrillas—
those behind crowding forward upon those checked by the hedge—that not
a hundred shots, all told, were fired by them. Finding this route
impracticable they returned to the main body of Confederates massed on
our front.
I have never seen an account of the battle written by a Confederate officer
or soldier who took part in it, or heard a full description of the engagement
form a Confederate having personal knowledge of it. I talked with a with a
number in authority, however, after I had fallen into the hands of the
Confederates that day. But I was severely wounded and at times entirely
unconscious, it is not surprising that I got no definite knowledge concerning
the plan of their operations. I must speak if the matter, therefore, as it
appeared to me then and in the light of such information as has reached me
indirectly since that time I find a very impartial account of the battle of Lone
Jack in a history of Jackson County, printed in 1881 by a publishing company
in Kansas City. The writer of this account located the Confederate forces in
the neighborhood of Lone Jack on the evening of the 15th as follows:
Thompson and Hays, with 500 men or more, were encamped on the
eastern banks of the Little Blue, some fifteen miles away; Quantrill, still
farther off; and of the reinforcements just from the South—Cockrell was
northwest of the village three or four miles; Tracy and Coffee south of it
about a mile on the farm of David Arnold; Lewis still farther south; Jackman
was also in the neighborhood." This writer says the Confederates claimed,
the day before the fight, to number 4,000. General Blunt says he found them
4,000 strong the day after the fight. (Rebellion Record, vol. 5, pg 582) The
Confederates with whom I talked the day after the fight said they were about
3,000 strong.
It seems to me very probable that the Confederate forces had not all
reached the field when the unsuccessful attempts to turn our position were
made. At any rate, I am impressed with the belief that about the time
Slocum repulsed Quantrill, someone, either by right of his rank or by reason
of the personal force that was in him, put in operation a plan well calculated
to affect the desired end—the capture or annihilation of the Federal force. I
think this commanding man Colonel Vard Cockrell, a very able man and a
very good and brave one. He did not, in my presence, claim to be in chief
command. But I say that Jackman, Hays, Lewis, Quantrill, and others
obeyed his orders and recognized him as chief. I conceive therefore, that it
is to his tenacity and ability that we owe the pounding we received that day.
Almost directly opposite the blacksmith shop upon which rested the Federal
center was the hotel, used as headquarters by us the night before. This
being on the west side of the street, had been abandoned when our line was
formed, and in it were left the three wounded Confederates captured in the
attack upon Coffee. This hotel was flanked on either side by buildings
extending along the west side of the street. The Confederate plan as now
developed was ably conceived. Advancing in line with an even movement
almost as one man, they leave the cover of the hemp field and occupy the
houses on the west side of the street, their center resting upon the hotel and
their wings extending far to the north and south of us. They open upon us
with their rifles and shotguns a most persistent and destructive fire,
"continuing in season and out of season." Under the cover of this deadly
fusilade a column of men coming from behind the hotel march straight upon
the center of our line, intending to pierce it, to cut us in two, to make of us
two fragments, and, capturing our guns, to drive one detachment of our
force to the south and the other to the north, to scatter us on the prairie, to
destroy us. A masterly plan, but a plan which does not succeed because
there is another plan which disarranges it.
Sergeant Scott handles his funs magnificently. With nothing but round shot,
he finds round shot amply sufficient. Ball after ball, with unerring, deadly
aim plunges through the hotel, through the houses to the north and south of
it. Wherever a Confederate fusilade bursts from a window a cannon ball
crashes. The advancing column no longer covered by a protecting fusilade
withers and shrivels before the scorching from our entire line and drifts
back into the field of hemp.
At half-past 6 the engagement has become general. The Confederates facing
eastward, fight with the August morning sun full in their eyes—a serious
disadvantage. But this is not so serious, as they are armed almost entirely
with shotguns, good to kill at short range, even without accurate aim. This
accounts for the fact so often noted of this engagement—there was no
skirmishing at long range at Lone Jack. The bloody work went on full five
hours across a street only sixty feet in width—when it was not a hand-to-
hand encounter. The shotguns made this close work a necessity. There was
not a cloud in the sky and the heat was terrible.
