CHAPTER IX.

LEXINGTON.-BELMONT.

GENERAL BISHOP POLK.-FREMONT'S PROCLAMATION.-A POLITIC CONTRABAND.-PRICE ATTACKS LEXINGTON.-MULLIGAN'S BRAVE DEFENCE.-PRECIOUS WATER.-SURRENDER OF LEXINGTON.-NO AMMUNITION LEFT.-GENERAL PILLOW AT NEW MADRID.-THE CONFEDERATES SEIZE COLUMBUS.-ISLAND NUMBER TEN,-ZOLLICOFFER AND BUCKNER INVADE KENTUCKY.-CONFEDERATE CAMP AT BOWLING GREEN.-FREMONT MARCHES TO SPRINGFIELD.— ZAGONYI'S CHARGE.-MAJOR WHITE'S ADVENTURE.-FREMONT SUPERSEDED.-GENERAL HALLECK IN COMMAND IN MISSOURI.-STERLING PRICE AND HIS MEN.-JEFF. THOMPSON.GENERAL GRANT AT CAIRO.-BATTLE OF BELMONT.-GENERAL CHEATHAM'S ESCAPE.

ABOUT this time the Confederate General Leonidas Polk

began to be active in the Mississippi Valley. He was a graduate of the Military Academy at West Point, but resigned after leaving there, and became a minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was very successful as a clergyman, and in 1841 was chosen Bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana. When the war broke out the Confederate authorities, desiring to avail themselves of his military skill, offered him the rank of majorgeneral in the army. In July, 1861, he accepted the position, and was given the command of the Mississippi Valley between the Arkansas River and Kentucky. He saw the necessity either of winning Cairo or of gaining some other point by which the Mississippi River could be commanded, and under his orders General Hardee crossed over into Missouri with a small force in July, and at the end of that month General Pillow, commander of the Tennessee forces in the Confederate service, crossed to New Madrid below Cairo and fortified it, partly for the purpose of keeping Union gunboats from going down the Mississippi, and partly to secure a place from which he could attack Bird's Point, opposite Cairo.

General Fremont, hearing that Hardee was marching toward Ironton, sent reinforcements there and to Cape Girardeau, and went himself with about four thousand men, by steamboat, to Bird's Point, where he landed the troops and returned to St. Louis (August 4). As soon as the news of General Lyon's defeat and death was received, he set about fortifying St. Louis. He also issued a proclamation declaring martial law in Missouri; ordering that all persons taken within his lines with arms in

their hands should be shot, and declaring the slaves of all rebels in the State to be free men. This proclamation was afterward changed by order of President Lincoln, because the freeing of slaves was contrary to law.

The negroes, during these exciting times, when first one party and then the other was in power, were smart enough to shout one day for the Union and the next for the Confed

eracy.

"Boys," said a Union officer to a group of field-hands by the roadside watching the troops pass by, "are you all for the Union?"

"Oh yes, massa, when you's about we is."

"And when Price comes you are secesh, are you?" "Lor, yes, massa, we's good secesh then.

LEONIDAS POLK.

Cant 'low white folks to git 'head o' niggers in dat way. Yah! yah!"

On the 7th of September General Price defeated a Union force from Kansas, which had marched into Missouri under command of General James H. Lane; and leaving a small garrison in Fort Scott, on the borders of Kansas, he marched toward Lexington, on the Missouri River, with more than ten thousand men. Lexington

was then a small city of about five thousand inhabitants, situated on the south bank of the Missouri, nearly three hundred miles by the river above St. Louis. Its possession was of some importance, because it commanded the river at that point and the route to Fort Leavenworth. When Price reached Lexington (September 12) he found it guarded by about three thousand five hundred Union troops, under command of Colonel James A. Mulligan, of the Irish Brigade of Chicago. Mulligan had fortified a hill, northeast of the city, on which was a brick building erected for a college, by throwing up an earthwork ten feet high around it. In the middle were placed the wagons and about three thousand horses and mules. Price at

115

1861.]

SIEGE OF LEXINGTON.

once opened a fire on the works, but the Unionists defended themselves bravely, and the Confederates at last began a regu. lar siege. There were at this time about ten thousand Union troops at Jefferson City, under General Jeff. C. Davis, and five thousand more, under General John Pope, were moving from north Missouri toward the river, but Colonel Mulligan looked in vain for reinforcements.

