Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 38.djvu/384

370 The old St. Paul Methodist Church, on South Street, was then the largest house of worship in Southwest Missouri. This building was full of the wounded of both armies. A young Confederate soldier stopped as his regiment marched into town from Wilson Creek and looked in at this improvised hospital. Thirty-five years later that veteran of Oak Hills was the pastor of the St. Paul Church. That ex-Confederate soldier, the Rev. Dr. C. C. Woods, is now the associate editor of the Christian Advocate of St. Louis.

After the battle of Wilson's Creek the deepest gloom overshadowed the hearts of the Union people of the Ozarks, while the Confederate soldier and the Southern sympathizer revelled in an estacy of enthusiasm.

Those were the golden days of the Southern cause, when the "rebel yell" was proclaiming victory for the proud young standard of "Dixie Land" from the Potomac to the Western frontier.

In the camps of Generals McCulloch and Price, at Springfield, just after the Battle of Wilson's Creek, were some of the most picturesque spectacles witnessed anywhere during the War between the States. Here were gathered together a strange and heterogeneous host of Southern defenders. The Louisiana troops gave the Confederate Army its highest military tone. These gallant sons of the Creole State, who had left luxuriant homes to fight in the ranks for Southern independence, were idolized by the Southern ladies of Springfield.

From the western frontier of the imperial Lone Star State, where the waters of the Rio Grande are musical with a thousand memories of romantic adventure, the daring Texas ranger had ridden all the way across the vast intervening plain to participate in the glorious achievement of driving back the "Northern invader." This bronzed Indian fighter, attired in his broad sombrero, fringed buckskin pants, capacious boots, jingling spurs, and pistol belt, was the most interesting spectacle of the Confederate camp. For the entertainment of his civilian admirers, this centaur of the West would now and then pick up a gravel from the street or lasso a steer on the town commons while running his horse at full speed.

The ranger was an unknown quantity yet in the War between the States, but to the people of Springfield just after the Battle