Volume 5, Number 1 - Fall 1973
"FORSYTH": CURTAIN RAISER FOR ‘WILSON’S CREEK’
by Hardy A. Kemp, Colonel Army of the United States, Retired
The engagement at Forsyth late in July, 1861, thus prior to the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, August 10 of that year, was of little military importance at the time. Neither were the military consequences of "Forsyth" of such importance in the White River Valley and its neighbor-areas that "Forsyth" as a town or as a battle stand today as a benchmark in Civil War History.
None the less, the encounter between General Nathaniel Lyon’s Federal troops, then gathered in Springfield, and the Separationist residents of the Forsyth area deserves more attention than history thus far has seen fit to grant to it in terms of written record.
But "Forsyth" becomes important when it can be studied as a test of Lyon’s capability as a General Officer in managing what amounted at the time to an all-out effort at putting down a small and relatively isolated effort at armed rebellion on the part of the "State of Missouri" against its Federal Government.
It then follows, judging from military questions raised over Lyon’s generalship after "Wilson’s Creek", that any supportable comment on Lyon’s decisions in the situation he himself had created in Missouri by his declaration of war against that State deserve as much study as can reasonably be given to them. If for nothing else, this would only be in fairness to General Lyon since he did not survive "Wilson’s Creek" to explain his strategy and tactics in that important battle. Thus he left what he did do to the divergent opinions of those who fought at his side and to the conclusions of the Separationists who fought against him. Later those disputes would become the property of historians, both lay and professional, whose interpretations of Lyon would be colored, consciously or unconsciously, by their own prejudices whatever the care given to sifting and weighing the evidence available to them.
Even so, the testing of the Forsyth encounter, scarcely a battle, can be made profitable
historically by asking basic questions and gathering available answers. These, then, can be sifted for quality and weighed for value. Thus, what sort of military intelligence drew Lyon’s attention to Forsyth? What did it include? Who gave it, and particularly, who in the White River Valley initiated this organized treason, and what intentions were involved? How imminent was the danger of enemy action from that source, and was there time for it to be met before the greater danger he was facing had to be met?
Today, some of these questions can be answered off-hand, some require a search, and some, seemingly, must remain without answers since written answers are still not available at the present time, and probably were not available then, since they never were written.
Presumably, however, some of these were questions which Lyon had to ask, and they can be examined here.
It is apparent from the records available today that Lyon, on his arrival in Springfield from his "take-over" of Jefferson City and the "Battle" of Boonville, was literally swamped by volunteer intelligence officers—"informers" is an uglier word for them, but it is more accurate—whose fabricated warnings of impending disaster were either pure fantasy or the studied work of artful persons designed to serve their own interests in Southwest Missouri, not Lyon’s.
As for the situation in Forsyth, some thirty-five air-miles away, and thus a possible threat to his "left", Lyon had been told time and again that the "Secesh" had chosen the Court House in Forsyth as a supply depot, and that they were filling it with stores useful to a military effort: food, clothing, some shoes, possibly some tentage, lead for casting bullets, and similar items classifiable as munitions of war. Reports of the number of Separationists so involved—and their intentions— ranged high and low, far and wide. Plainly those intentions were not meant to favor the Union,
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whatever the case. And, importantly enough, the name or names of persons actively responsible for all this does not appear in the Official Records or in the published notes and memoirs of those who took part in this expedition. Contemporary newspapers (The Tri-Weekly St. Louis Republican copying a story in the Springfield Mirror of July 27, 1861) cite the names of two Taney County men—"Hancock" and "Price"— both known to be ardent supporters of plans for Missouri to secede.
It is possible that those two persons were John W. Hancock, a former State Senator, and John H. Price, who was a Captain at Forsyth—no kin of General Sterling Price,(1) Frustratingly enough, historians of that period—Peckham, Holcombe,—make little mention of "Forsyth". Col. Thomas L. Snead, General Price’s "ever faithful" mentions it not at all. Wiley Britton, too, the "compleat" historian of the Civil War on the Border, skips it altogether. Whether Lyon himself had any such information does not appear ever to have been known to him. Apparently that would have made little difference. He had decided to send an "Expedition" to Forsyth to destroy or appropriate the supplies accumulating there, and to disperse whatever body of Separationists that could be found. His order was published, and the expedition was sent on its way.
