NATIONAL TROOPS AT LEXINGTON.

67

small force to Lexington to take charge of the money in the bank there, and to protect the loyal inhabitants. This little force was increased from time to time, until early in September, when Price was approaching Warrensburg, the number of Union troops at Lexington was nearly twenty-eight hundred,' commanded by Colonel James A. Mulligan, of the "Irish Brigade" of Chicago, Illinois. Mulligan, with his men, reached Lexington on the 9th of September, after a march of nine days from Jefferson City, and, being the senior officer, he assumed the chief command. Peabody's regiment had come in, on the following day, in full retreat from Warrensburg, having been driven away by the approach of the overwhelming forces of Price."

Satisfied that Price would speedily attack the post, Colonel Mulligan took position on Masonic Hill, northeastward of the city, which comprised about fifteen acres, and on which was a substantial brick building erected for a college. He proceeded at once to cast up strong intrenchments on the eminence, in compass sufficient to accommodate within their area ten thousand men. His first line of works was in front of the college building. Outside of his embankments was a broad ditch, and beyond this were skillfully arranged pits, into which assailants, foot or horse, might fall. The ground was also mined outside of the fortifications, with a good supply of gunpowder and suitable trains. But the troops, unfortunately, had only about forty rounds of ammunition each, and six small brass cannon and two howitzers. The latter were useless, because there were no shells. Hourly expecting re-enforcements, Mulligan resolved to defy his enemy with the means at

hand.

On the morning of the 11th of September, after a violent storm that had raged for several hours, Price moved from Warrensburg toward Lexington, and that night encamped two or

SIEGE OF LEXINGTON.

lege building. Some outworks were captured, and the Nationals were driven within their intrenchments; not, however, until several fierce struggles had

1 These troops were composed of the Thirteenth Missouri, Colonel Peabody; First Illinois Regiment of Cavalry, Colonel Marshall; five hundred Missouri Home Guards, and the Twenty-third Illinois, of the Irish Brigade, Colonel Mulligan.

These troops had been sent from Lexington to Warrensburg, to secure about $100,000 in money. Price was informed of this movement, and had hurried forward, by forced marches, to seize the treasure before the National troops could reach there. He was too late, and to his disappointinent was added great indignation, because of caricatures which some of the German officers, who were clever artists, had left behind, illustrative of the distress of the Confederates when they should find the treasure gone.

68

SIEGE OF LEXINGTON.

been endured. The defense was bravely kept up during the whole day, when Price, finding his ammunition and his famished men' nearly exhausted, withdrew, at sunset, to the Fair-grounds, to await the arrival of his wagontrain and re-enforcements. Mulligan's men immediately resorted to the trenches, to complete their preparations for a siege.

2

Mulligan now anxiously looked for expected re-enforcements, while his men worked night and day in strengthening the fortifications. He was disappointed. His courier, sent with supplications for aid to Jefferson City, was captured on the way. Hour after hour and day after day went by, and no relief appeared. Yet bravely and hopefully his little band worked on, until, on the morning of the 17th, General Price, who had been re-enforced, and now had in hand over twenty-five thousand troops, including a large number of recruits who had come with their rifles and shot-guns, cut off the communication of the besieged with the city, upon which they a Sept. 18, chiefly relied for water, and on the following day took possession of the town, closed in upon the garrison, and began a siege in The Confederates had already seized a steamboat well laden with stores for the National troops; and, under every disadvantage, the latter conducted a most gallant defense.

1861.

earnest.

General Rains's division occupied a strong position on the east and northeast of the fortifications, from which an effective cannonade was opened at nine o'clock, and kept up by Bledsoe's Battery, commanded by Captain Emmit McDonald, and another directed by Captain C. Clark, of St. Louis. General Parsons took a position southwest of the works, from which his battery, under Captain Guibor, poured a steady fire upon the garrison. Near Rains, the division of Colonel Congreve Jackson was posted as a reserve; and near Parsons, a part of General Steen's division performed the same service, whilst sharpshooters were sent forward to harass and fatigue the beleaguered troops, who were not allowed a moment's repose.