Volunteers meanwhile flocked to Price until his force was swelled to more than twenty thousand men. He completely surrounded the hill on which the Unionists were intrenched, thus cutting them off from the river, from which they got their water. The situation of the besieged was desperate. The weather was intensely hot, their provisions were beginning to

give out, their ammunition was nearly spent, and the only drinking-water to be had was a little rain-water caught during passing showers. To get all the precious fluid they could, the men laid their blankets out in the rain, and then wrung them into camp-dishes. To make matters worse, the shot and shell. which continually fell inside the works from the enemy's guns had killed many of the horses and mules, and the stench from their bodies had become almost unbearable. But Mulligan and his brave men, hoping that aid would be sent to them, still struggled on. On the 19th a force of four thousand cavalry, under General Sturgis, who had been promoted for his gallantry at Wilson's Creek, arrived on the opposite side of the river, in full sight of the besieged, but found the shore strongly occupied

by the enemy, and had to retire. On the morning of September 20 Price demanded the surrender of the garrison. Mulligan replied, "If you want us, you must take us." The Confederates then made movable breastworks of bales of hemp, and pushed them up to within ten rods of the Union earthworks. At the same time some of the Missouri Home Guards raised a white flag and refused to fight any longer. Mulligan saw that there was no further hope, for his ammunition was nearly gone, and agreed to surrender. All the cannon and small-arms were given up to the victors, and the officers were held as prisoners of war, but all the private soldiers were paroled-that is, they were allowed to go free on promising not to fight again against the Confederates until regularly exchanged. The Union loss was forty killed and one hundred and twenty wounded. Price reported his loss at twenty-five killed and seventy-five wounded, but it is thought to have been much greater.

After the surrender Price sent an officer to collect all the ammunition, which was almost as scarce in his army as with Mulligan. The officer called a Union adjutant named Cosgrove, and asked him to give up what ammunition was left. Cosgrove called up a dozen men, one after another, and showing their empty cartridge-boxes to the astonished Confederate, said, "I believe, sir, we gave you all the ammunition we had before we stopped fighting. Had there been any more, upon my word, you should have had it, sir.”

General Pillow, at New Madrid, had meanwhile been receiving many reinforcements, and was making ready to attack Cairo. Up to this time Kentucky had remained neutral—that is, it had not taken sides with either party in the struggle, though a large majority of her people were for the Union. Both parties had respected this neutrality, but on the 4th of September General Polk seized Hickman and Columbus, on the Kentucky side of the Mississippi River. General Polk gave as his reason for doing this that the Union troops were getting ready to occupy Columbus, but it was probably a part of the plan for getting possession of Cairo, only about twenty miles above Columbus. At the same time General Powill was ordered to withdraw from New Madrid and take his whole force to Island Number Ten, an island in the Mississippi about forty miles below Columbus.

1861.]

ULYSSES S. GRANT.

117

About the same time that General Polk took Columbus, a Confederate force under General Felix K. Zollicoffer entered Eastern Kentucky from Tennessee.

The country around Cairo was then under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant. General Grant was a graduate of West Point, and had served bravely in the war with Mexico, having been made a captain for gallantry. In 1854 he resigned from the army, and was engaged in business in Illinois when the war broke out. Being chosen captain of a company of volunteers, he showed so much skill that he was made colonel of

FORTIFICATIONS ON BLUFF AT COLUMBUS, WITH GEN. POLK'S HEADQUARTERS.

the Twenty-first Illinois (June 17, 1861). In August he became a brigadier-general of volunteers, and was given command at Cairo. As soon as he heard of General Polk's invasion of Kentucky he took possession of Paducah, at the junction of the Tennessee with the Ohio, thus getting ahead of the Confederates, who were reported to be marching on it. About the same time General Simon B. Buckner, a Kentuckian in the Confederate service, entered Kentucky with a considerable force, and moved rapidly on the railroad from Nashville toward Louisville, in hope of surprising that important city on the Ohio before news of his coming could reach there. The telegraph wires being cut, and no trains reaching Louisville, a locomotive was