Here again in researching "What happened" it is frustrating to find that John M. Schofield, then a Major, 1st Missouri Volunteer Infantry, (an honor-graduate of West Point, 1853, some forty-four years later a retired Lieutenant General) made no mention of "Forsyth" in his valuable autobiography carefully compiled after his "Forty-six Years in the Army." One would feel obliged to say that such an omission was a loss to Civil War History.
In any case, the order itself was not something off of the top of Lyon’s head. Clearly there was purpose in his selection of the men for this undertaking. Thus he wanted to know— clearly — how "Western" volunteers would react to professional discipline both on a demanding sort of march and later when the guns "would begin to shoot."
To begin with he designated as commander of this enterprise, "General" Thomas W. Sweeney, who had charge of the troops Lyon had dispatched directly to Springfield when first the march was begun to drive the "rebels" out of the State. Sweeney had been serving as "District Commander in Springfield" pending Lyon’s arrival from up-state via Jefferson City and Boonville. Incidentally, Sweeney, a Captain in the 2nd Infantry, Regular Army, had accepted, and with good humor, the "election" as "Brigadier General of Missouri Volunteers" when that honor, given by the vote of the volunteers in St. Louis, was declined by both "Colonal" (Congressman) Frank Blair, Jr., and by Lyon himself—and for their own good reasons,(2). With Sweeney as commander of the Forsyth expedition, Lyon, no doubt, wanted to see how the ebullient Sweeney would manage some 800 raw troops in combat—and on the road—with only a handful of Regulars to sustain him. True, Sweeney’s previous professional experience had included hard service in the Mexican War—in which he had lost an arm—but he had seldom before commanded more than a rifle company in a battle-action.
Lyon had no very definite idea of how many armed enemies the expedition would be facing, but his military conscience charged him to be certain of two things: one, that Sweeney’s force would be sufficiently balanced to take care of themselves by having representative units of all three elements of a ground-army of that time: infantry, cavalry and artillery; and, two, that the number of men he was sending would be sufficient to handle the largest number of "enemies" reported—reasonably reported, and reasonably assessed.
Lyon was taking a chance, and he knew it. None the less, it was his design for the Expedition to make a successful attack on this selected objective and to return without serious loss. Thus the threat to his "left" would be checked for the time being, at least, the volunteers made experienced in combat, and certain questions answered or made open for answer, for example, the military quality of the volunteer enemy troops in that sector, the nature and quantity of military stores available to them, the physical nature of the wilderness that lay between him and that portion of his enemy—was it a barrier, or was it open to invasion from either side—the kind-and-culture of the civilian population in that area, and other questions important to a District Commander in an environment relatively unknown to him.
Today, in retrospect, it seems reasonable to assume that these were the questions Lyon would have had to ask of himself and others until he had the answers, for Lyon was a well-schooled officer of long and varied combat experience. He had his faults, as every human being has his faults, but Lyon knew his "fundamentals". Later on at
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"Wilson’s Creek" circumstances over which he had but little control prevented him from implanting certain of those "fundamentals". But that is not the subject of this study; the theme here is whether a pattern representing established military principles would fit what Lyon proposed to do with "Forsyth" as a part of his strategy in Southwest Missouri.
To begin with, then, the records show that Sweeney titled his Report, made back in Springfield on July 27, "July 20-25, 1861 —Expedition from Springfield to and Skirmish (July
22) Forsyth, Mo." In making this report (3) he used the rank of "General" as given him by the Missouri Volunteers. Previously, Lyon had recognized that rank, and Schofield in publishing Lyon’s order for "Forsyth" had followed suit. It was November 29, 1862. before Captain Sweeney was officially made Brigadier General—and then with the qualified rank of "Brigadier General, U.S. Volunteers", not "U.S. Army". "Regulars" versus "Volunteers" proved a distinction which grew in importance as the Civil War went on.
