CHAPTER VII. FROM JEFFERSON TO BOONEVILLE--FIRST BATTLE IN MISSOURI.
|Let us now return to General Lyon, whom we left at Jefferson City,which he had occupied without opposition. The union men gave him ahearty welcome, while the secessionists received him with many a frown.
Major Conant, of General Lyon’s staff, visited the penitentiary, whichwas full of convicts, who cheered heartily as he entered. They had hopedto be liberated when the rebels left town, and no doubt would have beenwilling to enter the service as a condition of getting outside the stonewalls that surrounded them. They had been secession in sentiment, butfinding the rebels had gone without them they suddenly changed theirpolitics and shouted lustily for the Union when the officer representingthe authority of the United States came among them. A few only held outand cheered for Jeff Davis and Governor Jackson, probably for the reasonthat they believed in secession, and especially in secession from wherethey were. There was gloom all around when they found that General Lyonhad no intention of setting them free, and that the sole object of thevisit of Major Conant was to see that the prison was properly guarded,and ascertain that no work on behalf of the rebels was being carried onthere.
The editor of the _Examiner_, a newspaper which had been advocatingsecession in the most violent manner, called upon General Lyon, and saidhe had been a union man always, and was in favor of keeping the state inthe Union, though he had thought differently only a short time before.There were several cases of equally sudden conversion, but the generaldid not consider these professions-of patriotism anything more than skindeep. Missouri was full of men of this sort--men who were in favor ofthe rebellion at heart, but in presence of the Union flag were the mostprofound unionists that the country ever saw.
As soon as it was positively known that the fleeing rebels had decidedto make a stand at Booneville, which was about forty miles fromJefferson City, General Lyon started in pursuit of them. Loading histroops on three steamboats, with the exception of three companies ofinfantry, which were left to hold possession of Jefferson City,he started up the Missouri early on the afternoon of Sunday, Junesixteenth, and by sunset reached a point ten or twelve miles belowBooneville, where it was decided to tie up for the night. Bright andearly the next morning the steamers moved on, and were brought to thebank of the river six or seven miles below Booneville.
The rebels had formed a camp, known as Camp Vest, about half-way betweenthis landing-place and the town, and as they had several cannon there,it was not deemed advisable to move the steamboats within theirrange until the infantry or artillery of the land forces had made ademonstration.
In the gray of the morning the troops were landed, and the bank of theriver presented a scene to which it was quite unaccustomed. Officerswere hurrying about here and there; companies were endeavoring toassemble, as they had become a good deal scattered in the hurry ofgetting on shore; the artillery was dragged up the steep slope of thebank with a vast deal of shouting on the part of the drivers, includinga liberal amount of language that is not usually found in theologicalworks; the saddle-horses of the officers danced around in endeavoringto show their satisfaction at getting on land again, and some of themescaped from the orderlies who were holding them and were retaken withdifficulty. Altogether it was a picture long to be remembered by thosewho saw it.
There was no cavalry in the expedition, with the exception of GeneralLyon’s body-guard of eight or ten Germans who had been speciallyenlisted for this purpose. These men, previous to their enlistment, hadbeen employed in a butchering establishment in St. Louis. The story gotabroad that German butchers had been enlisted for the Union army, and,as usual, it was magnified with each repetition until it seemed thatevery man who wore the national uniform was a professional spiller ofblood. Out of this circumstance grew the most terrific predictions asto what the butchers would do when they got possession of a place ormarched through any part of the state, and it was for this reason, amongothers, that so many people fled in terror when they heard that theUnion army was coming. General Lyon’s butchers were as well behaved asthe most fastidious commander could desire; they were good soldiers,obedient to their commander, and would not harm a fly except in theperformance of their legitimate duty.
Before seven o’clock in the morning the column was in motion, thecavalry squad in advance and skirmishers thrown out for half a mile orsoon either side. Very soon after leaving the landing-place the roadascended a series of undulating hills or ridges, and the advance had notgone far on this road before the pickets of the enemy were driven in.Then one of the cavalrymen rode hastily back and said that the wholeforce of the state troops were drawn up on one of the ridges only a fewhundred yards away. The battle was about to begin!
The regular soldiers and the First Missouri were ordered forward, therest of the volunteer regiments were held in reserve, and the batterycommanded by Captain Totten took position in the middle of the roadon one of the ridges in full view of the enemy on the other side of awheat-field that filled the greater part of the hollow from ridge toridge. On the ridge held by the enemy the road was filled with horsemen,while the men on foot were deployed to right and left, slightlyprotected by fences that divided the fields.
Captain Totten unlimbered a twelve-pounder gun and sent a shell right inthe midst of the group of horsemen in the road.
To say that the shell kicked up a great dust is to describe the resultvery mildly. It not only kicked up a dust but it set all the horses tokicking up, and though it did not kill anybody, as far as was afterwardsascertained, it emptied a dozen saddles by the rearing and plunging ofthe steeds. None of them had ever seen anything of the kind before. Ittakes a hardened old horse to stand an exploding shell, and even thenthere’s some doubt as to whether he will be quiet under such tryingcircumstances.
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The opening shot of the artillery was rapidly followed by others, andthen the small-arms added their noise to the firing. Of course therebels by this time were doing their best, and the bullets flew thickly,but as is always the case in battle, most of them were aimed too high.Here and there a man was wounded, but as General Lyon had ordered allwho were not actually engaged to keep out of range no harm was doneoutside the fighting line, and even there the bloodshed was slight.
In twenty minutes from the time the first shot was fired the rebels werein full retreat and the unionists were following them. Not only were therebels in retreat, but they were scattered and a good deal demoralized.In justice to them it should be said that no commander ever yet existedwho could keep his men completely together in time of flight under anenemy’s fire. Of course veterans will act better than green troops, buteven the hardiest of veterans will straggle under such circumstances.
The fugitives made no stand until they reached their camp, and eventhere they did not tarry long. A few rounds of bullets and some shotsfrom the artillery set them again in flight, which was considerablyaided by one of the steamboats that had moved up from the landing-placeand fired two or three rounds from a howitzer just as it reached a pointopposite the camp. “Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them,cannon in front of them,” as the Light Brigade had at Balaklava, was toomuch for the rebel troops to stand.
There was something ludicrous in the appearance of the camp, as it boreevidence of a very hasty departure on the part of its late occupants.Meat was in the frying-pans on the fire, half-baked beans filled thecamp-ovens, and pots of unboiled coffee were standing ready for theattention of the cook. On the ground lay a ham with a slice half severedand a knife still sticking in the meat. The camp-chest of some of theofficers was all spread for breakfast, but those who had expected totake their morning meal there were now in rapid flight for safety.
A cooked breakfast should not be wasted, so some of our fellows thought,and they set about devouring what the fugitives had left. Tents werestanding, piles of provisions were heaped up, a good many rifles andother weapons were scattered on the ground, and altogether the captorsmade a satisfactory seizure. One of t
he officers found several hundreddollars in a trunk in one of the tents and thoughtfully put the moneyin his pocket, in order, as he said, to hand it to the owner in case heshould ever meet and recognize him.