BATTLE NEAR BOONEVILLE.

541

his left; and in a lane in his rear, leading to the river, was the main body of his left wing. His main right wing was posted behind a fence, between a wheat and corn field, and in these fields were detached and unorganized squads of men.'

Lyon led his troops up a gently rolling slope for half a mile, and when within three hundred yards of his foe, he made dispositions for battle. He posted the regulars, with Colonel Blair's troops, on the left, and some German volunteers of Boernstein's regiment, under Lieutenant-Colonel Shaeffer, on the right. Totten's artillery occupied the center, and they opened the conflict by firing a shell from a 12-pounder in the midst of the insurgents in the road. Another shell immediately followed, and scattered the men in the wheat-field, when Lyon's column advanced, and the battle began. It continued for a short time with great spirit on both sides. The insurgents were forced back by the pressure of the Union infantry, and the round shot, and shell, and grape, and canister, from Totten's cannon. Two of his shells entered the brick house and drove out the inmates; and twenty minutes later, Lyon's men occupied it, and had full possession of the battle-field.

The insurgents made a stand at the edge of a wood near their camp, but were soon driven from their rallying-point. They now fled in confusion, for they found themselves attacked on their flank by a cannonade from the river. Captain Richards, with some infantry, and a small company of artillery, under Captain Voester, who had been left in charge of the transports, had moved up the river and captured a shore-battery of two guns, with which the insurgents intended to sink the vessels of their pursuers. They also took twenty prisoners, several horses, and a considerable amount of military stores. They then moved forward to co-operate with the land. force; and it was the shot from a howitzer on the City of Louisiana, and the missiles from Totten's guns, falling simultaneously among the insurgents, that produced a panic and a flight. Their camp, which Lyon took possession of immediately afterward, showed evidences of hasty departure."

That camp had

These were new recruits just sent in from Camp Vest, about four miles from Booneville. been established on the 14th, and Marmaduke had sent out urgent appeals to the inhabitants of the surrounding country to rally to his standard. "Hurry on, day and night," he said. "Everybody, citizens and soldiers, must come, bringing their arms and ammunition. Time is every thing." As they came into the camp, they were sent to the front in squads.

Half-baked

2 An eye-witness wrote, that the breakfasts of the men were found in course of preparation. bread was in the heat of fires, and hams had knives sticking in them. Pots of coffee were on the fires; and in various ways there was evidence that the flight of the occupants of the camp had been most precipitate. Lyon's loss was two killed, two wounded, and one missing. That of the insurgents is unknown. It was estimated at more than fifty killed and wounded, and a considerable number made prisoners. The latter were nearly all young men, who declared that they had been deceived and misled by the conspirators. They were very penitent, and Lyon released them. The whole number of insurgents was about three thousand, of whom nine hundred were half-disciplined cavalry, and the remainder raw militia, sixsevenths of them armed with the rifles, shot-guns, and knives which they had brought from their homes. The Union troops numbered less than two thousand; and not a third of either party was in the engagement at one time.

WEAPONS OF THE INSURGENTS.

The accompanying illustration represents weapons found in the camp of the insurgents near Booneville. The knife was made, evidently, by a common blacksmith, in the form of the Bowie [see note 1, page 266], but very rudely. The sheath below it was made of common stiff leather. The dagger, also, was the work of a blacksmith. The handle of each was made of hickory wood. Weapons of this kind were in common use among the insurgent troops from the Mississippi region during the earlier period of the war.

542

GOVERNOR JACKSON GATHERING TROOPS.

Leaving a company to hold the camp, Lyon pressed on to Booneville, where the loyal inhabitants received him with joy, and the town was formally surrendered to him. The insurgents had continued their flight. Some of them went directly southward, but a large portion of them, including most of the cavalry, fled westward toward Lexington, whither, as we have observed, General Price had gone. The Governor, who had kept at a safe distance from the battle, fled, with about five hundred men, to Warsaw, on the Osage River, eighty miles southwest of Booneville, pursued some distance by Totten. There he was joined, on the 20th, by about four hundred insurgents, under Colonel O'Kane, who, before dawn on the 19th, had surprised, dispersed, and partially captured about the same number of Home Guards, under Captain Cook, who were asleep in two barns, fifteen miles north of Warsaw, at a place of rendezvous called Camp Cole.

a June,

1861.

Jackson and his followers continued their retreat fifty miles farther southwest, to Montevallo, in Vernon County, on the extreme western borders of Missouri, where he was joined by General Price,' with July 3. troops gathered at Lexington and on the way, making the whole force there about three thousand. At the same time, General G. J. Rains, a

graduate of the Military Academy at West Point, was hurrying forward to join Jackson with a considerable force of insurgents, closely pursued by Major Sturgis, of the regular Army, who was leading a body of Kansas volunteers, who were eager to be avenged on Jackson for sufferings which they alleged he had caused them a few years before, when they were struggling with invaders from Missouri, called "Border Ruffians," of whom the now fugitive Governor was a conspicuous leader. Satisfied that the northern part of the State was lost to the cause of Secession, for the time, Jackson now endeavored to concentrate all of the disloyal Missouri troops, with McCullough's men, in the southwestern part of the Commonwealth, preparatory to the speedy "deliverance of the State from Federal rule."

GABRIEL JAMES RAINS.

In the camp of the insurgents, near Booneville, Lyon found ample evidence of the hypocrisy of Jackson and Price, who had proclaimed to the world that they earnestly desired peace and reconciliation, but that it was denied them by the National Government and its servants, while, at the same time, they were preparing to wage a cruel and relentless war in favor of the rebellion. To counteract the effect of the false allegations of the Governor in his proclamation,' Lyon issued an address, at Boone ville, to the inhabitants of Missouri, plainly stating the intentions of the Government to be nothing more than the maintenance of its authority, and the preservation of the life of the Republic. On the day

C

July 18.