The march-order published by Major Schofield (4) on July 19 named the troops selected as follows: (given names and origins appear in brackets.)
"The Second Regiment of Kansa Volunteers under Colonel (Robert B.) Mitchell; a battalion, about 500 strong, of the First Regiment of Iowa Volunteers, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel (William H.) Merritt; two companies of cavalry, ("Regulars") to be designated by Major (Samuel D.) Sturgis, (4th Cavalry, U.S. Army) and one section of Captain (James) Totten’s battery." Totten was a West Pointer, graduating in the Class of 1841 and identified at the time with the 2nd U.S. Artillery, U.S. Army. Both the cavalry and the Section of Artillery were Regular Army troops, the cavalry being commanded by Capt. David S. Stanley, 1st Cay., U.S. Army, "West Point", 1852, ninth in his class of forty-three men. The artillery was under 2nd Lieut. George Sokalski, just graduated from West Point, (1861). All told this troop-body amounted to about one thousand men, and a formidable sight it must have been to both the "troops" they were sent to meet and to the civilian population who, many of then, had never seen an armed soldier in uniform, much less fully a thousand of them.
Of interest here is Company I, Second Kansas Volunteers, Captain S.N. Wood, commanding. On leaving Kansas to join Lyon in Southwest Missouri some of these men were riding their own horses which they had kept with them ever since their enlistment. As they moved on into Missouri through Clinton, across the Osage, and on to Springfield. Others in their outfit were successful in "liberating" excellent mounts here and there until the Company could present itself as the "Kansas Rangers", a name of their own invention,(5). As such, on this occasion, they associated themselves with Stanley and his "Regulars"—or, more probably, were assigned to him, much to his disgust as a professional told to "ride-herd" on groups of totally uninhibited amateurs—and with the "Regulars" they rode pell mell into Forsyth when Sweeney sent all these mounted troops ahead to find out just what the Expedition was facing. The Kansans are singled out here because of Captain Stanley’s later description and comments on their military behavior.
The story of the march to Forsyth and return—and the action there—what there was of it—is well told in the diary of Private Eugene F. Ware (6) of the 1st Iowa, who later finished his part of the War in the Dakotas fighting the Indians there as a Captain of Cavalry, 7th Iowa. After the War, and as a journalist and politician in Kansas, he became widely and favorable known as "Iron Quill", his chosen pen-name. His trenchant comments on "Forsyth" are well worth reading "in full" along with the "Notes" (7) made by Private Vincent C. Osborne, 2nd Kansas Volunteer Infantry. Osborne’s exemplary Civil War record and his later life in Kansas are justly celebrated by the naming of a Kansas County and a Kansas town after. Selections from these two serve to fill out the information in Sweeney’s Official Report which, from its appearance as to content, must have been hurriedly written and on the back of an old envelope, for Sweeney, brave and noisy as he was, was not greatly gifted with the art of writing Official Reports. He was not, for one thing, a "West Pointer"; he was a graduate magna cum laude of the School of Hark Knocks, Side Walks of New York. Born in 1820, "Of the fightin’ stock", he was like "Old Michael Brannigan’s bull pup", who, the old, old song goes, "would fight seventeen hours without givin’ up, by Old Michael Brannigan’s clock." But the main concern about Sweeney here in the matter of "Forsyth" is his Official Report, not for what it said, but for what it did not say—the prisoners taken—for example— who they were, where they came from, whether they had actually been in the town when Stanley and-his-cavalry swept in —figuratively,
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"Sabers flashing, guns blazing"—and why the prisoners were paroled so soon afterward,—to go and fight no more, but to take up arms again grim earnest—most of them. But Ware and Osborne, being new at the business, were sufficiently impressed to tell the story more vividly, Ware, from his journal fifty years later, and Osborne from his short notes made at the time. These were edited in later years by Louise Barry, a professional historian on the staff of the Kansas State Historical Society, and Joyce Farlow, a student assistant.