The accompaniment of this prolonged struggle is a continuous, gloomy,
monotonous roar of shotguns, enlivened at intervals by sharp, staccato
pistol passages and brilliant runs of rifle practice. The growling bass notes
of this monstrous melange are from Scott’s guns at the shop. Its ever-
recurring "musical motif" is the shrill-sustained battle cry, known in history
as the "rebel yell."
Such a combat is full of incidents. There was here no swaying back and
forth before each other of uncertain, wavering lines. From 7 o’clock till 10
the opposed forces, like two wrestling athletes, held each other in a horrible
embrace, each striving for advantage, neither seizing it.
In such a struggle soldiers become their own officers and seek adventure
on their own account. A bunch of weeds becomes the hiding place of a
sharpshooter who makes the affair a personal matter. A convenient shed
conceals bloody men waiting eagerly for opportunity to kill. A face at a
window is a signal for a shower of balls. A few hours of such fighting
bleeds the opposing forces terribly. The final result of such a contest is only
postponed, not in any way rendered uncertain. That force will yield which
first bleeds to death or loses the power to bleed the other.
And here a circumstance is worthy of note. The Confederates, being the
assailants, kept up a continuous fire, never ceasing. The Federals, on the
defensive, reserved their fire for occasions of necessity, to repel assaults, to
dislodge sharpshooters, to hold the enemy in check. In this lay our
advantage. We waited for reinforcements, fighting against time and saving
our ammunition. The Confederates, having taken a contract, desired to
perform their work in the cool of the morning. They wasted their strength
and blistered and blistered their tongues in repeated efforts to make a
mouthful of a fair average breakfast piping hot and seasoned with pepper. It
was, perhaps, a mistake. It was our advantage. If Warren had obeyed
orders it would have been our salvation and their destruction.
About 9 o’clock the hotel across the street from us is seen to be on fire. At
first the flames spread slowly, creeping along the south end of the house
towards the west. A strong wind drives the fire inward at the first opening,
and the building is consumed in an incredibly short time. Three dead bodies
were afterwards found where the west wing of this building had stood. One
of these was the body of the young prisoner whose hop had been
dislocated. The others were, perhaps, those of his two wounded comrades
left there with him the night before. It was a pity.
At this time the punishment on the Federal side of the street was severe. But
I saw no signs of discouragement. On the contrary the feeling had grown
among us that we could hold the position. The men now fight with great
deliberation and terrible tenacity. A man of Captain Long’s company, shot
through the lower jaw, cannot "bite" his cartridges. He is ordered to the rear.
With furious, inarticulate cries, he refuses to obey. He is seen half an hour
afterwards loading and firing with quiet determination and apparent
satisfaction. He had found a comrade disabled in both arms, but with teeth
intact. The two together counted one soldier. A man of Captain Plumb’s
company, shot through the head—mortally wounded—was seen as hour
afterwards attempting to load his carbine. He died with it in his hand.
About half-past 9 a force of perhaps 200 men appeared near a mile south of
us on the crest of a prairie ridge. They were Federals. We sent to them
across the green expanse a ringing shout of welcome. But they came no
nearer and in a few moments disappeared behind the hilltop. This was a
force sent out from Lexington after we left that post. I never knew what
pressing business prevented them from joining our picnic.
About 10 o’clock the deadly fire of Confederate sharpshooters, posted in a
small log house some distance north of our center, greatly harassed our
right. To make the artillery effective against this house it must be dragged
into the street and there served. Sergeant Scott will do it. Captain Brawner
will support him with riflemen. While preparations are making for this, the
roar of shotguns on our front seems to decrease; almost to cease. Are they
then out of ammunition? Suddenly a man on horseback rides among the
men behind the houses west of the street distributing cartridges from a
basket, escaping unhurt. The Federals gave him a rousing cheer in
recognition of his nerve. He was a good one.
The artillery is now in the street doing good work. At this moment
Lieutenant Develin, riding up the street from the south, shouts to the men at
the funs, ordering them to fall back. Again disobeying orders, he assumes
command of his men, and they, obeying mechanically, give way. Sergeant
Scott, with blackened face and flaming eyes, and fighting like a devil
incarnate, countermands the order. The men hesitate. Develin is shot from
his horse. The Confederates, seeing now their opportunity again pour across
the street. The guns are captured, Captain Brawner being unable to hold
them. This is the crisis of the battle.
