previous next

Doc. 161.-skirmishes in Texas County, Mo.


Missouri Democrat account.

Houston, Texas County, Mo., July 23, 1862.
last Friday, a detachment of one hundred men from companies E and F, Third Missouri cavalry, and one half-section of light battery L, Second Missouri artillery, the whole under the command of Captain Bradway, marched from this place to attack the notorious Col, Coleman, who was said to be encamped at a place known as the Mountain Store, situated about twenty-five miles from here. When within five miles of the store, the advance-guard of the detachment came suddenly upon a [564] band of sixty of Coleman's men, led by himself. We killed three of the rebels, wounded several, took fifteen prisoners, three horses, and six guns. From the prisoners we learned that Coleman had moved his camp to the right-hand fork of the Big Piney, near a Mr. Harrison's, and that when we met him, he was on his way to camp.

On the morning of the twenty-sixth, we moved to attack the enemy's camp. After we had marched about two and a half miles, our advance met the enemy's pickets and drove them in. Hearing heavy and continuous firing, Capt. Bradway sent forward Capt. Call, with twenty men of his company, to support the advance, and find the location of the rebel encampment. In a short time, he sent word to Captain Bradway that he had met a large body of the enemy, and was then driving them in the direction of their camp, and asked for reinforcements. Capt. B. immediately sent sixteen men, and at the same time moved rapidly forward with the balance of his command. On every side was seen evidence of the enemy's haste. Blankets, hats, caps, and pieces of saddles were strewn all along the road, while here and there was a poor fellow lying by the roadside, wounded by a rifle-ball. Pressing forward, we soon came to the Big Piney, or rather the right-hand branch of it. At this stream the road forks to the right and left. To the left, we could hear an occasional shot, and a small trail led in that direction, but the main trail led to the right. Capt. Bradway determined on taking this road. But he had not gone twenty yards., when he was met by a perfect stream of balls and buckshot, which appeared to be directed specially at him, for he was about forty feet in advance of his men. He immediately ordered Lieutenant Waldeschmidt to get his gun in position, and give the enemy a taste of canister.

At this moment Capt. Call came up, having driven the rebels into and through their camp, and followed them until he heard our cannon, when he came to our assistance; but he was too late, for the enemy had fled before his arrival. In these two skirmishes we killed five and wounded twelve. We also took two prisoners. Not one of our men was injured, although many had narrow escapes.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Texas County (Missouri, United States) (2)
Harrisburg (Texas, United States) (1)

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
Bradway (4)
A. H. Coleman (3)
Call (2)
Waldeschmidt (1)
Frederick Harrison (1)
Doc (1)
hide Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
July 23rd, 1862 AD (1)
26th (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: