something more and better than a desire to produce injury to those who may differ from them." To aid the national Government in warding off the enemies of the State coming from abroad; to preserve, as far as possible, peace within its borders, was the task. A special Proclamation of Governor Gamble on the 3d of August, further showed his desire to discharge the duty in a conciliatory spirit. Again was the policy of the Government distinctly announced as one of non-interference with the peculiar institution of the State. In choosing him as Governor, the Convention, he said, had given an assurance sufficient to satisfy all "that no countenance will be afforded to any scheme or to any conduct calculated in any degree to interfere with the institution of slavery existing in the State. To the very utmost extent of Executive power that institution will be protected." He warned the citizens against obedience to the requisitions of Governor Jackson and the "Military act" of the late Legislature, which the Convention had annulled, and urged a new organization of the militia for the defence of the State. Of the foreign enemies who were its assailants he said: "The State has been invaded by troops from the State of Arkansas, and a large force, under General Pillow of Tennessee, has landed upon the soil of Missouri, notwithstand ing the Congress of the Confederate States, in their act declaring war against the United States, expressly excepted Missouri as a State against which the war was not to be waged. General Pillow has issued a proclamation, addressed to the people of Missouri, in which he declares that his army comes at the request of the Governor of this State, and says they will help us to expel from our borders the population hostile to our rights and institutions, treating all such as enemies if found under arms. It remains to be seen whether General Pillow and other officers of the Confederate States will continue their endeavor to make Missouri the theatre of war, upon the invitation of Governor Jackson or of any other person, when such invasion is contrary to the act of the Confederate States, and when the invitation given by the Governor is withdrawn by the people. We have sought to avoid the ravaging our State in this war, and if the military officers of the Confederate States seek to turn the war upon us, upon the mere pretext that they are invited by a State officer to do so, when they know that no State officer has authority to give such invitation, then upon them be the consequences, for the sovereignty of Missouri must be protected." The Proclamation of General Pillow alluded to, was dated New Madrid, in the southeastern portion of the State, on the Mississippi. It was addressed to the People of Missouri, and read thus:"The forces under my command are your neighbors, and we come at the instance and request of the Governor of your State as allies to protect you against tyranny and oppression. As Tennesseeans, we have deeply sympathized with you. When you were called to arms and manifested a determination to resist the usurper who has trampled under his feet the Constitution of the Government, and destroyed all the guards so carefully prepared for the protection of the liberties of the people by our fathers, and when you called for help, Tennessee sends her army, composed of her cherished sons, to your aid. We will help AN ERA OF PROCLAMATIONS. you expel from your borders the population hostile to your rights and institutions, treating all such as enemies if found under arms. We will protect your people from wrong at the hands of our army, and while we have every reason to believe that no violence will be done to the rights of your true-hearted and loyal people, the General commanding begs to be informed if any case of wrong should occur. To the gallant army under his command, who hold in their keeping the honor of Tennessee, though composed of Tennesseeans, Mississippians and Kentuckians, he appeals as a father to his children, to violate the rights of no peaceable citizen, but to guard the honor of Tennessee as you would that of an affectionate mother, cherishing you as her sons. The field for active service is before you. Our stay here will be short. Our mission is to place our down-trodden sister on her feet, and to enable her to breathe after the heavy tread of the tyrant's foot. Then, by her own brave sons, she will maintain her rights and protect her own fair women from the foe, whose forces march under banners inscribed with Beauty and Booty' as the reward of victory. In victory the brave are always merciful, but no quarter will be 65 513 shown to troops marching under such a banner. In this view, and for these purposes, we call upon the people of Missouri to come to our standard, join our forces, and aid in their own liberation. If you would be freemen, you must fight for your rights. Bring such arms as you have. We will furnish ammunition, and lead you on to victory. That the just Ruler of nations is with us is manifested in the glorious victory with which our arms were crowned in the bloody field of Manassas." It was the era of Proclamations in Missouri. From this same place, New Madrid, Lieutenant-Governor