upon which the eremy was posted. Masses of infantry fell back and again rushed forward. The summit of the hill was covered with the dead and the wounded. Both sides were fight ing with desperation for the field. Carroll's and Green's regi ments, led gallantly by Captain Bradfute, charged Totten's battery; but the whole strength of the enemy were immediately in the rear, and a deadly fire was opened upon them. At this critical moment, when the fortunes of the day seemed to be at the turning-point, two regiments of General Pierce's brigade were ordered to march from their position, as reserves, to support the centre. Reid's battery was also ordered to move forward, and the Louisiana regiment was again called into action on the left of it. The battle then became general, and probably, says General McCulloch, in his official report, "no two opposing forces ever fought with greater desperation; inch by inch the enemy gave way, and were driven from their position. Totten's battery fell back-Missourians, Arkansans, Louisianians, and Texans pushed forward-the incessant roll of musketry was deafening, and the balls fell thick as hailstones; but still our gallant Southerners pushed onward, and, with one wild yell, broke upon the enemy, pushing them back, and strewing the ground with their dead. Nothing could withstand the impetuosity of our final charge. The enemy fled, and could not again be rallied."

Thus ended the battle of Oak Hill, or of Wilson's Creek, as Gen. Sigel called it in his official report to the Federal authorities. It lasted about six hours. The force of the enemy was stated at from nine to ten thousand, and consisted for the most part of well-disciplined, well-armed troops, a large portion of them belonging to the old United States army. They were not prepared for the signal defeat which they suffered. Their loss was supposed to be about two thousand in killed, wounded, and prisoners. They also lost six pieces of artillery, several hundred stand of small-arms, and several of their standards. Major-general Lyon, their chief-in-command, was killed, and many of their officers were wounded-some of them high in rank. Gen. McCulloch, in his official report, stated the entire loss on the part of his command at two hundred and sixty-five killed, eight hundred wounded, and thirty missing. Of these, the Missourians, according to Gen. Price's report, lost one hun

dred and fifty-six killed, and five hundred and seventeen wounded.

The victory was won by the determined valor of each divi sion of the army. The troops from Texas, Arkansas, and Loui siana bore themselves with a gallantry characteristic of thei respective States. The Missouri troops were mostly undisci plined, but they had fought with the most desperate valor, never failing to advance when ordered. Repeatedly, during the action, they retired from their position, and then returned to it with increased energy and enthusiasm a feat rarely performed by undisciplined troops. The efficiency of the doublebarrel shot-gun and the walnut-stock rifle, was abundantly demonstrated-these being the only arms used by the Missourians in this fight, with the exception of the four hundred muskets captured from the enemy on the two occasions already named.

Gen. Lyon, at the head of his regulars, was killed in an attempt to turn the wing mainly defended by the arms of the Missourians. He received two small rifle-balls or buckshot in the heart, the one just above the left nipple, the other immedi ately below it. He had been previously wounded in the leg His surgeon came in for his body, under a flag of truce, after the close of the battle, and Gen. Price sent it in his own wagon. But the enemy, in his flight, left the body unshrouded in Springfield. The next morning, August 11th, Lieut.-col. Gustavus Elgin and Col. R. H. Mercer, two of the members of Brigadiergeneral Clark's staff, caused the body to be properly prepared for burial. He was temporarily interred at Springfield, in a metallic coffin procured by Mrs. Phelps, wife of John S. Phelps, a former member of the Federal Congress from that district, and now an officer in the Lincoln army. A few days afterwards, the body was disinterred and sent to St. Louis, to await the order of his relatives in Connecticut.

The death of Gen. Lyon was a serious loss to the Federals in Missouri. He was an able and dangerous man-a man of the times, who appreciated the force of audacity and quick decision in a revolutionary war. To military education and talents, he united a rare energy and promptitude. No doubts or scruples unsettled his mind. A Connecticut Yankee, without a trace of chivalric feeling or personal sensibility-one of those whe submit to insult with indifference, yet are brave on the fieldhe was this exception to the politics of the late regular army of the United States, that he was an unmitigated, undisguised, and fanatical Abolitionist.

Shortly after the battle of Oak Hill, the Confederate army returned to the frontier of Arkansas, Generals McCulloch and Price having failed to agree upon the plan of campaign in Missouri.

In northern Missouri, the bold and active demonstrations of Gen. Harris had made an important diversion of the enemy in favor of Gen. Price. These demonstrations had been so successfully made, that they diverted eight thousand men from the support of Gen. Lyon, and held them north of the river until after the battle of Oak Hill, thus making an important contribution to the glorious issue of that contest.