Brawner, being reinforced, retakes the guns. They are captured again, and
again retaken. The Federals swarm into the street, and, fighting with
revolvers and clubbed rifles, drive back the Confederates and return toward
the shop with the guns. But they are set upon by a largely superior force,
and again the guns are in Confederate hands and crossing the street to the
west.
Captain Long at this time was ordered up from the left center of our line. He
fought hard all morning and had been wounded more than once. His coat
had been thrown aside and his shirt, open at the collar, exposed his breast
bathed in blood and powder stained. He had a strange light in his eye, and
his parted lips showed his teeth set sharply together. I asked him if he could
go with me to retake the guns. He said: "I would go with you to hell!" He
had in his hand an empty revolver. He was superb and had with him sixty
men of the same metal.
We fall upon the rebels in the middle of the street and struggled with them
for the guns. The carnage here is frightful. In less time than is required for
the telling of it the sixty Federals are but forty, and of these all but a dozen
are disabled. Captain Long is mortally wounded. Lieutenant Rogers is sorely
hurt. Others lie in heaps—dead and dying. My brother and I, with ten others,
remain unhurt, and the guns are in our hands. We seize them to drag them
eastward to the shop.
At this moment a ball passed through my body. The sensation was not
disagreeable. I remember that I had experienced a similar feeling when
passing into unconsciousness from the inhalation of ether. When I fell upon
the ground I had no sense of touching the earth, but felt as if floating in the
air. All this time I was conscious. Believing myself mortally wounded, the
one thought above all others was that I was no longer responsible for the
result of the battle. It was an indescribable feeling of relief.
When the guns were safely returned to the Federal lines, my brother came
back to me in the street. He returned alone through a storm of leaden hail,
smiling, his hat thrown aside, and without arms. As he bent over me I saw
him place his hand quickly on his right breast, and between his fingers I
saw issuing a small stream of blood. A ball had passed entirely through his
breast, coming out through the right shoulder blade. He lifted me in his arms
and carried me to the blacksmith shop, receiving the way there another ball
through the right thigh. He was the grandest man—boy as he was—I ever
knew. He died afterwards from the wound through the lung.
For another half hour the fight went on with blind fury, Captain Brawner
being in command of the Federal force. About 10:30 I heard, where I lay, a
rousing Federal cheer—not the rebel yell—quite a different thing. I perceived
also that the sounds of battle moved northward. Gradually the roar of
shotguns ceased and I heard only an occasional Federal cheer or an
explosion from one of Scott’s guns. The Confederates had abandoned the
field, moving northward through the town. It was ended—the bloodiest battle
for the numbers engaged ever fought in Missouri.
The Federals, returning to the field, gathered up the wounded of both forces,
placing them in the vacant houses. The entire village became a hospital. Dr.
Cundiff, the only surgeon on the ground, had more than he could attend to.
About an hour after the battle had ended a council of Federal officers [was
called, and together they] determined that an attempt should be made to join
the force under Warren, or failing in that, to return to Lexington; and it
appearing that there was not men able to do duty, it was determined that the
guns should be spiked and abandoned. They were, therefore, disabled and
concealed. They could no longer do service as the ammunition was about
exhausted.
About two hours after the Federal force left Lone jack the Confederates
returned to the field. I saw and talked with a number of them. Colonel
Cockrell I had known from childhood. Colonel Lewis I had captured in 1861,
and had so treated him as to make him as to make him a personal friend.
These two being Methodist preachers—they and my father having been
members of the same conference—and seeing me, as they believed, at the
point of death, prayed at my beside as thy would have rayed in time of
profound peace. They were both earnest, religious men. They were both
courageous soldiers. To my personal knowledge they ordered Quantrill to
observe the laws of war strictly in the treatment of prisoners and to fail in
this at his peril. I had with me a considerable sum of money and a valuable
watch, which, with my sidearms, they took possession of and so bestowed
that I received everything safe again. The watch and arms I have yet.
As the force which I commanded was made of detachment from several
different regiments no official report was ever made to me of the number of
killed and wounded, I therefore have no knowledge of that matter, save that
which has come to me indirectly.