Ware opens saying, "We started late on July 22 (sic) trudging through the mud, going south and getting into the breaks of the Ozark Mountains." The Federals found themselves well received along the way by local residents who assurred them that they were in loyal territory, not "rebel". "It was afternoon", Ware continues, "before we struck the straggling little village of Ozark; it had some good large stores. There was a mill there and we got a lot of flour, perhaps two wagon loads. A man fearing our approach was running off a wagon load of whisky; he had it stored in town but lived two or three miles south... but he had loaded his wagon too heavily and he got stuck in the mud on the edge of town."
This mishap was corrected by the "liberation" of that cargo, one tin-cup at a time, to the troops drawn up in column, "about a half-mile long" (Ware). Naturally, that sort of distribution soon got out of hand in the pile-up made by those who couldn’t wait.
Ware then describes how this was handled, "The utensil that carried the whisky was not large enough to go more than half-way down the line, and by that time the tail of the company was bent around like a fish-hook. The orderly sergeant went off to refill, and while he was gone General Sweeney rode up in the rain and shouted, "Right dress! Get back there, get back!" The boys, taken somewhat by surprise, were a little slow when the General shouted, "Right dress, there, right dress! I’m pretty drunk, but I could right dress if I were you." Back into line the boys went and with the rain dripping down their noses laughed at the good natured general. Of course, he was not drunk, nor partly drunk, but that was the way he got at it, and that way why the boys liked him. The boys would do any thing for General Sweeney. Finally, we got all we wanted and started off singing the "Happy Land of Canaan and went into camp about three and one-half miles southeast of Ozark. The rain was still falling, and the regiment was tired but happy." (8)
As they went on they occasionally saw mounted men at a distance which they assumed were "Confederate" cavalry, and in bivouacking for the night in the rain—noise, fires and lights forbidden —the officers saw to it that a torn-down rail fence became, "good, stout rail pens" so that if their pickets were over-run during the night by "Confederate" cavalry, those hastily made barricades would offer warning against surprise. But the night passed without hostile incident,— and the "rain and drizzle" kept up all night.
In the morning they "started southerly over the chert hills...ln this chert (Ware means the layer of broken rock which loosely covers many of our hills) the black-jack, a species of oak, grows densely, while in the bottoms are fine specimens of oak, walnut and other woods." It is of interest that Ware in his journal often describes the hill-country and its people of those times in terms that sound as if the trip had been made ‘Only Yesterday’.
"Finally", he says, "the road turned down into Swan Creek, an insignificant little stream not named on the map, but now a river; it was waist-deep, and we waded it and crossed it about every half-mile." Folks down there used to say, "You forded Swan Creek, length-wise." Ware says, "I guess we waded it about twenty times" —which would have been about par on the course.
As the long day began to draw to its close, they had covered fully twenty-five miles, Ware says, "without sleep". Just then General Sweeney dashed up from the head of the column yelling, "Forward, double-quick! Go it, boys, and don’t stop ‘til you catch ‘em!" (9)
What had happened according to Sweeney’s Official Report (3) was that the company of Kansas Rangers leading the advance-guard, "Had come upon a picket guard of the enemy some 3 1/2 (sic) miles from town and succeeded in capturing two of them. "Upon examination of the prisoners", Sweeney continues, "They informed me that there were only 150 men stationed at Forsyth; whereupon I ordered Captain Stanley’s cavalry and the Kansas Rangers to press rapidly forward and surround the town....After they had passed on and before the remainder of my force had come up, one of the prisoners remarked, "If that is all you have, you will get badly whipped, for we have a thousand men in Forsyth." "Supposing this to be true, although contradictory to his former assertion", Sweeney goes on, "I dispatched an order to Captain Stanley to keep
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the enemy in check if he found the resistance formidable, while I hastened forward with the artillery and infantry to his support. The enemy in the mean time had received information of our approach and having partially formed in the town opened a scattering fire on the cavalry, but as it was returned with a well-directed volley from our troops, they fled to the hills and surrounding thickets, keeping a scattering fire as they retreated. Under the cover of trees and bushes, they collected in considerable numbers upon the hills to the left of town from which they were dislodged by a well-directed fire of shell and canister from the artillery. The infantry meanwhile had been deployed as skirmishers through the woods and in the rear of the city, and but a short time elapsed before we were in possession of the place". (13).
