Diary of Private Edward W. Crippin, Wednesday, September 25, 1861

Morning Drill. near 20 on the sick list this morning Bad news from Mo. Lexington has been taken by Gen Price. Private Hobbs in Guard House at Cairo for sleeping on his Post, last night while guarding prisoners. 4 prisoners brought in this evening—from near Norfolk Mo. taken after a pretty hard fight—in which 12 of the Enemy were killed—and a lot of arms taken, One of the prisoners has a pretty severe cut across the shoulder.

SOURCE: Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1909, p. 227

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: October 10, 1861

A victory — but not in the East. I expect none here while there is such a stream of travel flowing Northward. It was in Missouri, at Lexington. Gen. Price has captured the town and made several thousand prisoners, whom he dismissed on parole.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 84

Diary of Judith W. McGuire: October 2, 1861

“the Briars.” —We returned yesterday, everybody anxious and apprehensive. Battles seem to be imminent, both in Western Virginia and on the Potomac. Constant skirmishing reported in both places.

General Price, it is said, has taken Lexington, Missouri, with a large number of prisoners. Our army in Fairfax has fallen back from “Munson's Hill” to the Court-House; thus leaving our dear homes more deeply buried in the shade of Yankeeism than ever. There are many refugees in this neighbourhood, like ourselves, wandering and waiting. Mrs. General Lee has been staying at Annfield, and at Media, sick, and without a home. All Virginia has open doors for the family of General Lee; but in her state of health, how dreadful it is to have no certain abiding place. She is very cheerful, and showed me the other day a picture of “Arlington,” in a number of Harpers' Magazine, which had mistaken its way and strayed to Dixie. She thought the representation good, as it certainly is of what Arlington was; but it is said that those fine trees are living trees no more—all felled to make room for the everlasting fortifications. She clings to the hope of getting back to it; but I begin to feel that we may all hang our harps upon the willows; and though we do not sit by the waters of a strange land, but among our whole-souled friends in our own Virginia, yet our “vine and fig-tree” is wanting. Home and its surroundings must ever be our chief joy, and while shut out from it and its many objects of interest, there will be a feeling of desolation. The number of refugees increases fearfully as our army falls back; for though many persons, still surrounded by all the comforts of home, ask why they do not stay, and protect their property, my only answer is, “How can they?”  In many instances defenceless women and children are left without the means of subsistence; their crops destroyed; their business suspended; their servants gone; their horses and other stock taken off; their houses liable at any hour of the day or night to be entered and desecrated by a lawless soldiery. How can they remain without even the present means of support, and nothing in prospect? The enemy will dole them out rations, it is said, if they will take the oath! But who so base as to do that? Can a Southern woman sell her birthright for a mess of pottage? Would she not be unworthy of the husband, the son, the brother who is now offering himself a willing sacrifice on the altar of his country? And our old men, the hoary-headed fathers of heroic sons, can they bear the insults, the taunts of an invading army? Can they see the spot of earth which they have perhaps inherited from their fathers covered with the tents of the enemy; their houses used as head-quarters by officers, while they and their families are forced into the poorest accommodations; ancestral trees laid low, to make room for fortifications, thrown across their grounds, from which cannon will point to the very heart of their loved South? How can the venerable gentlemen of the land stay at home and bear such things?  No — let them come out, and in some way help the Confederacy. Our new government will want officers, and the old men had better fill them, and leave the young ones free to swell the army. But I will no longer indulge in this strain; it makes me sad, and it is my duty to give at least the meed of cheerfulness to our kind friends; in truth, we have a right cheerful household. It would be amusing to an observer to see us on mail days. The papers are read aloud, from “Terms” to “finis,” by N., who, being a good reader, and having the powers of endurance to a great degree, goes on untiringly, notwithstanding the running commentaries kept up throughout from many voices.

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 65-7

The Expected Blow

Very much of the new we reprint from the rebel journals we interpret by the rule of contraries, so that their averment that Beauregard has gone to New Orleans, of instance, persuades us that he will soon turn up a good way from that city.  Still, we are inclined to believe their late story that Jeff. Davis has set out for the South West, because, many reasons concur in designating that as his most desirable locality.  We believe the Rebels will not meet our great Potomac Army in open battle, but will [wait] for opportunities to attack portions of it in superior force, as lately as Winchester; but should no such be afforded them, they will gradually retire as our main body advances, hoping only to detain it in Virginia until the season is too far advanced and the heat too fervid for offensive operations in the Cotton States.  Such seems to be the general purpose of the present Rebel strategy in Virginia.

On the other hand, we see much that indicates a determination on the part of Secession chiefs to strike a sudden and heavy blow in the South-West.  They are evidently concentrating their forces at Corinth or some other point near the south line of Tennessee, with intent to hurl the great mass of them suddenly on an exposed detachment of ours, thus repeating the lesson of Bull Run, Wilson’s Creek, and Lexington.  We Trust they are to be baffled in this game by the cautious energy of Gen. Halleck; and, if they should not be able to fight at the advantage they meditate, we believe they will make a virtue of necessity, and fight a desperate battle any how, hoping by success to recover Tennessee, or at any rate protect “the South proper” form invasion and restoration to the Union.  The vigor and skill of our generals are quite likely to interfere with these calculations; but we are satisfied that, if left to their own devices, the Rebel chiefs will not soon fight a great battle in Virginia, but will fight one in the South-West.