General Harris (who, as we have seen,' came down from Northeastern Missouri and joined Price at Lexington) and General McBride, scorning all rules of Christian warfare, stormed a bluff on which was situated the house of Colonel Anderson, and then used as a hospital, capturing it with its inmates, while a yellow flag, the insignia of its character, was waving over it. It was retaken by the Montgomery Guards, Captain Gleason, of the “Irish Brigade," eighty strong, who charged, in the face of the hot fire of the foe, a distance of eight hundred yards up a slope, driving the Confederates from the building and far down the hill beyond. The fight was desperate, and some of the sick were killed in their beds. The Guards were finally repulsed. Captain Gleason came back with a bullet through his cheek and another through his arm, and with only fifty of his eighty men. "This charge," said Colonel Mulligan, in his official report, was one of the most brilliant and reckless in all history."

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In consequence of a forced march to Lexington, a large number of Price's soldiers had neither eaten nor slept for thirty-six hours.--Price's Report to Governor Jackson, September 23, 1861.

2 On the 10th he sent Lieutenant Rains, of his Irish Brigade," with 12 men, on the steamer Sunshine, on this errand. The distance to Jefferson City from Lexington is 160 miles. Forty miles below Lexington the steamer was captured, and those on board were made prisoners.

* See page 55.

SURRENDER OF THE NATIONAL TROOPS.

69

a

1861.

For seventy-two hours Mulligan's little band maintained the contest without cessation, fighting and laboring on the works alternately beneath a scorching sun by day and a scarcely less debilitating heat by night, under a cloudless moon, choked with the smoke of gunpowder, their tongues parched with thirst from which there was little relief, and at last with ammunition and provisions completely exhausted. During that time, Colonel Mulligan was seen at all points where danger was most imminent; and there were deeds of courage and skill performed on the part of the besieged that baffle the imagination of the romancer to conceive. At length, at two o'clock in the afternoon of the 20th," the Confederates, who had constructed September, movable breast works of bales of hemp, two deep, wetted so as to resist hot shot, pressed up to within ten rods of the works, along a line forty yards in length. Further resistance would have been madness. Retreat was impossible, for the ferry-boats had been seized, and these being in possession of the Confederates, re-enforcements could not reach the garrison. No water could be had excepting that which came from the clouds in little showers, and was caught in blankets and wrung into camp dishes. The stench of horses and mules killed within the intrenchments was intolerable.' The scant amount of artillery ammunition was of poor quality, and the firearms of the Illinois cavalry (who composed one-sixth of Mulligan's command) consisted of pistols only. Major Becker, of the Eighth Missouri Home Guards (whose colonel, White, had been killed), now, for the second time and without authority, raised a white flag from the center of the fortifications, and the SIEGE OF LEXINGTON ceased.2

Colonel Mulligan, who had been twice wounded, now called a council of officers, and it was decided that the garrison must surrender. That act was performed. The officers were held as prisoners of war,3 whilst the private soldiers, for whom Price had no food to spare, were paroled. The victor held all arms and equipments as lawful prize. The National loss in men had been forty killed, and one hundred and twenty wounded. Price reported his loss at twenty-five killed and seventy-five wounded. Colonel Mulligan was soon exchanged, and for his gallant services was rewarded with the

1 There were about 3,000 horses and mules within the intrenchments. These were a burden of much weight, under the circumstances. In the center of the encampment, wagons were knocked into pieces, stores were scattered and destroyed, and the ground was strewed with dead horses and mules.-Correspondence of the Chicago Tribune.

2 The Home Guards seem to have become discouraged early in the siege, and on the morning of the 20th, after Mulligan had replied to Price's summons to surrender, by saying, "If you want us, you must take us," Major Becker, their commander, raised a white flag. Mulligan sent the Jackson Guard, of Detroit, Captain McDermott, to take it down. After a severe contest that soon afterward ensued, the Home Guards retreated to the inner line of the intrenchments, and refused to fight any longer. Then Becker again raised the white flag, for he was satisfied that resistance was utterly vain, to which conclusion Mulligan and his officers speedily arrived.

