Lexington, besides being the area's political,
financial and educational seat, home of three colleges, was
also the center of wholesale and retail trade for a large section
of western and southern Missouri. The riverfront, with its factories
and warehouses, and the frequent arrival and departure of river
steamers, presented an interesting and colorful spectacle.
With the bombardment of Fort Sumter in April
1861, civil war seemed remote and of not much concern to the
citizens of Lexington, but as summer approached and the conflict
grew into a full-scale war, the dark clouds came nearer. People
began to realize that, after all, there was a chance their peaceful
community could become a bloody battlefield.
Lexington's people remained steadfast to
the Union through the unsettled period preceding the Civil War,
but at the beginning of actual hostilities, a majority of Lexingtonians,
many of them slave owners, took the sides of the South. A large
percent of the townspeople were not in favor of war, and, regardless
of party ties, they preferred to remain neutral. The protection
of lives and property, which might be endangered in an attack
by either army, was the only thing considered important in Lexington.
Major
General Sterling Price
 |
The first military post was established in Lexington late
in May when Missouri's Governor Jackson, definitely pro-Southern
in his beliefs, commissioned Major General Sterling Price to take
charge at Lexington. General Lyon, commander of the newly organized
Federal army of Missouri, did not allow Price to remain at Lexington
long, however, for during the last part of June, he moved his
army toward Lexington in a determined attempt to clear the state
of secessionist forces. General Price, unprepared for conflict
and having only a small band of inexperienced men who lacked organization
and discipline, retreated to southwestern Missouri. On reaching
Lexington Lyon left a small force and continued on in pursuit
of Price, hoping to catch and defeat him.
Continued strengthening by the Federal headquarters
made Lexington prominent in the chain of towns along the Missouri
River between Saint Louis-and Saint Joseph which the Federals
were using to keep Confederate sympathizers north of the river
from joining Price's army in southern Missouri.
On August 10, Lyon finally caught up with
Price at Wilson's Creek near Springfield, in southwestern Missouri,
and Price won a decisive victory in the ensuing battle, during
which Lyon was slain. Price's forces, then numbering about seven
thousand, set up camp at Springfield to rest and to plan their
strategy. Wishing to join forces with the small but numerous
Rebel bands north of the river, Price was determined that his
next move must be to break the Union blockade of the
river. Price believed that of the four most likely targets for
this attack, Lexington, if captured, would put the Federals
in the most uncomfortable position. Meanwhile in the river port
communities, the month of August was one of great excitement.
Early in September, General Fremont's Federal headquarters
at St. Louis ordered the Lexington post to secure a forced loan
from the Farmers' Bank of Lexington. This seizing of the bank's
entire funds of nearly a million dollars further strained the
relations between the Union soldiers and the pro-Southern people
of Lexington.
The Long March
Colonel
James A. Mulligan
 |
Toward the end of August, General Price's steadily growing
army began the long march to Lexington, and when Colonel James
A. Mulligan, commander of the Union forces there, heard of the
approach of a large Confederate army, he sent word to General
Fremont urgently requesting reinforcements. Mulligan's forces,
consisting of the First Illinois Cavalry, the Thirteenth Missouri
Infantry, the Twenty-Third Illinois Infantry, and a few companies
of the Missouri Home Guards, numbered just short of three thousand,
scarcely one-fourth the size of Price's army.
On September 10, the advancing Confederates reached Warrensburg,
34 miles south of Lexington, and the Federal party on its way
to Saint Louis with the funds of the Lexington bank, hastily
returned to the safety of the entrenchments being constructed
around the old Masonic College building on a hill overlooking
the river in the north part of Lexington.
Price's advance guard met light opposition as the army approached
Lexington, and the Federal defenders were forced back to the
prepared entrenchments around the college. The Confederate troops
entered the south and east parts of the town on the twelfth,
and the conflict on this first day of the siege was limited
to minor skirmishes and an exchange of artillery fire. Even
after Price's entrance into Lexington, Mulligan's men continued
throwing up entrenchments and breastworks at a feverish pace,
day and night, to protect their position from being overrun.
"We've Got ‘Em"
Civil
War reinactment
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After the first day of the siege, Price and his army retired to
the fairgrounds in the southeast part of town, where the officers
decided on a course of watchful waiting with the least amount
of bloodshed- "We've got ‘em, dead sure .. All we have
to do is watch ‘em," Price told his men.
In the Union camp, most of Mulligan's officers,
with a much less confident outlook, were in favor of retreating
across the river in several steamboats at their disposal, but
Mulligan replied, saying, "Gentlemen, I have heard what
you have to say, but, begad, we'll fight ‘em! That's what
we enlisted for, and that's what we'll do."
The Federals' first real encounter with
the Confederates occurred the next day. In his report, Colonel
Mulligan gave a vivid account of the reaction of his men: "Our
men had returned the volley, and a scene of the wildest confusion
commenced. Each man evidently believed that he who made the
most noise was doing the most shooting. Those who were not shooting
at the moon were shooting above it, into the earth, or elsewhere
at random, in the wildest and most reckless manner." This
type of firing could not have continued long, however, for the
Union troops had only 40 rounds of ammunition apiece.