The “Anaconda” plan of surrounding and crushing a rebellion exposes those who adopt it to great and obvious hazards.  Since Napoleon’s early campaign, every tyro in the art of war understands that the first canon is, “Be strongest at the point of actual and decisive conflict, no matter how weak everywhere else.”  The rebels profited by their fidelity to this rule at Bull Run, and in most of their triumphs, as we have since done at Fort Donelson, Roanoke Island, &c.  To comprehend the value and importance of this rule is easy enough; to obey and profit by it requires a mastery of the military art.  But the rebels, holding the inferior position and operating upon much the shorter lines of communication, can conform to it more easily than the Unionists who confront them.  And only a most resolute offensive on all points can prevent an army engaged in active operations, as has been recently witnessed.  And their advantage of position is so fairly counterbalanced by our command of the seas and our superiority in both gunboats and transports on the Western rivers, that it should not, and probably will not, be allowed to prove of much avail.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 5, 1862, p. 3

The Fall of Lexington – Why Mulligan was not Re-enforced – Fremont Vindicated

We make the following extract from the speech of Hon. Schuyler Colfax, in defense of Gen. Fremont, delivered on Friday last.  It is but an extract, but sufficient to justify to the General with the honest and patriotic people.  The speech was made in reply to the attack of F. P. Blair:

I come now to the fall of Lexington.  I happened to be in St. Louis on the 14th of September, and found the whole city excited with the news that had just reached there, that Price was marching upon the gallant defender of the town of Lexington, and when my friend speaks about the Home Guard it appears to me that Colonel Mulligan didn’t bear very high testimony to their gallantry then.  But I saw Lieutenant Governor Hall and he told me that Price was marching toward Lexington with fifteen thousand men, and that Fremont ought to send out a column to intercept him.  I asked him how many men Fremont had, and he said he thought he had twenty thousand.  I thought if he had that number he certainly could send out some, and I went to General Fremont, full of zeal for the re-enforcement of Mulligan, and told him what Lieutenant Governor Hall had said, and that if he had twenty thousand men some ought to be sent out. – He said: “I will tell you, confidentially, what I would not have known in the streets of St. Louis for my life.  They have got the opinion that I have twenty thousand men here.  I will show you what I really have got.”  He rang his bell, and his secretary came and brought the muster roll for that day, and by that muster roll he had in St. Louis and within seven miles round about, less than eight thousand men, and only two of them full regiments.  It was a beggarly array of an army, and it was all needed to defend that city at that time.  But I asked him if he could not spare some of these?  Sir, the tears stood in his eyes, as he handed me two telegraphic dispatches he had that day received from Washington.  I will read them, that you may see how little was at his command to re-enforce Mulligan.  Mr. Colfax then read the dispatches, ordering him to send five thousand armed infantry to Washington, and continued: I have shown you that he had the men, but no guns; and when he bought guns, the necessity for which was imperious, he was denounced from one end of this country to the other because they were not Springfield rifles of the best quality.  You must send five thousand well armed infantry to Washington at once, and this draft on him was to be replaced by troops from Kansas, or wherever he could best gather them.  I asked him, “What can you do (and my heart sank within me as I asked the question) here with an inferior force, and your best forces sent away to Washington?”  Said he, “Washington must have my troops, though Missouri fall, and I fall myself.”  After I heard that I would have been a traitor to my convictions if I did not stand up to defend this man, who was willing to sacrifice himself to defend the imperiled capital of the country.

He telegraphed to Washington that he was preparing to obey the order received, and I doubt not it made his heart bleed, knowing the strait Mulligan was in.  Then he telegraphed to Gov. Morton and Gov. Denison for more troops and the answer he received was that they had received orders to send all their troops East.  So there his reliance failed.  My friend says that it cannot be shown that he moved any of his men until after Lexington had fallen.  Lexington fell on Friday, the 22d of September.  I well remember the day.  Here are dispatches to Gen. Pope on the 16th of September, and dispatches from Gen. Sturgis to Col. Davis, hurrying the men.  The wires were hot with orders hurrying the men to re-enforce Mulligan.  Pope telegraphed on the 17th of September that his troops would be there day after to-morrow, which would have been two days before Lexington surrendered, and Sturgis thought he should be there on Thursday.  Col. Mulligan told me himself that if Sturgis had appeared on the opposite side of the river he though Price would have retired.  Thus from three sources Fremont sent on troops to re-enforce Mulligan, but he failed to do it because the elements seemed to be against him, and not because he did not seek to do so in every possible way that he could send succor to him.  At this very time there were all the different posts in Missouri to be held; his three months’ men were rapidly retiring, and his best men sent to Washington, Price, with fifteen thousand me, marching to Lexington; McCullough threatening Rolla, Hardee threatening Ironton, and Polk and Pillow at Columbus; and all over the State where organized bands of rebels – about eighty thousand men – threatening him, and he with an inadequate force to meet them.  And while thus struggling, from every side were launched against him the poisoned arrows of hate and partisan enmity; and while Fremont was out hunting the enemies of his country, somebody was in St. Louis hunting up witnesses against him, and giving ex parte testimony taken there; and while he was facing the foe, endeavoring to secure victory, a synopsis of the testimony was sent upon the wires all over the country, so that the public mind should be poisoned against, and his overthrow might be easier.  I think, in the name of humanity – if there is no such word as justice – they should at least have sent him this evidence after he came back to his post; but to this very hour the committee have not sent him this testimony at all.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 29, 1862, p. 4

The Page county Herald says . . .

. . . there is a man in that county who boasts that he “had the honor of drawing a sight on Union men at the battle of Lexington, and fighting against the Union forces.”  If that man Mr. Herald, is guilty of the act of which he boasts, why, hang him!  The loyal soil of Page county should not be polluted by the living presence of any such a wretch. – Hang him!  Hang him effectually!  Hang him until he hauls off into some grave yard for repairs!

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 29, 1862, p. 1