The Missouri Republican; (St. Louis) 1 August 1885—Supplement, P.1.
Graphic Account of the Battle of Lone Jack
The part of the village occupied by the Federal force is known as New
Town, the older part of the village lying farther northward. The new town is
located on the summit of a high prairie ridge, overlooking the surrounding
country. On the east of this new town is a field of growing corn, surrounded
by a hedge of Osage orange, strong and tall. The hedge row, which bounds
this field on the west, lies only a few yards behind the houses along the
eastern line of the street. These buildings, abandoned by their owners who
find shelter farther north, are at once occupied by the Federals, expecting an
attack from the west. Behind these buildings—between them and the hedge—
they take position, the center of their line resting on a blacksmith shop—an
excellent support. Here is the artillery commanding the street from end to
end. This line, protected by wooden walls in front, is guarded from attack in
the rear by the hedge, impassable save at the entrance to the field in the
rear of the blacksmith shop. The horses are in the field east of us among the
growing corn, surrounded by the hedge. This disposition of the small force
seems to one without military experience or special strategic ability not
wanting in advantage, and perhaps the best that could be made with so
short a time for examination of the field.
On the western line of the street are buildings, and behind these a field of
hemp, or rank-growing weeds. It is the season when such vegetation has
reached its largest growth, and a man on horseback might hide himself in
this field.
I passed along the whole line, observing the temper of the men. Many of
them had never been under fire. Their very inexperience gave them an air
of confidence and enthusiasm. Others, however, had seen service, and
these, after the manner of experienced soldiers, having, since the coming of
daylight, quietly accepted death, were no longer either enthusiastic or
afraid. Such men are cool and efficient fighters. It may be a fault in a
commanding officer to be careless of danger, but it certainly lends strength
and courage to the soldier to no longer fear wounds or death.
On the right of our line were the detachments from Colonel Huston’s
regiment. On the left were the companies of the Sixth M.S.M., and in the
center with the artillery were the men of the Seventh and Eighth and of
Nugent’s battalion. Perhaps 740 men are in line.
About forty minutes after the pickets came in the battle was commenced
with fury by the left wing of the Confederate force, which, advancing
through the hemp field on the west, attempted to turn our right. Crossing the
street without order, a considerable body of men on foot, and armed with
shotguns, funning and firing as they ran, sought to pass on the north of our
position to our rear, a plan well conceived but prevented in execution by an
unlooked-for obstacle. They found the hedge impenetrable, and they found
behind the hedge—hurried there from the center—Captain Long with part of
his battalion.
Suddenly the assailants found themselves assailed by Brawner on the south
and by Long on the east, and being without shelter they quickly recrossed
the street and disappeared in the tall hemp. Thus the attack was perhaps
intended to deceive us as to the real intention of the Confederates, and while
it was in progress was supplemented by a similar maneuver south of us.
There several hundred men, well mounted and apparently well armed,
crossed the street from the west, and passing into the corn field, which at
the point was protected only by a rail fence, threatened our left. Captain
Slocum, with two companies, was sent southward on the east line of the
hedge in our rear to a point perhaps a hundred feet south of the left of our
line, where the hedge, turning sharply, ran through the tall corn eastwardly.
Behind this hedge—on the north side of it—Slocum, with his men lying silent
and immovable, awaited the horsemen riding up from the south through the
corn.
This cavalry force was Quantrill’s battalion, three hundred strong, the most
reckless fighters ever known in Missouri. As they came onward they called
to each other in wild, half-barbaric fashion. Suddenly a strange and deadly
thing occurred. The charging column, reaching the unseen and treacherous
hedge, recoiled upon itself. Furious cries and fearful maledictions, mingled
with the sharp rattle of Slocum’s rifles, told of confusion on the one side and
deadly determination on the other of that green wall. Here was one of the
deadliest spots on the bloody field of Lone Jack. But the killing here was all
done by Slocum, for so great was the confusion amount the guerrillas—
those behind crowding forward upon those checked by the hedge—that not
a hundred shots, all told, were fired by them. Finding this route
impracticable they returned to the main body of Confederates massed on
our front.