Sweeney concludes his Report with a short description of the country through which his men had passed, a listing in general of the supplies taken, a minimized estimate of the enemy’s dead and wounded which included mention of a "Captain Jackson" said to have been the military leader of the enemy faction, and, finally, no estimate of the number of enemy involved. As for prisoners taken he stated that only three were "taken" on the day of the action, and only two on the day following when he set out on the two-day trip back to Springfield where he arrived on July 25. Sweeney gave his casualities as "2 men wounded, neither of them dangerously, and four horses killed, including one shot from under Captain Stanley,"(3).
Certain observations need to be added.
Captain (later Major General) Stanley’s "Memoirs" (10) published some years later in the "Military Historian and Economist" and collected for re-publication by the Harvard Press in 1917, include these notes on "Forsyth": "We made our (charge) so quickly that the Rebel force had barely time to escape across White River... .The Court House in this little town had been used as a place to gather military stores. As I swept through the town with my cavalry, this building was deserted, and the Kansas Cavalry (sic) without care for whether the enemy had fled or was still fighting, immediately took possession and commenced trying on coats, pants, and shoes—all kinds of clothing with which the Court House was stored. Hearing my firing, General Sweeney hurried forward, and being told falsely that the Rebels had made a stand in the Court House, and ordered (the) battery, as soon as close enough, to shell the Court House. The first round—three shells—went through the building filled (at the time) by plunderers. Never did rats desert a burning brush-pile as did these plunderers. They did not run out, they tumbled out and ran, each man for his horse, mounted and spurred out of town. This afforded me both fun and satisfaction as those fellows had quit the fight for plunder.. ..We carried back to Springfield quite a train-load of booty, but the loss of my gallant horse, "Prince" was a sore memory (for me)."(10)—spoken and written like a true Old Army cavalry-man, indeed.
Stanley makes no further mention of the affair at Forsyth or the relatively large body of prisoners gathered up by the Expedition. Osborne’s notes, however, show that the "Court House plundering" seems to have been stopped, after the arrival of the infantry contingent, with the detailing of his company, Company E, "Sam" Crawford, later a Kansas Governor, commanding. Osborne says, "We were pleased to get to rest ourselves of the days’ march of thirty miles." After being relieved later on in the evening, he "went up town to see what was going on. The regulars (sic) were passing around Port Wine in buckets I found out where they got it went around there found some men there some rolling off barrels of liquer others drinking very freely Out of a barrel of Port Wine which had the head knocked in and it was about two thirds full. But an officer coming around put a stop to all this I soon went back to quarters (a house in town they had also "liberated") lay down on the floor and slept till morning... .The secession flag pole had been cut down a considerable quantity of (stores) had been confisticated," (sic),17).
Osborne makes no further mention of incidents in the town of Forsyth nor does he make any mention of prisoners taken there or elsewhere. Ware does,(11) however, and thereby raises a situation passed over, apparently, in Sweeney’s "Official Report". Ware remarks that as they started back to Springfield they had in addition to a large crowd of irregularly organized Home Guards (Union), who had somehow appeared after the fighting, "we also had about 100 prisoners, some of whom had been taken in town or brought in by cavalry, or who had come in as voluntary spies and been identified by Union men who were with us, and arrested. "...."l may say here, that after we got to Springfield these prisoners were all paroled and sworn not to take up arms against the United States Government,
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which parole they afterwards violated, as being a contract made under duress and not binding on their consciences. The only punishment for its violation was death. It was very hard to get them afterwards and administer the punishment....I talked to many of these prisoners and they seemed to have emigrated mostly from Georgia and South Carolina." It is much more likely that their fore-bears were the ones that "emigrated" from Georgia and South Carolina, not the prisoners.