Period of Waiting
The fighting during the next three days
followed a similar pattern with no major attacks being launched
by either side. Mulligan and his men kept an anxious watch for
the expected reinforcements as they worked to strengthen the
fortifications. They passed the hours in anxious waiting, not
knowing when the Confederates might begin the expected assault
Mulligan gives an interesting sidelight
on the end of the stalemate that preceded the Confederate attack:
"Sunday, the seventeenth, arrived,
and the Catholic chaplain celebrated Mass on the hillside."
After the services were over, the men went back to their work
of casting shot in the foundry set up in the basement of the
Masonic College building, of making their defense more secure,
and of "stealing provisions from the inhabitants ‘round
about. Our pickets were all the time skirmishing with the enemy,
and the whole camp was preparing for the enemy's attack."
Early on the morning of Monday, September
18, the three-day battle, which has earned recognition as one
of the largest battles in the Western campaign of the War Between
the States, began. Wave upon wave of Confederate soldiers moved
toward the Federal encampment from the fairgrounds, and the
Colonel expecting the worst but hoping for the best, paints
this picture of the approach of the Rebel army: "At nine
o'clock am. the enemy was seen through the glass approaching
with a force of 28,000 men and 13 pieces of cannon. They came
as one dark, moving mass, their polished guns gleaming in the
sunlight, their banners waving, and their drums beating. Everywhere,
as far as we could see, were men, men, men -- approaching grandly."
Mulligan continues: "Our men stood firm behind the breastworks,
none trembling or pale, and the whole place was solemn and silent.
The chaplains were valiantly doing their duty, blessing the
men OR their rounds. The enemy came .. upon my poor devoted
little band and opened a terrific fire ... which we answered
with determination and spirit."
Unarmed Volunteers
Although Colonel Mulligan speaks of 28,000
men in Price's army, the figure was probably closer to 15,000
to 18,000. The mass of soldiers appeared much larger because
of many hundreds of unarmed volunteers from the surrounding
country, who had come to add their small contributions to the
defeat of the "Yanks.
Shortly after the battle started, several
companies of Confederates were dispatched to complete the encirclement
of the Federals by capturing positions below the bluffs north
of the college. To cut their enemy's escape route, the troops
also captured several steamboats and ferries tied up to the
river bank.
At this point, the most controversial incident
of tbe battle occurred. Price says that, as his troops were
taking charge of the boats, a heavy fire opened from a large
house situated on the bluffs a few hundred yards west of the
Federal works. The building was being used as a field hospital
by the Union army and had been regarded neutral by both forces.
Confederates noted that the gunfire was coming from this building,
an act which would have been contrary to the rules of warfare,
they immediately assaulted and captured it. Later Mulligan insisted
that the building had not been fortified and that the seizure
of it by the Rebels was "a dreadful and dishonest aggression
against the helpless, wounded and dying."
A court inquiry held after the war ruled
the the Confederate capture of the building was not unjustified
since it was proven that, although troops did not actually fortify
it, they did fire from close by and even under its cover.
After the Confederates had taken the hospital,
they began firing into the Federal entrenchments nearby. After
several unsuccessful Federal attempts at recapture of the hospital,
Mulligan sent his Irish Brigade, famous for its courage and
valor, to storm the structure. "They ran up to the hospital,
a wild line of irresistible human will, first opened the door,
without shot or shout, until they encountered the enemy within,
whom they hurled out and far down the hill beyond.
"A Terrible Thing"
In their apparently hasty exit from the
Anderson House, as the hospital,
once the gracious home of the Colonel Oliver Anderson,
Anderson
House
 |
has come to be called, the Confederates captured the Union surgeon.
"It was a terrible thing," said Mulligan, "to see
those brave fellows, mangled and wounded, without skillful hands
to bind their ghastly wounds. Captain Moriarty, who had been in
civil life a physician, was ordered to lay aside his sword and
go into the hospital. He went, and through all the siege, worked
among the wounded with no other instrument than a razor. The suffering
in the hospital was horrible," continued the Federal commander,
"the wounded and mangled men dying for thirst, frenziedly
wrestling for water in which the bleeding stumps of mangled limbs
had been washed, and drinking it with a horrid avidity."
Despite the Federals' brave capture, the
possession of the house changed hands again late in the afternoon,
the Southern forces held it for the remainder of the engagement.
All through the nineteenth, a very hot and
dry day, the firing continued incessantly. The Federal soldiers
still expected help to arrive, but they "looked and listened
in vain, for all day long they fought without relief and without
water, their parched lips cracking, their tongues swollen, and
the blood running down their chins when they bit their cartridges."In
his hurry to fortify the Masonic college grounds, Mulligan had
not made certain the availability of a large supply of water
for his men and horses, thinking that the college wells would
be sufficient. But at midday on the nineteenth,the water supply
was exhausted.
