[
542]
Leaving a company to hold the camp,
Lyon pressed on to
Booneville, where the loyal inhabitants received him with joy, and the town was formally surrendered to him. The insurgents had continued their flight.
Some of them went directly southward, but a large portion of them, including most of the cavalry, fled westward toward
Lexington, whither, as we have observed,
General Price had gone.
The Governor, who had kept at a safe distance from the battle, fled, with about five hundred men, to
Warsaw, on the
Osage River, eighty miles southwest of
Booneville, pursued some distance by
Totten.
There he was joined, on the 20th,
by about four hundred insurgents, under
Colonel O'Kane, who, before dawn on the 19th, had surprised, dispersed, and partially captured about the same number of Home Guards, under
Captain Cook, who were asleep in two barns, fifteen miles north of
Warsaw, at a place of rendezvous called Camp Cole.
Jackson and his followers continued their retreat fifty miles farther southwest, to
Montevallo, in Vernon County, on the extreme western borders of
Missouri, where he was joined by
General Price,
with troops gathered at
Lexington and on the way, making the whole force there about three thousand.
At the same time,
General G. J. Rains, a graduate of the Military Academy at
West Point, was hurrying forward to join
Jackson with a considerable force of insurgents, closely pursued by
Major Sturgis, of the regular Army, who was leading a body of
Kansas volunteers, who were eager to be avenged on
Jackson for sufferings which they alleged he had caused them a few years before, when they were struggling with invaders from
Missouri, called “Border Ruffians,” of whom the now fugitive Governor was a conspicuous leader.
Satisfied that the northern part of the
State was lost to the cause of Secession, for the time,
Jackson now endeavored to concentrate all of the disloyal
Missouri troops, with
McCullough's men, in the southwestern part of the
Commonwealth, preparatory to the speedy “deliverance of the
State from Federal rule.”
In the camp of the insurgents, near
Booneville,
Lyon found ample evidence of the hypocrisy of
Jackson and
Price, who had proclaimed to the world that they earnestly desired peace and reconciliation, but that it was denied them by the
National Government and its servants, while, at the same time, they were preparing to wage a cruel and relentless war in favor of the rebellion.
To counteract the effect of the false allegations of the
Governor in his proclamation,
1 Lyon issued an address, at
Booneville to the inhabitants of
Missouri, plainly stating the intentions of the
Government to be nothing more than the maintenance of its authority, and the preservation of the life of the
Republic.
On the day