3 These were Colonels Mulligan, Marshall, White, Peabody, and Grover, and Major Van Horn, and 118 other commissioned officers.

4 The spoils were 6 cannon, 2 mortars, over 8,000 stand of infantry arms, a large number of sabers, about 750 horses, many sets of cavalry equipments, wagons, teams, ammunition, and $100,000 worth of commissary stores. -See General Price's Report to Governor Jackson, September 24th, 1861. "In addition to all this," Price said, I obtained the restoration of the great seal of the State, and the public records, which had been stolen from their proper custodian, and about $900,000 in money, of which the bank at this place had been robbed, and which I have caused to be returned to it."

The disloyal State Legislature, with Governor Jackson, had held a session in the court-house at Lexington only a week before the arrival of Colonel Mulligan. They fled so hastily that they left behind them the State seal and $500,000 in gold coin, deposited in the vault of the bank there. These treasures, with the magazine, were in the cellar of the college, which was the head-quarters of Mulligan.

70

CALLS UPON FREMONT FOR TROOPS.

offer of the commission of a brigadier-general, the thanks of Congress, and the plaudits of the loyal people. Congress gave the Twenty-third Illinois Regiment (which was now called "Mulligan's Brigade") authority to wear on its colors the name of LEXINGTON. Mulligan declined the commission of brigadier, because he preferred to remain with his regiment.

1961.

General Fremont was censured for his failing to re-enforce the garrison at Lexington. The public knew little of his embarrassments at that time. His forces were largely over-estimated,' and he was receiving calls for help from every quarter. Pressing demands for re-enforcements came from General Ulysses S. Grant, at Paducah, for the Confederates, then in possession of Columbus, in Kentucky, were threatening an immediate march upon that place, so as to flank and capture Cairo. General Robert Anderson, commanding in Kentucky, was imploring him to send troops to save Louisville from the Confederates; and a peremptory order was sent by LieutenantGeneral Scott to forward five thousand "well-armed infantry to Sept. 14, Washington City, without a moment's delay." There were at that time seventy thousand men under General McClellan in camp near the National Capital, while Fremont's total force was only about fifty-six thousand men, scattered over his Department, and menaced at many points by large bodies, or by guerrilla bands of armed insurgents. He had only about seven thousand men at St. Louis; the remainder were at distant points. When he heard of Mulligan's arrival at Lexington, and of General Price's movements in that direction with continually increasing strength, he did not doubt that General Jefferson C. Davis, commanding nearly ten thousand men at Jefferson City, and keeping a vigilant eye upon the Confederate leader, would give him immediate. aid. He had reason to believe that a large portion of General Pope's five thousand men in Northern Missouri, sent for the purpose under General Sturgis,' would co-operate with the forces of General Lane on the frontier of Kansas, over two thousand strong, and those of Davis at Jefferson City, in giving all needed relief to Mulligan. So confident was he that Price would be driven from Lexington by these combined forces, that he telegraphed to General Davis on the 18th, directing him to send five thousand men to the South Fork of La Mine River, in Cooper County, where it is crossed by the Pacific Railway, there to intercept the expected retreat of the Confederates to the Osage River.

Sept. 13.

3

In these reasonable calculations Fremont was disappointed.

< Sept. 22.

expecting tidings of success, he received from Pope the sad news of Mulligan's surrender. The active and vigilant Price, with a force of more than twenty-five thousand men, had been enabled

1 Fremont's force in St. Louis alone, at that time, was estimated at 20,000. A week before the fall of Lexington, Schuyler Colfax, Representative in Congress from Indiana, visited him, and urged him to send forward a part of that force to confront Price. Fremont informed him how few were his troops in St. Louis then, and the importance of allowing the false impression of their number to remain. His muster-roll was laid before Colfax, and it showed that within a circuit of seven miles around the city, the whole number of troops, including the Home Guards, was less than 8,000. The official returns to the War Department at that date gives the number in the City of St. Louis at 6,890, including the Home Guards.-Speech of Schuyler Colfax, March 7, 1862, cited by Abbott in his Civil War in America; 252.

