LYON IN MISSOURI.

45

where they lay in state. A vast concourse of citizens and soldiers followed his remains to the grave.

In the West, Captain Nathaniel Lyon, of the regular army now began to manifest those qualities which caused him to be regarded as one of the bravest defenders of the old flag. The police commissioners in St. Louis had ordered him to remove from the grounds of the arsenal which he commanded, all the United States troops. He refused to obey. By an unexpected movement, on the 10th of May, he surrounded and captured the force of six hundred and thirty men brought against him by Govornor Jackson and General Price. Followed by a great mob, who pelted the troops with stones, one company was ordered to fire, and twenty were killed, many more being wounded. He was soon after promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, and moving against Governor Jackson, who had taken up a position at Jefferson City, the latter fled, and reaching Booneville, which was full of rebels, began to fortify. Lyon pushed after him, and having landed below the town, and crossed some bluffs, began to ascend a slope, where the enemy was strongly posted on the summit.

When Captain Totten got within range, he shelled their ranks. The infantry began a deadly fire of musketry, and the enemy, retiring to a wheat field, again advanced. Lyon, whose troops numbered two thousand, was unable to bring more than five hundred into action, on account of the inequality of the ground. Putting himself at the head of these, he led them to victory, and, in twenty minutes, pursued the flying enemy, whose retreat was hastened by the artillery, which made havoc in their broken ranks. The victor captured a great quantity of military stores and many flags, and having left a small force in camp, proceeded to Booneville, where he was met by a flag of truce. The Union inhabitants received him with joyful demonstrations, and he issued a proclamation to rebellious citizens to lay down their arms, while the national flag once more waved in triumph.

General Harney, who commanded the Department of the West, was not supposed to be very loyal, and, in an agreement entered into with General Price, displayed a temporizing with the rebels which Lyon foresaw was injurious to the Union cause.

46

BATTLE AT PHILIPPI.

GENERAL MCCLELLAN IN VIRGINIA.

Western Virginia proved loyal, and it was only right to answer her petition for assistance favorably.

George B. McClellan, a West Point graduate, who had served in Mexico, and was sent to witness military events in the Crimea, having been made a major-general by the President, now assumed command of the department. Before he set out he issued a patriotic and inspiring address to his soldiers. The idea that an army was about to invade the sacred soil of Virginia stung the descendants of the cavaliers to the quick, and they resolved on a firm resistance. Batteries lined the Potomac from Alexandria to Fortress Monroe, and this river formed a line separating the hostile forces. Harper's Ferry, which, since the burning, was not well defended, was evacuated by the rebels, whose main force concentrated at Manassas Junction, a position of great strength by nature, and which the enemy fortified with great labor. There were also constant skirmishing and some important battles between bodies of considerable magnitude.

BATTLE AT PHILIPPI.

On the 1st of June, a rebel force, from fifteen hundred to two thousand men, under Colonel Porterfield, and four regiments of Union troops, under Colonels Lander and Kelly, encountered at Philippi. The Union commanders had left Grafton and travelled by railroad twenty-five miles; pushing through storm, raia, and mud, in dense darkness, till near daybreak, Philippi was reached.

Colonel Kelly was to make an attack in the rear, and Colonel Lander in front. Colonel Kelly, however, was unable to be up in time, and Lander waited in darkness until the approach of day made him known to the enemy. The enemy's camp was in confusion, and Lander, fearing that they would escape, ordered the artillery to open on them. The sound of the guns was heard by Kelly, who was advancing, with shouts, while the rebels, hearing the drums and seeing the gleam of arms front and rear, at once fled. Kelly found the town free from the enemy, and pushed on. He was unfortunately shot from behind a fence, and was supposed to be mortally wounded. The enemy abandoned every thing, and large quantities of munitions of war

blankets, wagons, baggage-fell into the hands of the victors.

General Schenck, of Ohio, with six hundred and sixtyeight men of his command, was ordered to capture Vienna, on the Potomac. He placed companies along the road at various points, and with four companies went by railway to within a short distance of the place. Here masked batteries of the enemy brought him to a stand. The balls crashed through the cars, and the men retired from them, and fell back, with a loss of twenty-one in killed, wounded, and missing. This was a curious method of advancing on an enemy without the slightest reconnoissance.

June was closing, and the schooner Savannah, the first rebel privateer sent out to prey on Northern commerce, was captured.

Fugitive slaves kept coming into the Union lines, and the difficulty was, how to dispose of them. They were called by General Butler, "Contraband of war." The term became common, and the sable sons of Africa were thenceforth called "Contrabands."

The session of Congress now drew near, and many acts of the President required its sanction. No small degree of anxiety prevailed. While the members were about meeting, the news arrived that the steamer Sumter had eluded the blockade at New Orleans, and had gone to destroy our commerce, in what seas or where no one could conjecture, though commercial men all felt apprehensive, and they had good cause for their uneasiness, as the future will show.

