This Day In Civil War History August 10th, 1861 Battle of Wilson's Creek

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/battle-of-wilsons-creek-missouri ^

[mainepatsfan]

Aug 10, 1861:

Battle of Wilson's Creek, Missouri

The struggle for Missouri erupts with the Battle of Wilson's Creek, where a motley band of raw Confederates defeat a Union force in the southwestern section of the state.

Union General Nathaniel Lyon, who commanded a Union force of 6,400 soldiers near Springfield, Missouri, was up against two Rebel forces commanded by Generals Sterling Price and Ben McCulloch. Although the Confederates were poorly equipped and trained at this early stage of the war, Price and McCulloch had a combined force nearly twice the size of Lyon's. But the impetuous Union commander did not want to cede the region without a fight, and so he planned an attack on August 10.

[mainepatsfan]

[NonValueAdded]

bump

[Bringbackthedraft]

If I remember correctly, Lyon lost his head in this battle to a cannon ball. Its been over 30 years since I did studies on the CW.

[STONEWALLS]

...thanks for posting this Mainepats fan....the trans -Mississippi campaigns are largely overlooked....most Americans think that the CW was mostly about the fighting in Virginia...it was much, much bigger than that...I know that from my family history....one of my g-grandfathers was in the 6th Texas cavalry, so we have stories from him about the terrible fighting the Army of the West engaged in.

[mainepatsfan]

If I remember correctly, Lyon lost his head in this battle to a cannon ball. Its been over 30 years since I did studies on the CW.

He was killed but not decapitated in this fight.

[mainepatsfan]

the trans -Mississippi campaigns are largely overlooked

They were at the time as well although this particular fight got a large amount of attention nationwide due to the lack of relative action elsewhere during this period. This wasn't exactly the morale pick up the North was looking for in the aftermath of Bull Run.

[mkjessup]

Steve Earle, liberal-lefty that he might be, actually had a very good song about this battle, entitled appropriately
‘Ben McCulloch’, here are the lyrics:

We signed up in San Antone my brother Paul and me
To fight with Ben McCulloch and the Texas infantry
Well the poster said we’d get a uniform and seven bucks a week
The best rations in the army and a rifle we could keep

When I first laid eyes on the General I knew he was a fightin’ man
He was every inch a soldier every word was his command
Well his eyes were cold as the lead and steel forged into tools of war
He took the lives of many and the souls of many more

Well they marched us to Missouri and we hardly stopped for rest
Then he made this speech and said that we’re comin’ to the test
Well we’ve got to take Saint Louie boys before the Yankees do
If we control the Mississippi then the Federals are through

Well they told us that our enemy would all be dressed in blue
They forgot about the winter’s cold and the cursed fever too
My brother died at Wilson’s creek and Lord I seen him fall
We fell back to the Boston Mountains in the North of Arkansas

CHORUS
Goddamn you Ben McCulloch
I hate you more than any other man alive
And when you die you’ll be a foot soldier just like me
In the devil’s infantry

And on the way to Fayetteville we cursed McCulloch`s name
And mourned the dead that we’d left behind and we was carrying the lame
I killed a boy the other night who’d never even shaved
I don’t even know what I’m fightin’ for I ain’t never owned a slave

So I snuck out of camp and then I heard the news next night
The Yankees won the battle and McCulloch lost his life

[REPEAT CHORUS]

[Pecos]

Does this mean that he was killed here, but decapitated later, elsewhere? Oops. Probably not.

[balch3]

I’m fascinated by the western battles. Missouri, Oklahoma and even further west in AZ and NM.

[NavyCanDo]

The US Civil War In 4 Minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN85StJ2mTU

[netguide]

http://home.usmo.com/~momollus/MOFACTS.HTM

Missouri was heavily involved in the Civil War. See above for many interesting facts.

[catfish1957]

My great great great grandfather Hiram A. Linzy died from wounds suffered at Wilson's Creek. He was in the 1st AR cavalry.

RIP

[STONEWALLS]

“I’m fascinated by the western battles. Missouri, Oklahoma and even further west in AZ and NM.”

...absolutely!...IIRC the last Confederates to surrender were an Cherokee indian unit commanded by a Cherokee general named Stand Waite...they were from Oklahoma, and were slow in laying down arms because they hadn’t heard the news about Appomattox.

[pyx]

History is written by the victors. -- Winston Churchill

The rest of the quote also applies.

There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true. -- Winston Churchill

[Sherman Logan]

Lyon was not a typical (early war) Union officer in his aggressiveness. Had he lived he would probably have attained high rank and quite possibly have changed the course of the war.

[ErnBatavia]

I'm still pissed off that during last year's driving trip, we were misdirected to what we read was the "Salem Cemetery Battlefield" during an overnight stay in Jackson, TN.....I'd taken along my metal detector in the hopes of such a find.

Turns out the directions were to the home (and nobody was there) of an association director, not the actual site....all we saw was a squashed snapping turkle in the road nearby.

[SunkenCiv]

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