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66]
Chapter 3: military operations in Missouri and Kentucky.
- Ben. McCulloch's proclamation
-- Price's appeal to the Missourians, 66.
-- Lexington fortified
-- Price attacks the post, 67.
-- siege of Lexington
-- Mulligan expects re-enforcements
-- a severe struggle, 68.
-- Fremont called upon for troops
-- why Mulligan was not re-enforced, 70.
-- Fremont assailed
-- he puts an Army in motion
-- Pillow's designs on Cairo, 71.
-- Kentucky neutrality
-- conference between McClellan and Buckner
-- Magoffin encourages the secessionists, 72.
-- Union military camps in Kentucky
-- Magoffin rebuked by the President, 73.
-- the Confederates invade Kentucky
-- seizure of Columbus, 74
-- Zollicoffer invades Eastern Kentucky
-- the Kentucky Legislature against the Confederates, 75.
-- General Grant takes military possession of Paducah
-- end of the neutrality
-- flight of secessionists, 76.
-- ex Vice
-- President Breckenridge among the traitors
-- operations of Buckner
-- General Anderson's counter — action, 77.
-- seed of the Army of the Cumberland planted
-- the Confederate forces in Missouri in check
-- Price retreats toward arkansas, 78.
-- Fremont's Army pursues him
-- passage of the Osage
-- Fremont's plans, 79.
-- the charge of Fremont's body-guard at Springfield, 80.
-- Fremont's Army at Springfield
-- success of National troops in Eastern Missouri, 81.
-- Thompson's guerrillas dispersed
-- complaints against Fremont, 82.
-- Fremont succeeded in command by Hunter
-- preparations for a battle, 83.
-- Fremont returns to St. Louis
-- his reception, 84.
-- General Grant in Kentucky, 85.
-- expedition down the Mississippi by land and water
-- Columbus menaced, 86.
-- battle at Belmont
-- Grant hard pressed, but escapes, 87.
-- services of the gun
-- boats
-- the Confederates at Columbus in peril, 88.
-- Zollicoffer's advance in Kentucky
-- the Unionists aroused
-- battle among the Rock Castle Hills, 89.
-- battle of Piketon, 90
-- Theeast Tennessee Unionists disappointed
-- the Confederate foothold in Tennessee and Kentucky, 91.
Contrary to general expectation, the
Confederates did not pursue the shattered little army that was led by
Sigel, from
Springfield to
Rolla.
1 McCulloch contented himself with issuing a proclamation to the people of
Missouri,
telling them that he had come, on the invitation of their Governor, “to assist in driving the
National forces out of the
State, and in restoring to the people their just rights.”
He assured them that
he had driven the enemy from among them, and that the
Union troops were then in full flight, after defeat.
He called upon the people to act promptly in co-operation with him, saying, “
Missouri must be allowed to choose her own destiny--
no oaths binding your consciences.”
This was all that the
Texan did in the way of “driving the enemy out of the
State,” after the battle of
Wilson's Creek.
His assumptions and deportment were offensive to
Price and his soldiers.
Alienation ensued, and
McCulloch soon abandoned the fortunes of the
Missouri leader for the moment, and, with his army, left the
State.
Price now called upon the secessionists to fill his shattered ranks.
They responded with alacrity, and at the middle of August he moved northward toward the
Missouri River, in the direction of
Lexington, in a curve that bent far toward the eastern frontier of
Kansas, from which
Unionists were advancing under
General James H. Lane.
With these he had some skirmishing on the 7th of September, at
Drywood Creek, about fifteen miles east of the border.
He drove them across the line, and pursued them to
Fort Scott, which he found abandoned.
Leaving a small force there, he resumed his September.
march, and reached
Warrensburg, in Johnson County, on the 11th.
In the mean time, he had issued a proclamation to inhabitants of
Missouri,
dated at
Jefferson City, the capital of the
State, in which he spoke of a great victory at
Wilson's Creek, and gave the peaceable citizens assurance of full protection in person and property.
Lexington,
2 a town on the southern bank of the
Missouri River, three hundred miles, by its course, above
St. Louis, and occupying an important frontier position, was now brought into great prominence as the theatre of a desperate struggle.
It commanded the approach to
Fort Leavenworth by water; and when
Fremont was apprised of
Price's northward movement, and the increasing boldness of the secessionists in that region, he sent a