General McClellan, in command at Western Virginia, was displaying the ability as a military leader which was destined in time to make him the hero of the nation. He conducted the war with great success, and in a proclamation on the 23d of June, set forth the plan of treatment he would adopt toward both the loyal and rebels against the Government. He soon after began a series of plans, which, in the end, were successfully carried out. In accordance with these, he pushed right on, over mountains, across streams, and roads all but impassable, till at last he met the rebel Colonel Pegram, who held a strong position on Rich Mountain. The enemy, four thousand strong, was drawn up in line of battle at the foot of the mountain. He was behind strong breastworks formed of fallen timber and earth.

48

BATTLE OF RICH MOUNTAIN.

McClellan made a reconnoissance, and sent General Rosecrans, with some Indiana and Ohio troops, and a body of Ohio cavalry, to the rear of the enemy. Starting early. they reached the top of a mountain where some of the rebels lay fortified, behind the main body. The soldiers, though wet to the skin by the rain, kept their powder dry, and after a toilsome march of five miles, the mountain-top was reached at noon. The whole design of McClellan was a profound secret, but a plan of the route and despatches being captured, betrayed his counsel to the enemy, and twenty-five hundred men, with three pieces of artillery, were hurried on to dispute the advance of Rosecrans, whose arrival was greeted with a heavy cannonading. Rain now fell upon the wearied troops in torrents, and Rosecrans having been unable to draw the cannon up the mountain, their progress was arrested, and the men remained half an hour in the drenching rain. The enemy could not be seen, but shot from his guns destroyed the treetops, and Colonel Lander posted twenty sharpshooters to pick off the gunners. The gunners were killed, but the guns were served by others taking their places. Lander wanted his men to charge the gunners, but they would not, and the colonel abandoned his purpose. An Indiana regiment now advanced with fixed bayonets, and an Ohio regiment, on higher ground, fired a volley, when the Indiana troops rushed forward with loud cheering. The enemy fled in wild confusion, and were pursued three hundred yards, till the recall of the Federals was sounded, and then the latter halted, prepared to resist Pegram's men, but they, dismayed, fled into the woods.

McClellan, in the meantime, had advanced to the enemy's works, and found them deserted. They had left guns, tents, horses, many prisoners and wounded; a hundred and fifty were buried on the field. Pegram and six hundred men, unable to escape, surrendered. Garnett, hearing of his defeat, began hastily to retreat across the mountains, with six thousand men. Five Ohio regiments and the Indiana troops followed in hot pursuit, and encamped near Leedsville. Next morning the pursuit was continued through miry roads and torrents of falling rain. The course of the enemy was marked by the usual signs of troops in rapid retreat, and the falling trees, with which they had blocked

BATTLE OF BARBOURVILLE.

49

the way, yielded to the well-applied axe. Over swollen streams and miry roads the chase continued, till the weary pursuers reached the Cheat river at Kahler's ford. It was noon. The column halted, and washed from their clothes the mud of the mountain. They now saw the enemy drawn up in battle line, but the sound of cannon put them again to flight. The baggage train being in danger of capture, they again formed. When the baggage train got a little forward, the flight and pursuit continued, till, three miles further on, they reached Carrick ford, and here, on a bluff, General Garnett placed his artillery, and drew up his infantry behind a fence and the laurel bushes with which the place abounded. It was a well chosen position. The teams were left in the stream, and when the troops came up pretended to surrender. Garnett shouted to his men to fire, and a long line of flame ran along the river bank. The Fourteenth Ohio rushed forward, when Garnett's artillery opened. Milroy came up, and Colonel Dumont was ordered to cross the stream and take the enemy in the rear. The orders being countermanded, he was now advancing down the ford to take them in front. When he reached the required point the enemy broke, and made for another ford lower down. They reached it, dashed through the stream, and again fled; and the pursuit was continued until the fatigued troops halted and bivouacked. The rebel commander, General Garnett, fell. The wounded were cared for, and the dead buried. The enemy lost in the two battles two hundred killed and one thousand captured. The Federal loss was not more than sixty.

A portion of the rebel troops in Western Virginia, on the Kanawha, were under General Wise, who was opposed by General Cox of Ohio. The enemy had taken position at Barbourville, and at midnight a portion of the command of Colonel Woodruff started off, under Lieutenant-colonel Neff, intending to make an attack at day-dawn. From necessary delays, the troops did not reach the place till two hours after sunrise, when they beheld the rebels drawn up in line of battle beyond Guyandotte river, from which stretched an extensive plain. A large body of cavalry, at a hill-side, fell back to take the troops in flank and rear. The column pushed on for the bridge, when the enemy discharged a destructive volley. Nothing daunted, the brave