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EDDY THE DRUMMER BOY.

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geon and some men were sent for it, and General Price had it conveyed to Springfield in his own wagon.

This victory of the Confederates-for it was really a victory, although they were unable to follow it up-gave them the command of all southern Missouri. But McCulloch and Price could not agree upon what to do next. They therefore separated, McCulloch going back with his troops to Arkansas, while Price marched northwest, gathering recruits as he went.

An affecting incident of the battle of Wilson's Creek is the story of little Eddy, the drummer-boy, who was mortally wounded there. His father, a Union man of East Tennessee, had been killed, and his mother had gone to St. Louis with Eddy, then about twelve years old, in hope of finding a sister who lived there. Failing in this, and getting out of money, she applied to the captain of one of the companies in the Iowa First to get Eddy a position as drummer-boy. The regiment had only six weeks longer to serve, and she hoped that during that time she might find work for herself and discover her sister. The captain was about to say that he could not take so small a boy, when Eddy spoke out, "Don't be afraid, captain, I can drum."

Upon this the captain, seeing the little fellow's determined. air, replied, with a smile, "Well, well, sergeant, bring the drum, and order the fifer to come forward."

The fifer, a lank, round-shouldered fellow, more than six feet high, came forward, and bending down with his hands on his knees, asked, "My little man, can you drum?"

"Yes, sir," said Eddy, "I drummed for Captain Hill in Tennessee."

The fifer straightened himself up and played the "Flowers of Edinburgh," one of the most difficult tunes to follow with the drum, but Eddy kept pace with him through all the hardest. parts and showed that he was a master of the drum.

"Madam, I will take your boy," said the captain. "What is his name?"

"Edward Lee," she replied, wiping a tear from her eye. "Oh! captain, if he is not killed, you will bring him back with you, won't you?"

"Yes, we'll be sure to bring him back. We shall be discharged in six weeks,"

An hour afterward the company led the Iowa First out of camp, Eddy and the long fifer playing "The Girl I left Behind Me." Eddy soon became a great favorite with the soldiers, and always received his share of fruit and melons when the foragers brought any to camp. It was very amusing on the march to see the tall fifer wading through the mud or crossing streams with Eddy mounted on his back.

After the battle at Wilson's Creek part of the Iowa First had been ordered to cover the retreat, while the main body fell back to Springfield. A corporal who was posted on a hill overlooking the battle-ground heard a drum. At first he thought it came from the enemy across the creek, but when he listened attentively he recognized the sound of Eddy's drum. The company was to march in twenty minutes, but not liking to leave the little fellow, the corporal ran down the hill in the direction of the sound. He soon found Eddy seated on the ground with his back against the trunk of a fallen tree, and his drum hung on a bush where he could reach it.

"O corporal," he exclaimed, "I am so glad you have come. Give me a drink."

The corporal brought him some water from a brook near by, and after drinking heartily Eddy said:

"You don't think I will die, corporal, do you? This man said I would not; he said the surgeon would cure my feet."

The corporal then discovered that both of Eddy's feet had been shot off by a cannon-ball; and looking round, he saw a Confederate soldier lying dead in the grass. The man had fallen mortally wounded near where Eddy lay. Seeing the condition of the poor boy, although he himself was bleeding to death, he had crept up to him, taken off his suspenders and tied up Eddy's legs below the knee, and then lain down to die. While Eddy was telling this, some Confederate cavalry rode up and made the two friends prisoners. The Confederate captain took Eddy up tenderly on his horse before him, and the party started for the camp, but before it was reached the little drummer was dead.

CHAPTER IX.

LEXINGTON.-BELMONT.

GENERAL BISHOP POLK.-FREMONT'S PROCLAMATION.-A POLITIC CONTRABAND.-PRICE ATTACKS LEXINGTON.-MULLIGAN'S BRAVE DEFENCE.-PRECIOUS WATER.-SURRENDER OF LEXINGTON.-NO AMMUNITION LEFT.-GENERAL PILLOW AT NEW MADRID.-THE CONFEDERATES SEIZE COLUMBUS.-ISLAND NUMBER TEN,-ZOLLICOFFER AND BUCKNER INVADE KENTUCKY.-CONFEDERATE CAMP AT BOWLING GREEN.-FREMONT MARCHES TO SPRINGFIELD.ZAGONYI'S CHARGE.-MAJOR WHITE'S ADVENTURE.-FREMONT SUPERSEDED.-GENERAL HALLECK IN COMMAND IN MISSOURI.-STERLING PRICE AND HIS MEN.-JEFF. THOMPSON.— GENERAL GRANT AT CAIRO.-BATTLE OF BELMONT.-GENERAL CHEATHAM'S ESCAPE.

