Four Years in Secessia; Adventures Within and Beyond the Union Lines Embracing a Great Variety of Facts, Incidents, and Romance of the War (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER YH. Wilson's Creek. Visit to the Battle-Oround.?Its Appearance.?Cause of Sigel's Discomfiture.? Scenes on the Field.?Ghastly Spectacles.?The Sleeping Camp.?A Skyey Omen. After our arrival at Springfield, Mo., I paid a visit to the tattle-ground of Wilson's Creek, some ten miles from that place, and found a number of persons wandering over the hard-fought field. I can imagine few more disadvantageous localities for a battle. The country is very rolling, sloping down to the little stream, now made historic, and is covered with timber and underwood, so that troops can readily conceal themselves when the foliage is as thick as it must have been in August. The ridges are quite steep, and it is difficult to move cavalry or artillery over them. The battle must have raged over four or five miles of space, and General Sigel began the attack far down the creek, while Lyon, and Totten, and Sturgis, with the Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri regiments, and the regulars, fought at the upper end of the field. During my sojourn in Springfield, I learned the cause of Sigel's discomfiture in the early part of the engagement. He was ordered to go to a certain point, where he was to meet a part of our forces; and seeing a regiment from Louisiana advancing, he supposed from theirgay uniforms that they were the Iowa troops; nor did he discover his mistake until within thirty yards of them, when the Rebels opened a tremendous fire upon his command, throwing them into a confusion from which they could not recover. I saw the spot where the noble Lyon fell; where every officer of distinction fought and died; where Totten drove back with fearful slaughter the Rebel cavalry; where every memorable act of that eventful day occurred. I beheld, too, the traces of the August battle in fr...