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 460 Fremont's mismanagement. [isei in south-western Missouri, where from various sources he collected a Union force of 7000 or 8000 men, which however, by the expira- tion of service of the early three-months' regiments, soon dwindled to about 5000. In the interim there took place a rapid concentra- tion of Confederate regiments moving northward from Arkansas and the Indian Territory, and forming a junction with the local uprising ; the whole being commanded by General Benjamin McCulloch. Finding their numbers were outgrowing his own, Lyon advanced, and on August 10 fought the battle of Wilson's Creek, ten miles south of Springfield, driving the enemy from the field, though he himself was killed while leading a gallant charge. For the moment the Confederate commanders and forces were scat- tered. But when Lyon's successor retreated to the railroad terminus at Holla, the south-western corner of the State was again left under control of Price as Major-General of the Southern forces in Missouri, who straightway began that system of summer guerrilla campaigns which he repeated again and again during the war. Confronted by no opposing force, Price was soon able to collect a large body of followers, consisting of men who, as in a frontier foray, brought their own backwoods rifles, with simple powder-horn, shot pouch and haversack for equipment. There was no regular commissariat, supplies being furnished by the friendly sympathy of the strong Secession communities. Moving leisurely northward until by continued accessions his force numbered between 15,000 and 20,000 men, with 13 guns, Price captured, on September 20, an entrenched Federal garrison of 2800 men with 8 guns, at Lexington on the Missouri river. Lexington having fallen, Price immediately retreated southward, his army dwindling and dissolving as rapidly as it had gathered. This disaster, seemingly so needless, added to the retreat from Wilson's Creek, brought upon Fremont the caustic criticism of the press and public of the loyal West; and in the despatch to the War Department reporting the surrender, he announced his intention to take the field himself. For a while the St Louis newspapers were filled with reports and indications of great military activity, and of the formation of an army of five divisions at various points in the State, which should concentrate and move against the Confederates in the south-west. But by this time the Washington authorities, warned by complaints from trusted and influential friends in Missouri and adjoining States, grew suspicious of the reality of these preparations; and the Secretary of War himself made a visit to Fremont, now in the field. Upon personal investigation he found that, while Fremont's supposed army made a good show on paper, figuring as an aggregate of nearly 39,000, it existed as yet only in scattered detach- ments, entirely without the preparation necessary for a campaign, with only a single brigade well provided for a march. Duped by his own scouts, Fremont still kept up the dumb show of war, by publishing an