ABOUT this time the Confederate General Leonidas Polk

began to be active in the Mississippi Valley. He was a graduate of the Military Academy at West Point, but resigned after leaving there, and became a minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was very successful as a clergyman, and in 1841 was chosen Bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana. When the war broke out the Confederate authorities, desiring to avail themselves of his military skill, offered him the rank of majorgeneral in the army. In July, 1861, he accepted the position, and was given the command of the Mississippi Valley between the Arkansas River and Kentucky. He saw the necessity either of winning Cairo or of gaining some other point by which the Mississippi River could be commanded, and under his orders General Hardee crossed over into Missouri with a small force in July, and at the end of that month General Pillow, commander of the Tennessee forces in the Confederate service, crossed to New Madrid below Cairo and fortified it, partly for the purpose of keeping Union gunboats from going down the Mississippi, and partly to secure a place from which he could attack Bird's Point, opposite Cairo.

General Fremont, hearing that Hardee was marching toward Ironton, sent reinforcements there and to Cape Girardeau, and went himself with about four thousand men, by steamboat, to Bird's Point, where he landed the troops and returned to St. Louis (August 4). As soon as the news of General Lyon's defeat and death was received, he set about fortifying St. Louis. He also issued a proclamation declaring martial law in Missouri; ordering that all persons taken within his lines with arms in

their hands should be shot, and declaring the slaves of all rebels in the State to be free men. This proclamation was afterward changed by order of President Lincoln, because the freeing of slaves was contrary to law.

The negroes, during these exciting times, when first one party and then the other was in power, were smart enough to shout one day for the Union and the next for the Confederacy.

"Boys," said a Union officer to a group of field-hands by the roadside watching the troops pass by, "are you all for the Union?"

"Oh yes, massa, when you's about we is."

"And when Price comes you are secesh, are you?"

"Lor, yes, massa, we's good secesh then. Cant 'low white

LEONIDAS POLK.

folks to git 'head o' niggers in dat way. Yah! yah!"

On the 7th of September General Price defeated a Union force from Kansas, which had marched into Missouri under command of General James H. Lane; and leaving a small garrison in Fort Scott, on the borders of Kansas, he marched toward Lexington, on the Missouri River, with more than ten thousand men. Lexington

was then a small city of about five thousand inhabitants, situated on the south bank of the Missouri, nearly three hundred miles by the river above St. Louis. Its possession was of some importance, because it commanded the river at that point and the route to Fort Leavenworth. When Price reached Lexington (September 12) he found it guarded by about three thousand five hundred Union troops, under command of Colonel James A. Mulligan, of the Irish Brigade of Chicago. Mulligan had fortified a hill, northeast of the city, on which was a brick building erected for a college, by throwing up an earthwork ten feet high around it. In the middle were placed the wagons and about three thousand horses and mules. Price at

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once opened a fire on the works, but the Unionists defended themselves bravely, and the Confederates at last began a regu. lar siege. There were at this time about ten thousand Union troops at Jefferson City, under General Jeff. C. Davis, and five thousand more, under General John Pope, were moving from north Missouri toward the river, but Colonel Mulligan looked in vain for reinforcements.

Volunteers meanwhile flocked to Price until his force was swelled to more than twenty thousand men. He completely surrounded the hill on which the Unionists were intrenched, thus cutting them off from the river, from which they got their The situation of the besieged was desperate. The weather was intensely hot, their provisions were beginning to

give out, their ammunition was nearly spent, and the only drinking-water to be had was a little rain-water caught during passing showers. To get all the precious fluid they could, the men laid their blankets out in the rain, and then wrung them into camp-dishes. To make matters worse, the shot and shell which continually fell inside the works from the enemy's guns had killed many of the horses and mules, and the stench from their bodies had become almost unbearable. But Mulligan and his brave men, hoping that aid would be sent to them, still struggled on. On the 19th a force of four thousand cavalry, under General Sturgis, who had been promoted for his gallantry at Wilson's Creek, arrived on the opposite side of the river, in full sight of the besieged, but found the shore strongly occupied