* Major Sturgis had been commissioned a brigadier-general for his gallant service at the Battle of Wilson's Creek, on the 10th of August.

3 General Pope telegraphed to General Fremont on the 16th, saying: "The troops I sent to Lexington will be there the day after to-morrow [the day when the assault on Mulligan commenced], and consist of two full

FREMONT'S FORCES IN MOTION.

71

to beat back re-enforcements for the garrison and to keep the way open for recruits for his own army.' In this work a severe fight occurred at Blue Mills, on the Missouri, thirty miles above Lexington, on the 17th," a Sept., 1861. in which the insurgents, commanded by General David R. Atchinson, were victorious; and on the 19th, General Sturgis, with a large body of cavalry, appeared opposite Lexington, but finding no boats for transportation, and being confronted by two thousand men under General Parsons, he was compelled to make a hasty retreat northward.

¿September.

The fall of Lexington was a discouraging blow to the Union cause in Missouri. Fremont was violently assailed with charges of incapacity, extravagance in expenditure, and a score of faults calculated to weaken his hold upon the confidence of the people, and the troops in his Department. The disasters at Wilson's Creek and Lexington were attributed to his remissness in forwarding re-enforcements; and he perceived the necessity for prompt action in the way of repairing his damaged character. In a brief electrograph to the Adjutant-General on the 23d,' announcing the fall of Lexington, he said he was ready to take the field himself, with a hope of speedily destroying the enemy, before McCulloch, who was gathering strength in Arkansas to return to Missouri, should rejoin Price. Believing the latter would follow up his success at Lexington, and march in the direction of Jefferson City or establish himself somewhere on the Missouri River, he immediately pepared to proceed with a large force in the direction of the insurgents. On the 27th of September he put in motion an army of more than twenty thousand men, of whom nearly five thousand were cavalry, arranged in five divisions under the respective commands of Generals David Hunter, John Pope, Franz Sigel, J. A. McKinstry, and H. Asboth, and accompanied by eighty-six pieces of artillery, many of them rifled cannon. While this formidable force is moving forward cautiously, let us observe the course of events on the borders of the Mississippi, and in Kentucky, bearing upon the fortunes of war in Fremont's Department.

3

During the few weeks preceding the fall of Lexington, General Pillow, as we have seen, had been making great efforts to secure the possession of Cairo by military operations in Missouri. In this effort, as he alleged, he had been thwarted by a lack of hearty co-operation on the part of Generals Polk and Hardee, and he now turned his attention to a plan which he had proposed at an early day, in which it is probable he had the active sympathies of the disloyal Governor of Kentucky, namely, the occupation and intrenching of Columbus, in Kentucky, from which he believed he could flank the position at Cairo, take it in reverse, and, turning its guns upon Bird's Point, drive out and disperse its force. So early as the 13th of May, he had asked the consent of Governor Magoffin to take possession of and fortify Columbus; and in reporting the fact to his "Secretary of War,"

€ 1861.

regiments of infantry, four pieces of artillery, and 150 regular horse. These, with two Ohio regiments, which will reach there on Thursday [19th], will make a re-enforcement of 4,000 men and four pieces of artillery.”

1 Martin Green, already mentioned (see page 55), was at about that time operating successfully in Northeastern Missouri with 3,000 men. They were effectually broken up by General Pope.

2 Atchinson was at one time a member of the United States Senate, and was conspicuous as a leader of the Missourians called "Border Ruffians," who played a prominent part in the politics of Kansas a new years before.

* Autograph letter of General Pillow to L. Pope Walker, "Secretary of War," Sept. 6, 1861. • Autograph letter of General Pillow to L. Pope Walker, Sept. 1, 1861.