See page 470.

CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN MISSOURI.

543

before, Colonel Boernstein, who was holding the capital to obedience with a mild but firm hand, had issued a proclamation, addressed to the inhabitants of that immediate region, assuring them of protection in the enjoyment of all their rights, and that "slave property" should not be interfered with, nor the slaves encouraged to be unfaithful; at the same time warning all disloyal men that he would not allow the enemies of the Government to work mischief openly. These proclamations quieted the fears of the people, and strengthened the cause of the Government. Assured of military protection, and encouraged by the aspect of affairs favorable to the maintenance of the National authority in the Commonwealth, the State Convention was called to reassemble at Jefferson City on the 22d of July.

General Lyon remained at Booneville about a fortnight, making preparations for a vigorous campaign against gathering insurgents in the southwestern part of the State. He now held military control over the whole region northward of the Missouri River, and east of a line running south from Booneville to the Arkansas border, thus giving to the Government the control of the important points of St. Louis, Hannibal, St. Joseph, and Bird's Point, as bases of operations, with railways and rivers for transportation. On the 1st of July there were at least ten thousand loyal troops in Missouri, and ten thousand more might be thrown into it, in the space of forty-eight hours, from camps in the adjoining State of Illinois. And, at the same time, Colonel Sigel, already mentioned, an energetic and accomplished German liberal, who had command

ed the republican troops of his native state (the Grand Duchy of Baden) in the revolution of 1848, was pushing forward with eager soldiers toward the insurgent camps on the borders of Kansas and Arkansas, to open the campaign, in which he won laurels and the commission of a brigadier. That campaign, in which Lyon lost his life, will be considered hereafter.

FRANZ SIGEL.

There was now great commotion all over the land. War had begun in earnest. The drum and fife were heard in every city, village, and hamlet, from the St. Croix to the Rio Grande. Propositions for compromises and concessions were no longer listened to by the opposing parties. The soothing echoes of the last "Peace Convention," held at Frankfort, in Kentucky, on the 27th of May,' were lost in the din of warlike preparations; and it was evident that the great question before the people could only be settled by the arbitrament of the sword, to which the enemies of the Republic had appealed.

As we look over the theater of events connected with the secession movement at the beginning of July, 1861, we perceive that the Insurrection had then become an organized Rebellion, and was rapidly assuming the dignity and importance of a Civil War. The conspirators had formed a confed

2 See page 460.

544

ACTS OF THE "CONFEDERATE CONGRESS."

eracy, civil and military, vast in the extent of its area of operations, strong in the number of its willing and unwilling supporters, and marvelous in its manifestations of energy hitherto unsuspected. It had all the visible forms of regular government, modeled after that against which the conspirators had revolted; and through it they were wielding a power equal to that of many empires of the globe. They had been accorded belligerent rights, as a nation struggling for its independence, by leading governments of Europe, and under the sanction of that recognition they had commissioned embassadors to foreign courts, and sent out upon the ocean armed ships, bearing their chosen ensign, to commit piracy, as legalized by the law of nations. They had created great armies, and were successfully defying the power of their Government to suppress their revolt. Henceforth, in this chronicle, the conflict will be treated as a civil war, and the opposing parties be designated respectively by the titles of Nationals and Confederates.

@ 1861.

We have already noticed the meeting of the Confederate "Congress," so-called, in second session, at Montgomery, on the 29th of April,” and the authorization thereby of the issuing of commissions for privateering; also for making thorough preparations for war on the land.' That "Congress" worked diligently for the accomplishment of its purposes. It passed an unlimited Enlistment Act, it being estimated that arms for one hundred and fifty thousand men could be furnished by the Confederacy. That Act authorized Jefferson Davis to " accept the services of volunteers who may offer their services, without regard to the place of enlistment, either as cavalry, mounted riflemen, artillery, or infantry, in such proportion of their several arms as he may deem expedient, to serve for and during the existing war, unless sooner discharged." Acts were passed for the regulation of telegraphs, postal affairs, and the mints; and on the 16th of May an Act was approved authorizing the issuing of bonds for fifty millions of dollars, at an annual interest not to exceed eight per cent., and payable in twenty years. Made wiser by their failure to find a market for their bonds authorized in February, and offered in April, the conspirators now devised schemes to insure the sale of this new issue, or to secure money by other means. The Act gave the Secretary of the Treasury, so-called, discretionary power to issue in lieu of such bonds twenty millions of dollars in treasury notes, not bearing interest, in denominations of not less than five dollars, and "to be receivable in payment of all debts or taxes due to the Confederate States, except the export duty on cotton, or in exchange for the bonds. herein authorized to be issued. The said notes," said the Act, "shall be payable at the end of two years from the date of their issue, in specie.

995

1 See page 372.

2 Approved May 8, 1861. See Acts and Resolutions of the three Sessions of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States: Second Session, page 5.

3 The Act directed that the operations of the mints at New Orleans, in Louisiana, and Dahlonega, in Georgia, should be suspended. They had no other dies for coin than those of the United States, and the conspirators saw, in the scheme for issuing an irredeemable paper currency, without limit, no use for coin.

4 See page 263.

$ Act approved May 16, 1861. See Acts and Resolutions of the Confederate Congress: Second Session, pages 32 to 34. A fac-simile of one of these treasury notes, issued at Richmond after that city became the seat of the Confederate Government, is given on page 545. After this issue, the terms of redemption were changed. A note before me, dated "Richmond. September 2d, 1861," reads as follows:-"Six months after the ratification of a Treaty of Peace between the Confederate States and the United States, the Confederate States of America

FINANCIAL SCHEMES OF THE CONSPIRATORS.