I have never seen an account of the battle written by a Confederate officer
or soldier who took part in it, or heard a full description of the engagement
form a Confederate having personal knowledge of it. I talked with a with a
number in authority, however, after I had fallen into the hands of the
Confederates that day. But I was severely wounded and at times entirely
unconscious, it is not surprising that I got no definite knowledge concerning
the plan of their operations. I must speak if the matter, therefore, as it
appeared to me then and in the light of such information as has reached me
indirectly since that time I find a very impartial account of the battle of Lone
Jack in a history of Jackson County, printed in 1881 by a publishing company
in Kansas City. The writer of this account located the Confederate forces in
the neighborhood of Lone Jack on the evening of the 15th as follows:
Thompson and Hays, with 500 men or more, were encamped on the
eastern banks of the Little Blue, some fifteen miles away; Quantrill, still
farther off; and of the reinforcements just from the South—Cockrell was
northwest of the village three or four miles; Tracy and Coffee south of it
about a mile on the farm of David Arnold; Lewis still farther south; Jackman
was also in the neighborhood." This writer says the Confederates claimed,
the day before the fight, to number 4,000. General Blunt says he found them
4,000 strong the day after the fight. (Rebellion Record, vol. 5, pg 582) The
Confederates with whom I talked the day after the fight said they were about
3,000 strong.
It seems to me very probable that the Confederate forces had not all
reached the field when the unsuccessful attempts to turn our position were
made. At any rate, I am impressed with the belief that about the time
Slocum repulsed Quantrill, someone, either by right of his rank or by reason
of the personal force that was in him, put in operation a plan well calculated
to affect the desired end—the capture or annihilation of the Federal force. I
think this commanding man Colonel Vard Cockrell, a very able man and a
very good and brave one. He did not, in my presence, claim to be in chief
command. But I say that Jackman, Hays, Lewis, Quantrill, and others
obeyed his orders and recognized him as chief. I conceive therefore, that it
is to his tenacity and ability that we owe the pounding we received that day.
Almost directly opposite the blacksmith shop upon which rested the Federal
center was the hotel, used as headquarters by us the night before. This
being on the west side of the street, had been abandoned when our line was
formed, and in it were left the three wounded Confederates captured in the
attack upon Coffee. This hotel was flanked on either side by buildings
extending along the west side of the street. The Confederate plan as now
developed was ably conceived. Advancing in line with an even movement
almost as one man, they leave the cover of the hemp field and occupy the
houses on the west side of the street, their center resting upon the hotel and
their wings extending far to the north and south of us. They open upon us
with their rifles and shotguns a most persistent and destructive fire,
"continuing in season and out of season." Under the cover of this deadly
fusilade a column of men coming from behind the hotel march straight upon
the center of our line, intending to pierce it, to cut us in two, to make of us
two fragments, and, capturing our guns, to drive one detachment of our
force to the south and the other to the north, to scatter us on the prairie, to
destroy us. A masterly plan, but a plan which does not succeed because
there is another plan which disarranges it.
Sergeant Scott handles his funs magnificently. With nothing but round shot,
he finds round shot amply sufficient. Ball after ball, with unerring, deadly
aim plunges through the hotel, through the houses to the north and south of
it. Wherever a Confederate fusilade bursts from a window a cannon ball
crashes. The advancing column no longer covered by a protecting fusilade
withers and shrivels before the scorching from our entire line and drifts
back into the field of hemp.
At half-past 6 the engagement has become general. The Confederates facing
eastward, fight with the August morning sun full in their eyes—a serious
disadvantage. But this is not so serious, as they are armed almost entirely
with shotguns, good to kill at short range, even without accurate aim. This
accounts for the fact so often noted of this engagement—there was no
skirmishing at long range at Lone Jack. The bloody work went on full five
hours across a street only sixty feet in width—when it was not a hand-to-
hand encounter. The shotguns made this close work a necessity. There was
not a cloud in the sky and the heat was terrible.
The accompaniment of this prolonged struggle is a continuous, gloomy,
monotonous roar of shotguns, enlivened at intervals by sharp, staccato
pistol passages and brilliant runs of rifle practice. The growling bass notes
of this monstrous melange are from Scott’s guns at the shop. Its ever-
recurring "musical motif" is the shrill-sustained battle cry, known in history
as the "rebel yell."