The "prisoner" affair may have to remain unsettled for want of authentic information, the sort that supports and is supported by records that are either official or those made by persons knowledgeable of the entire situation in question and are able to give reliable, unbiased information to those who come later. Here we have Sweeney virtually denying that he had any prisoners, Stanley in his "Memoirs" makes no mention at all of prisoners, Osborne’s few notes on, "Forsyth", say nothing about prisoners taken there or picked up on the way, going or returning. There is no written record that Lyon acknowledged Sweeney’s report, and Schofield, Lyon’s Adjutant General in the field, mentions Forsyth not at all in his autobiography.
Thus if it were not for what "Captain" Samuel J. Crawford, F Company, Second Kansas Volunteers, wrote in his "Kansas in the Sixties" (published fifty years after "Forsyth"), the only conclusion remaining would be that the "prisoner" affair was too unimportant to bear mention, or that Ware was wonderfully confused. Crawford’s brief notes on "Forsyth" tend to set aside both of these conjectures. He says, "Captain Stanley with one company of the Second Kansas. He does not say "Rangers" or even "Mounted Infantry". But it was Captain S. N. Wood’s company, Company I, "Mounted Infantry" according to the Report of the Adjutant General of Kansas, 1861-1865, and two companies of the U.S. 4th Cavalry who led the advance.
Ware continues, "When within striking distance, he (Stanley) made a dash forward, captured the town and all the Rebel stores, and a number of prisoners, (bold type supplied) and drove a rebel regiment into the hills and across the river. The last four miles of the march were made by the infantry and artillery at a double-quick; but when we (the Infantry) arrived, Stanley had finished the work, and was holding the town, the supplies, and the captured prisoners," (bold type again supplied).(12)
"Captain" Crawford then adds this interesting bit of comment, "Nevertheless, the 2nd Kansas (Infantry) advanced on the town in line of battle and had the satisfaction of sending a few volleys into the water-soaked regiment (of "Rebels") that had rallied on the south bank of the river. This was our first experience on the battlefield, and it seemed great sport—while we were beyond the range of the enemy’s guns. The purpose of the expedition being accomplished, we returned to Springfield."
The matter of prisoners, then, needs some degree of resolution and the question answered, "What would a mere handful of prisoners—or even a mere hundred—have to do with the test of Nathaniel Lyon’s capabilities as a General?" Sweeney had accomplished the mission on which he had been sent. Other than for some first-hand plundering of the stores in the Court House by the "Kansas Cavalry", which Stanley should have handled summarily, and the "liberating" of a relatively small amount of spiritous potables in which, apparently, practically everyone took a hand, Sweeney had handled the march with credit to all expectations. Sweeney had done what he was told to do, and if his written report failed to include the answers to Lyon’s broad questions covering needed military intelligence, and oral report in due course would be readily forthcoming. Today—over a hundred years later— the answers Lyon sought are quite clear from the collected observations of those mentioned in this review. No doubt they were just as clear on Sweeney’s return, but what has this business about "prisoners" to do with the selected subject?
The answer to this question—in a word—is that Sweeney had brought back with him a very hot potato for Lyon to handle, namely, the prisoners themselves who were handed over to him for disposition.
Sweeney, very probably, had no idea that prisoners taken on such an expedition would pose any sort of problem, and Lyon, apparently, had not told him what to do with prisoners if the march was in any degree that successful. Even so, Lyon, very likely, would have expected Sweeney, an experienced field officer, to deal with that himself, or perhaps, as conjectured above, Lyon wanted to see what Sweeney would do with this heretofore unmentioned contingency.
If so, you found out, and right away. Sweeney did not know what to do with them—a hundred of them, say—so he brought them in to
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Lyon. No fault to Sweeney there, perhaps. Some, seemingly, were taken in the town; others were brought in by the cavalry. Still others were identified as "rebels" by Home Guard Unionists who had joined the expedition uninvited and unexpected.
Too often, it would seem, Civil War commentators carefully record "so many" killed, "so many" wounded, missing in action, and what-not, but give little thought to the problems of a General Officer who suddenly has a relatively large number of prisoners unloaded on him. This is all the more a problem if he is operating without the sanctions of declared military law and thus must hazard his own judgement against existing civil law which, in some instances, may be enforceable over his military actions. To be sure, such a general-officer may and often does conclude that a higher morality gives sanction to his "illegal" acts in war-time situations. But it does not always work out that way.
