Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 2.

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Finding the presence of an overwhelming force (estimated at full five thousand men, including a heavy reserve) too great to be long borne with safety, Sigel continued his orderly retreat to the heights near Carthage, having been engaged in a running fight nearly all the way. The Confederates still pressed him sorely. He attempted to give his troops rest at the village, but the cavalry of his enemy, crossing Spring River at various points, hung so threateningly on his flank, and so menaced the Springfield road, that he continued his retreat to Sarcoxie without much molestation, the Confederates relinquishing the pursuit a few miles from Carthage. The Nationals had lost in the battle thirteen killed and thirty-one wounded, all of whom were borne away by their friends. They also. lost nine horses, a battery of four cannon, and one baggage wagon. In the mean time, Captain Conrad and his company of ninety men, who were left in Neosho, had been captured by the Confederates.¹ The loss of the insurgents, according to their own account, was from thirty to forty killed, and from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty wounded.² They also lost forty-five men made prisoners, eighty horses, and a considerable number of shot-guns, with which Jackson's cavalry were armed.

Being outnumbered by the Confederates, more than three to one, Colonel Sigel did not tarry at Sarcoxie, but continued his retreat by Mount Vernon to Springfield, where he was joined by General Lyon on the 13th,

July, 1861.

who took the chief command. It was a fortunate movement for Sigel; for within twelve hours after the battle, Jackson was re-enforced by Generals Price and Ben McCulloch, who came with several thousand Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas troops.

General Lyon had left Booneville in pursuit of the fugitive Confederates on the 3d of July, with a little army numbering about twenty-seven hundred men, with four pieces of artillery and a long baggage-train. The day was intensely hot. The commander was mounted on an iron-gray horse, accompanied by his body-guard, composed of ten German butchers of St. Louis, who were noted for their size, strength, and horsemanship, and were all well mounted and heavily armed with pistols and sabers. He reached an important ferry on the Grand River, a branch of the Osage, in Henry County, on the 7th,

July.

where he was joined by three thousand troops from Kansas, under Major Sturgis. The whole force crossed the river, by means of a single scow, by ten o'clock on the 8th. In the mean time, two companies of cavalry, who crossed on the evening of the 7th, had pushed forward to gain the ferry on the Osage, twenty-two miles ahead. Near that point, in the midst of a dense forest, the main army reached the river in the afternoon of the 9th, when they were stirred by intense excitement, produced by intelligence of Colonel Sigel's fight near Carthage.

Lyon was now eighty miles from Springfield. Satisfied of Sigel's peril, he decided to change his course, and to hasten to the relief of that officer, by forced marches. Early on the morning of the 10th, regardless of the intense heat and lack of sleep, the army moved from the south bank of the