Such a combat is full of incidents. There was here no swaying back and
forth before each other of uncertain, wavering lines. From 7 o’clock till 10
the opposed forces, like two wrestling athletes, held each other in a horrible
embrace, each striving for advantage, neither seizing it.
In such a struggle soldiers become their own officers and seek adventure
on their own account. A bunch of weeds becomes the hiding place of a
sharpshooter who makes the affair a personal matter. A convenient shed
conceals bloody men waiting eagerly for opportunity to kill. A face at a
window is a signal for a shower of balls. A few hours of such fighting
bleeds the opposing forces terribly. The final result of such a contest is only
postponed, not in any way rendered uncertain. That force will yield which
first bleeds to death or loses the power to bleed the other.
And here a circumstance is worthy of note. The Confederates, being the
assailants, kept up a continuous fire, never ceasing. The Federals, on the
defensive, reserved their fire for occasions of necessity, to repel assaults, to
dislodge sharpshooters, to hold the enemy in check. In this lay our
advantage. We waited for reinforcements, fighting against time and saving
our ammunition. The Confederates, having taken a contract, desired to
perform their work in the cool of the morning. They wasted their strength
and blistered and blistered their tongues in repeated efforts to make a
mouthful of a fair average breakfast piping hot and seasoned with pepper. It
was, perhaps, a mistake. It was our advantage. If Warren had obeyed
orders it would have been our salvation and their destruction.
About 9 o’clock the hotel across the street from us is seen to be on fire. At
first the flames spread slowly, creeping along the south end of the house
towards the west. A strong wind drives the fire inward at the first opening,
and the building is consumed in an incredibly short time. Three dead bodies
were afterwards found where the west wing of this building had stood. One
of these was the body of the young prisoner whose hop had been
dislocated. The others were, perhaps, those of his two wounded comrades
left there with him the night before. It was a pity.
At this time the punishment on the Federal side of the street was severe. But
I saw no signs of discouragement. On the contrary the feeling had grown
among us that we could hold the position. The men now fight with great
deliberation and terrible tenacity. A man of Captain Long’s company, shot
through the lower jaw, cannot "bite" his cartridges. He is ordered to the rear.
With furious, inarticulate cries, he refuses to obey. He is seen half an hour
afterwards loading and firing with quiet determination and apparent
satisfaction. He had found a comrade disabled in both arms, but with teeth
intact. The two together counted one soldier. A man of Captain Plumb’s
company, shot through the head—mortally wounded—was seen as hour
afterwards attempting to load his carbine. He died with it in his hand.
About half-past 9 a force of perhaps 200 men appeared near a mile south of
us on the crest of a prairie ridge. They were Federals. We sent to them
across the green expanse a ringing shout of welcome. But they came no
nearer and in a few moments disappeared behind the hilltop. This was a
force sent out from Lexington after we left that post. I never knew what
pressing business prevented them from joining our picnic.
About 10 o’clock the deadly fire of Confederate sharpshooters, posted in a
small log house some distance north of our center, greatly harassed our
right. To make the artillery effective against this house it must be dragged
into the street and there served. Sergeant Scott will do it. Captain Brawner
will support him with riflemen. While preparations are making for this, the
roar of shotguns on our front seems to decrease; almost to cease. Are they
then out of ammunition? Suddenly a man on horseback rides among the
men behind the houses west of the street distributing cartridges from a
basket, escaping unhurt. The Federals gave him a rousing cheer in
recognition of his nerve. He was a good one.
The artillery is now in the street doing good work. At this moment
Lieutenant Develin, riding up the street from the south, shouts to the men at
the funs, ordering them to fall back. Again disobeying orders, he assumes
command of his men, and they, obeying mechanically, give way. Sergeant
Scott, with blackened face and flaming eyes, and fighting like a devil
incarnate, countermands the order. The men hesitate. Develin is shot from
his horse. The Confederates, seeing now their opportunity again pour across
the street. The guns are captured, Captain Brawner being unable to hold
them. This is the crisis of the battle.