Thus Lyon’s illegal act in the seizure of "Camp Jackson", the Missouri Militia’s encampment in St. Louis on May 10 (1861) and the incarceration of the entire body of militia-men so captured—even though they were paroled and released the very next morning—cost Captain Lyon "two stars" and a Department Command as a result of "his rash judgement" concerning the legalities involved. Martial law had not been declared in St. Louis. The militia had committed no crime—not at the time at least, whatever their plans for the future, and those plans were, quite definitely, treasonable. But St. Louis was still under civil law, not military law, and no civil court in St. Louis at the time would have denied the release of those prisoners on a writ of habeas corpus, every man-Jack of them from Brigadier General David Frost, their commander, on down to the last buck-private in the rear-rank had Lyon been "brash" enough to have held those Missourians in prison once he had slapped them there, and that he had done. Lyon had a strong sense of legality, and he had had such a "conscience" from the very beginning of his military career. Moreover, that conscience had grown stronger and more demanding what with its clashes with Lyon’s own concepts of "a higher morality", i.e. the Nation’s safety and the Nation’s political destiny. Those concepts had spurred him on relentlessly to "Springfield" and finally to Wilson’s Creek. Back in St. Louis in his short tenure as a Brigadier General of Volunteers commanding his Department, his sense of a higher morality would not brook further negotiations with Governor Jackson and General Price. In short, "concept" had won over "conscience", and thus Lyon declared war against Claib’ Jackson’s rebellious "State of Missouri" and immediately began an "invasion" to put down rebellion.
What would he do this time? Here again he had a "Camp Jackson" problem on his hands. The greater majority of the "rebels" Sweeney had brough back had committed no provable crime. They had only been accused by their emotionally wrought-up neighbors. Could they, or should they be imprisoned? Martial law had not yet been declared. The writ of habeas corpus had not been suspended—and would not be until August 5, 1863, nearly two years later. A great battle was impending in which Lyon would be forced to fight or pull away—and drag his prisoners along with him? What to do, and what happened here?
Simply stated, General Lyon chose to grant a parole to the people Sweeney had brought in— whatever the consequences, immediate or remote. The law was still the law; the law is still the law, and it must rest on facts, not assumptions and empty accusations.
(Besides, Lyon had "Wilson’s Creek" still to fight, and one wonders whether he really could have cared less about the "prisoners" on his hands, just then.)
(FINIS)
1. Personal communication Elmo Ingenthron to the author (H.A.K.)
2. Peckham, James, "General Nathaniel Lyon and Missouri in 1861: A Monograph of the Great Rebellion", p. 293. (See also pp. 114; 190-191.)
3. Sweeney, Brig. Gen. Thomas W., "War of the Rebellion, Official Records of the Union and
Confederate Armies, War Department, Washington, D.C., Series I", vol. 3, p. 44. (1881).
4. Schofield, Major John M., ibid. p. 399.
5. Derived from experiences of my grand-uncle, James A. Melton, who was a member of that
Company, later 1st Lieut., B. Company, 6th Missouri Volunteer Cavalry, U.S.A., (1861-1863);
two years after that Major, 2nd Arkansas (Union) Cavalry, 1863-1865.
6. Ware, Eugene F., "History of the First Iowa Infantry—The Lyon Campaign in Missouri", pp.
231-243. Crane and Company, Topeka, Kansas, 1907.
7. Osborne, Vincent B., "Vincent B. Osborne’s
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108-113 (May) 1952.
8. Ware, pp. 232-233.
9. Ware, pp. 237-238.
10. Stanley, Major General David Sloan, U.S.A., Rtd., "Personal Memoirs of Major General D.S. Stanley, U.S. Army", pp. 70-71, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1917.
11. Ware, p. 242.
12. Crawford, Governor Samuel J., "Kansas in the Sixties", pp. 25-26, A.C. McClurg and Company, Chicago, 1911.
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