"It was a perfect blaze": The Battle of Wilson's Creek

To commemorate the anniversary of the battle of Wilson’s Creek here are the words of “M,” a soldier from Company G of the 2nd Kansas Infantry, taken from a letter he wrote to a newspaper eight days after the battle:

“This was my first battle—the first time in my life that I had men shoot at me, I returning their shots as well as I could, and seeing men fall dead at my side. I cannot say that I was frightened, for there is an excitement about the matter that completely banishes fear, and makes one blind to the danger around him. I saw the men fall, heard their groans, saw the enemy and heard their bullets whistling around me, with, I believe, as much unconcern as I would at witnessing a fire into a covey of quails. I had too much to attend to, to think of getting frightened.

For about half an hour, we held the ground undisturbed. Not a gun was fired. In the mean time, I drew some ‘grub’ from my ‘harversack,” and made a tolerably comfortable meal. It was rather a novel ‘hotel’ in which to ‘dine,’ but still I relished it, not withstanding cannon were booming from the opposite hills, with an occasional ‘shell’ whizzing over my head.

But this calm did not last long…[Going to the support of part of Captain James Totten’s battery, the enemy] advanced [toward it] and soon opened upon us one of the most terrific fires I had heard during the day. Before the firing had commenced, we had been ordered to lay down. By this means we were not so much exposed. Part of the boys went down, others standing, all busy pouring a hot volley into the enemy. Co. G was in the rear of the two pieces, and it seemed to me as if the main fire was directed at this point. It was a perfect blaze, and the balls flew like hail over our heads, cutting the limbs off the trees over our heads at a fearful rate. The artillery soon left…But the Kansas Second stood firm, and soon after had the satisfaction of seeing the enemy retreat down the hill” (pages 74-75).

M’s article was from Richard W. Hatcher, III and William Garrett Piston, eds., Kansans At Wilson’s Creek: Soldiers’ Letters from the Campaign For Southwest Missouri (Springfield, MO: Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield Foundation, 1993).

Franc B. Wilkie: An Embedded Journalist

Today is the anniversary of the battle of Wilson’s Creek, and an appropriate time to recognize Franc B. Wilkie. A native of New York, Wilkie entered the newspaper business when he was in his twenties and was associated with that profession for most of his life. In the 1850s, he ventured to Iowa, and became a correspondent for the Dubuque Herald when the war started. He traveled with the 1^st Iowa Infantry during the campaign that culminated in the battle of Wilson’s Creek, and later in the year, the Dubuque Herald published in book form the thirty-two letters that he sent to the newspaper.

In 2001, the Camp Pope Bookshop published a new edition of this rare book along with Wilkie’s letters about the fall 1861 campaign. These latter include his accounts of the siege

of Lexington (Missouri), a skirmish at Blackwater River, and Second Boonville. Michael E. Banasik ably edited the book, and it is part of the publisher’s important Unwritten Chapters of the Civil War West of the Mississippi series. Later in the war, according to the book’s introduction, Wilkie became a correspondent for the New York Times and then worked for a Chicago newspaper.

Here is a part of Wilkie’s thirty-second letter that was written in Springfield on the day that the battle of Wilson’s Creek was fought:

“…Everybody who was in Springfield was up long before daylight and awaiting with feverish anxiety the event of the day…. About ten minutes past five the heavy boom of the artillery rolled through the town like the muttering of a thunder storm upon the horizon, and sent a thrill through every heart like a shock of electricity. I instantly mounted my horse and set out for the scene of the action, which was fully twelve miles distant, and as I neared it the explosions of the artillery became one continuous roar that only now and then was broken enough to distinguish the sound of individual guns….

As I approached the battlefield, squads of men could be seen galloping madly hither and thither, while out on the prairie were scores of saddled horses grazing peacefully, whose riders had left them in many cases forever. I met also two men getting away from the fatal timber, over which hung a thick smoke, as if hell itself were flaming within. Some of them limped painfully along, others were supported upon the arms of comrades, some were hatless, and with locks clotted and countenances ghastly with blood, while a few had helped themselves to horses, and all were making their way as fast as they could towards town. Going still further, one came to a spring, situated a few hundred yards from the line of fight, in a ravine, and here the wounded were conveyed, and here the doctors were busy in their humane but unwelcome duty.”

Source of quotation: Banasik, Michael E. Missouri in 1861: The Civil War Letters of Franc B. Wilkie, Newspaper Correspondent. Iowa City: Camp Pope Bookshop, 2001, pages 143-144.