Brawner, being reinforced, retakes the guns. They are captured again, and
again retaken. The Federals swarm into the street, and, fighting with
revolvers and clubbed rifles, drive back the Confederates and return toward
the shop with the guns. But they are set upon by a largely superior force,
and again the guns are in Confederate hands and crossing the street to the
west.
Captain Long at this time was ordered up from the left center of our line. He
fought hard all morning and had been wounded more than once. His coat
had been thrown aside and his shirt, open at the collar, exposed his breast
bathed in blood and powder stained. He had a strange light in his eye, and
his parted lips showed his teeth set sharply together. I asked him if he could
go with me to retake the guns. He said: "I would go with you to hell!" He
had in his hand an empty revolver. He was superb and had with him sixty
men of the same metal.
We fall upon the rebels in the middle of the street and struggled with them
for the guns. The carnage here is frightful. In less time than is required for
the telling of it the sixty Federals are but forty, and of these all but a dozen
are disabled. Captain Long is mortally wounded. Lieutenant Rogers is sorely
hurt. Others lie in heaps—dead and dying. My brother and I, with ten others,
remain unhurt, and the guns are in our hands. We seize them to drag them
eastward to the shop.
At this moment a ball passed through my body. The sensation was not
disagreeable. I remember that I had experienced a similar feeling when
passing into unconsciousness from the inhalation of ether. When I fell upon
the ground I had no sense of touching the earth, but felt as if floating in the
air. All this time I was conscious. Believing myself mortally wounded, the
one thought above all others was that I was no longer responsible for the
result of the battle. It was an indescribable feeling of relief.
When the guns were safely returned to the Federal lines, my brother came
back to me in the street. He returned alone through a storm of leaden hail,
smiling, his hat thrown aside, and without arms. As he bent over me I saw
him place his hand quickly on his right breast, and between his fingers I
saw issuing a small stream of blood. A ball had passed entirely through his
breast, coming out through the right shoulder blade. He lifted me in his arms
and carried me to the blacksmith shop, receiving the way there another ball
through the right thigh. He was the grandest man—boy as he was—I ever
knew. He died afterwards from the wound through the lung.
For another half hour the fight went on with blind fury, Captain Brawner
being in command of the Federal force. About 10:30 I heard, where I lay, a
rousing Federal cheer—not the rebel yell—quite a different thing. I perceived
also that the sounds of battle moved northward. Gradually the roar of
shotguns ceased and I heard only an occasional Federal cheer or an
explosion from one of Scott’s guns. The Confederates had abandoned the
field, moving northward through the town. It was ended—the bloodiest battle
for the numbers engaged ever fought in Missouri.
The Federals, returning to the field, gathered up the wounded of both forces,
placing them in the vacant houses. The entire village became a hospital. Dr.
Cundiff, the only surgeon on the ground, had more than he could attend to.
About an hour after the battle had ended a council of Federal officers [was
called, and together they] determined that an attempt should be made to join
the force under Warren, or failing in that, to return to Lexington; and it
appearing that there was not men able to do duty, it was determined that the
guns should be spiked and abandoned. They were, therefore, disabled and
concealed. They could no longer do service as the ammunition was about
exhausted.
About two hours after the Federal force left Lone jack the Confederates
returned to the field. I saw and talked with a number of them. Colonel
Cockrell I had known from childhood. Colonel Lewis I had captured in 1861,
and had so treated him as to make him as to make him a personal friend.
These two being Methodist preachers—they and my father having been
members of the same conference—and seeing me, as they believed, at the
point of death, prayed at my beside as thy would have rayed in time of
profound peace. They were both earnest, religious men. They were both
courageous soldiers. To my personal knowledge they ordered Quantrill to
observe the laws of war strictly in the treatment of prisoners and to fail in
this at his peril. I had with me a considerable sum of money and a valuable
watch, which, with my sidearms, they took possession of and so bestowed
that I received everything safe again. The watch and arms I have yet.
As the force which I commanded was made of detachment from several
different regiments no official report was ever made to me of the number of
killed and wounded, I therefore have no knowledge of that matter, save that
which has come to me indirectly.
The Missouri Republican; (St. Louis) 1 August 1885—Supplement, P.1.
 |
| |
 |
 | |  |
 | |  | |  | |  |