The Final Day
The morning of the twentieth, the final
day of the battle, dawned another hot and sultry day. Price,
early the morning, decided to finish the engagement with a general
assault on Mulligan's western flank, but the Northern commander,
hearing of this plan from his spies. shifted the greater portion
of his defenses to this sector. When the Confederate attack
was launched, the Federal lines held and fought off attack after
attack. Since his attack was being pushed back by the Union
mops, Price issued an order that was to be a major factor in
the Federal surrender. During this period Lexington was a large
producer of hemp, and large supplies of bales were stored near
the Battleground in warehouses along the riverfront. Price had
these bales brought to the front lines, and the Confederates
used them as moveable breastworks. In this way Price's men could
advance uphill on the Union position under cover of the rolling
hemp bales.
Mulligan, anxiously searching for some means
of halting the advance of his enemy, commanded that the bales
be heated and fired at the bales in an attempt to set them afire.
But Price had taken a precaution against this, for the bales
were soaked in the river before being brought up for use.
Hand-to-Hand
Finally the rush came, and with a wild Rebel
yell, the Confederates swept over the Federals' outer breastworks
to begin a hand-to-hand struggle. But the Federal line held
firm, even though Mulligan had totally conceded that the struggle
must soon end, for the men were nearly exhausted and would soon
die of "tat".
Suddenly the firing stopped, and Price,
expecting the Union to surrender, sent a message to Mulligan
inquiring about the cause of the sudden cease-fire. The gallant
Federal commander returned the note replying, General, I hardly
know why, unless you have surrendered." Immediately the
fighting resumed, but as the Federal soldiers, after suffering
through 52 continuous hours of bombardment, and without water,
ammunitions, or rations, gave up the hope of being reinforced.
It was two o'clock in the afternoon, Wednesday, September 20,
1861, when the fighting Rally ceased, the Federal soldiers laid
down their arms, and the Battle of Lexington ended in a confedarate
victory.
Casualties Were Low
A surprising thing is that battle casualties
were so low for such a battle. The Confederates reported 33
killed and 150 wounded, and the Federals 40 killed and 120 wounded.
These figures do not include the volunteer troops. Most historians
attribute these low totals to Mulligan's effective entrenchments
and Price's rolling breastworks.
Click
on image for larger view
 |
"The capture of Lexington had crowned General Price's command
with a brilliant victory, and so far, the Missouri campaign had
proceeded step by step, from one success to another," states
the Southern historian, Pollard. And, adds Wood, the loss of "Lexington
was one of the two major disasters to befall the Union cause in
Missouri...," but it was also "the breaking of the last
Confederate waves, for, as a state, Missouri was lost to the South
already."
If Price could have kept Lexington, the
effect of this battle would have been still more important,
but the loss of the post by the Union was severely felt, and
Fremont, resolving to recapture it, at once sent 20,000 men
to drive Price and his followers out of Lexington and out of
Missouri. As soon as the Federal patrol of the Missouri River
was broken at Lexington, many Southern sympathizers in the northern
part of the state flocked across to join Price. Unfortunately
for the Southern cause, however, Price was not able to maintain
himself at Lexington, and so on September, after suffering overwhelming
defeats in later battles farther south, Price was forced to
disband his once-great army and flee to Mexico. He died in Saint
Louis in 1867, a victim of cholera. Colonel Mulligan was taken
into custody after the Battle, received excellent treatment
as a prisoner, refused parole, and was later exchanged. He then
resumed his army career, and was killed in action at Winchester,
Virginia, July 25, 1864, after accumulating an impressive record
as a military leader.
The Battle of Lexington, although not inflicting
a great amount of property damage on the city, did leave its mark.
Many evidences of the historic struggle remain in Lexington as
reminders of the Civil War days. The breastworks of the Union
fortifications are still visible in part of the 80-acre Lexington
Battleground. The Masonic College, which was later restored as
a part of Lexington College for Women, burned in 1932. A replica
of the historic building was dedicated in a park near the Battlefield
in 1934, together with four memorial columns marking the entrance
to the Battlefield itself.
Civil
War cannonball
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The Anderson
House was bought by Lafayette
County in 1928 and restored as a museum containing many relics
of the Battle as well as ante-bellum furnishings. Other buildings
whose histories are connected with the Battle and which are
still standing include the Farmers' Bank building, the present
home of the Elks Lodge; the Lafayette
County Courthouse, in which a cannon ball fired during the
Battle is still imbedded; and many of the town's old homes.
The site of General Price's headquarters is in the business
district on Main Street, and the grave of five unknown Federal
soldiers has been marked on the Battleground.
Now a State Park
The
Battle of Lexington State Park
 |
Plans to make Lexington's Civil War historical sites nation-wide
tourist attractions were formulated early in 1955. The restoration,
originally sponsored by the City of Lexington and local organizations,
by Lafayette County, and by the Missouri Division of Resources
and Development, was taken over in 1959 by the State
Park Board, which now administers the improvements and maintenance.
Its long-range plan will require several years and a substantial
amount of money for its completion. For more information about
the state park, visit the website