Reynolds, the last day of July, issued his Proclamation to the People of Missouri authorizing the proceedings of General Pillow, whom he had brought from Tennessee ; and a few days after, Governor Jackson himself issued another, also of considerable length and of greater importance, arraigning the acts of President Lincoln, and "provisionally" declaring the political connection between the United States of America and the people and Government of Missouri dissolved. This was in accordance with an arrangement of Governor Jackson with the government at Richmond for the introduction of Missouri as a member of the Confederacy. GENERAL LYON'S MISSOURI CAMPAIGN. BATTLE OF WILSON'S CREEK, ÅUG. 10, 1861. WE left General Lyon setting out from Booneville at the beginning of July. He was firmly convinced of the necessity of action, and determined, in spite of every disadvantage of means and resources, to make that action prompt and effective. We may pause here a moment to notice a letter written by him a few days before, to a near relative who had requested some information on previous incidents of his life, doubtless with a view to their publication, for there were at this time few persons of whom the public more desired to hear than of General Lyon. It was a complimentary call which most persons thus situated would have found some means of complying with. But General Lyon was far too deeply engrossed with the concerns of his country to look at such a time into his past life for materials for eulogy. His reply exhibits the disinterestedness of the man, his superiority to any personal vanity or sense of importance, and his overwhelming conviction-a conviction which he, more than most leaders of the North, at that time felt-of the momentous nature of the conflict upon which the country had entered. He thus wrote from Booneville, June 28th, 1861: "Dear Cousin, I have your two notes asking for points of my military service. I have not answered, because I have no time, and do not think the subject of the least importance. This great and wicked rebellion absorbs my whole being to the exclusion of any considerations of fame or self-advancement. In this issue, if I have or shall have a conspicuous part, I would share it and the honors of it equally with every one who contributes to sustain the great cause of our country, which I have so much at heart. I have not received your notice of me in the Journal of Commerce. Most of the notices by the press are more or less erroneous. But, alas! the past is nothing painfully, indeed, unfruitful of benefits to our race. It is with the present we are dealing, and let us all devote ourselves to it with a view to secure the future. And let that future be blank and forever oblivious rather than our cause fail before the unscrupulous villainy now at war upon it. Of the ultimate results I have no doubts, though unfavorable incidents may arise under frauds and misrepresentations and a heretofore demoralized sentiment at the North, so unfortunately auspicious to our enemies. I am now deeply involved and concerned in the issues before me. My exertions and will shall not be wanting, though they may not go far to effect the result. What is now before me in this region I hardly know. The Governor and party have gone South, and may make another stand; though it is probable they intend to rendezvous in Arkansas and return with reinforcements. I have been unavoidably delayed by getting up a train, but shall pursue, though I do not expect to catch the fugitives.' وو Having diligently collected a train by the purchase of wagons and animals from the farmers of the country-he was not GENERAL LYON'S ADVANCE. 515 the State to hasten to Springfield. On the 11th the army, starting at sunrise, regardless of the heat, accomplished a march of twenty-seven miles by 3 o'clock. "At sundown," continues Dr. Woodward, the latest biographer of General Lyon, in his narrative of the expedition, the man to wait for the Government ing from the extreme western part of manufacture of the regulation article General Lyon, on the 3d of July, 1861, left Booneville in quest of the enemy. He had with him at starting 2,700 men, Iowa and Missouri volunteers, a company of regulars, and Captain Totten's battery of four pieces of artillery. Though the force was small, it was im-"the line of march was again formed. posing and effective, for the men of which it was composed knew their duty, and were prepared to discharge it. A body of pioneers, armed with Sharp's rifles and carrying axes and shovels, followed the regulars, who were placed in advance as skirmishers. Then came the artillery, succeeded by the infantry and a long train of supplies. General Lyon rode mounted on an iron-grey horse, accompanied by a select body-guard of ten stout German butchers from St. Louis, mounted on powerful horses and armed with revolvers and cavalry swords. Thus provided and equipped, the little army, hardly more than a simple brigade, made its way southward through the heat and dust of the sultry season. On the 7th, having secured the passage of Grand river, a branch of the Osage running through Henry county, he was joined at that ferry by 3,000 troops from Kansas, commanded