The history of the war presents no instance of a more heroic determination of a people to accomplish their freedom, than that exhibted by the people of northern Missouri. Occupying that portion of the State immediately contiguous to the Federai States of Kansas, Iowa, and Illinois, penetrated by two lines of railroads, intersecting at right angles, dividing the country north and south, east and west-which lines of railroads were seized and occupied by the enemy, even before the commencement of hostilities; washed on every side by large, navigable rivers in possession of the enemy; exposed at every point to the inroads of almost countless Federal hosts, the brave people of northern Missouri, without preparation or organization, did not hesitate to meet the alternative of war, in the face of a foe confident in his numbers and resources.

On the 21st June, 1861, a special messenger from Governor Jackson overtook, at Paris, Monroe county, Thomas A. Harris, who was then en route as a private soldier to the rendezvous at Booneville. The messenger was the bearer of a commission by which Thomas A. Harris was constituted Brigadier-general of the Missouri State Guard, and assigned to the duty of organizing the forces for the defence of that portion of the State north of the Missouri river. The commission was accompanied by orders from Gen. Sterling Price. At the date of the delivery of the commission and orders, the affair at Booneville had transpired, and the governor and Gen. Price, with such of the

forces as had been hastily collected, were, as already stated, in full retreat before the enemy in the direction of southwestern Missouri.

Gen. Harris was without any organized force whatever; without military supplies of any kind; without money, or any authorized agent to pledge the credit of the State. He commenced recruiting an army in the face of the enemy. At a public meeting, called by him, he delivered a stirring and patriotic address, caused the oath of allegiance to the South to be administered to himself in the most public and impressive manner, and, in turn, administered the same oath to fifty-three men, and organized them into a company, directing them to return to their homes, collect their private arms, and join him without delay. When we consider that this bold action was within three hours' march of an enemy in force, and that it invited his bitter resentment, we can rightly appreciate the heroism and self-sacrificing patriotism of the participators.

A false report of the approach of the enemy caused the evacuation of the town of Paris, where quite a number of unarmed troops had assembled. General Harris retired into a stronghold in the knobs of Salt River. He was a brigadiergeneral, with a command of three men, and a few officers whom he had appointed upon his staff. Here, without blankets, tents, or any kind of army equipments, he comLienced the organization of a guerrilla force, which was destined to render important service in the progress of the war in Missouri.

Gen. Harris adopted the policy of secretly organizing his force, the necessity for such secrecy being constantly induced by the continued presence and close proximity of the enemy. The fact, however, that Gen. Lyon was moving to the southwest in pursuit of Gen. Price, caused him to attempt a diversion, which was successful, as has been stated, in holding a large Federal force north of the Missouri river. Although the active duties of a guerrilla campaign necessarily involved a delay in organization, yet Gen. Harris was successful in raising a force of two thousand seven hundred and thirty men in the very face of the enemy, and in crossing them over the river; and after a march of sixty-two miles, in twenty-eight hours, he united his command with Gen. Price in time to par

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ticipate in the memorable battle of Lexington. T) follow Gen. Price's command, to that battle-field we must now turn.

Late in August, Gen. Price abandoned by the Confederate forces, took up his line of march for the Missouri river, with an armed force of about four thousand five hundred men, and seven pieces of cannon. He continued to receive reinforcements from the north side of the Missouri river.

Hearing that the notorious trio of Abolition bandits, Jim Lane, Montgomery, and Jenison, were at Fort Scott, with a marauding force of several thousand, and not desiring them to get into his rear, he detoured to the left from his course to the Missouri river, marching directly to Fort Scott for the purpose of driving them up the river. On the 7th of September, he met with Lane about fifteen miles east of Fort Scott, at a stream called Drywood, where an engagement ensued which lasted for an hour and a half, resulting in the complete rout of the enemy. Gen. Price then sent on a detachment to Fort Scott, and found that the enemy had evacuated the place. He continued his march in the direction of Lexington, where there was a Federal army strongly intrenched, under the command of Col. Mulligan.

Gen. Fremont, who had been appointed by the Federal government to take command in the Missouri department, had inaugurated the campaign with a brutality towards his enemy a selfish splendor in his camp, and a despotism and corruption more characteristic of an Eastern satrap than an American commander in the nineteenth century. He had published a proclamation absolutely confiscating the estates and slave property of "rebels," which measure of brutality was vastly pleasing to the Abolitionists of the North, who recognized the extinction of negro slavery in the South as the essential object of the war, but was not entirely agreeable to the government at Washington, which was not quite ready to declare the extremity to which it proposed to prosecute the war.

On the 10th of September, just as General Price was about to encamp with his forces for the day, he learned that a de tachment of Federal troops were marching from Lexington to Warrensburg to seize the funds of the bank in that place, and to arrest and plunder the citizens of Johnson county, in ac cordance with General Fremont's proclamation and instruc