by Major Sturgis, and the whole force was passed over the stream that night and early on the following morning by a single small scow. With similar expedition and success the army next day reached the Osage, striking the river in the heart of a dense forest ten or twelve miles west of Oceola. Here considerable excitement was produced in the camp by the news of Colonel Sigel's engagement at Carthage, which, in consequence of his retreat, was represented as a defeat. It was resolved turn The road soon struck a heavy forest, where the dense foliage of the overhanging limbs shut out the glimmer of the stars, leaving the men to grope their way through almost total darkness. The road was little travelled, and extremely rough. Steep hills, deep gorges, swift streams, miry sloughs, gullies washed out by the rains, rocks scattered about everywhere, stumps and fallen timber were among the obstacles which had to be encountered in the darkness. Many were the bruised limbs and broken vehicles. For thirty-six hours most of the men had hardly closed their eyes, and now unsupportable drowsiness overpowered them. If the line came to a momentary halt, scores fell asleep in their tracks. Arousing as the column moved on; the men struggled bravely against fatigue till 3 o'clock in the morning, when General Lyon ordered a halt. Scarcely was the order issued before nine-tenths of the army were buried in slumber. Few waited to unroll their blankets or seek a sheltered spot for a couch. Wherever they stood, they dropped upon the ground-officers and men indiscriminately-with the earth for a bed and the sky for a covering." Within twenty-four hours the toil-worn force marched nearly fifty miles, over a rugged, disadvantageous country, in the heat of midsummer, to carry aid to a portion of the army supposed to be in dan ness. ger. Their exertions were rewarded the loch, was a person of some mark in next morning by hearing that Sigel's com- military frontier life. A native of Ruthmand was safe, and, thus encouraged, they erford county, Tennessee, the son of an marched leisurely to Springfield, which aid of General Jackson's warrior-friend, they reached on the 13th, accomplish- General Coffee, he had early addicted ing the distance of nearly two hundred himself to the hunter's life of the wildermiles, from Booneville, in eleven days. In his younger days he acquired The retreat of Sigel through the ene- some reputation as an adept in bear my's forces at Carthage, was a fiery in- hunting. When the tide of emigration dication of the storm of war gathering in began to set beyond the Mississippi, he the South-west, which, sweeping onward, made some ineffectual attempts to join was destined to overpower-though not parties of traders and trappers to Santa without a desperate struggle-the in- Fe and the Rocky Mountains. He then ferior bands of loyal men gathered round settled in Gonzales county, Texas, joinGeneral Lyon at Springfield-numbers ed General Houston at the first outbreak daily diminished by the expiration of with the Mexicans, and was present, in the time of enlistment of the volunteers, command of a gun, at the battle of San of which his force was mostly composed. Jacinto. When the province was anThe preparations making by the rebels nexed to the United States, and the war were the most formidable of their many became national, he raised a company of attempts in this quarter during the war. Texans, and joined General Taylor on Their army, collected from various the Rio Grande, accompanying him to quarters, at Cassville, to the south-west Monterey and Buena Vista, rendering of Springfield, near the Arkansas line of good service as a scout. He was thence Missouri, included a large body of Mis- transferred to the column of General sourians, under General Price, a force of Scott, and entered Mexico with the Arkansas troops led by General Pearce, | triumphant army. After the war he rea regiment of Texan Rangers under Col- turned to his home, and received his onel Greer, a Louisiana regiment under reward in the appointment by President Colonel Hebert, and a regiment of mount-Pierce of United States Marshal in ed riflemen under Colonel Churchill, with other commands comprehending the best military talent of the South-west. Few names of those who were distinguished at that time in the rebel service of the South-western region were missing from the muster of forces which, advancing under the command of General McCulloch, were encamped on the 6th of August at Wilson's Creek, a position ten miles south-west of Springfield. The object was the investment and capture of the Union forces of General Lyon at that town. The rebel commander, Ben McCul Texas. He subsequently enjoyed another appointment from President Buchanan, who, oddly enough, sent him with the army, when difficulties arose in the region, as Peace Commissioner to Utah. At the first overt acts of the Rebellion he was hovering about Washington, and his name was frequently mentioned in connection with rumors of attacks upon the city. He then disappeared from that quarter to become a more certain source of terror, and fulfil his destiny as the leader of the insurgents of Arkansas and South-western Missouri. |