The 1st
Illinois Cavalry and the Battle of Lexington, Missouri
By Rich Hanson
The 1st
Illinois Cavalry was mustered in at Alton, Illinois in July of
1861. From there it was ordered to St. Charles,
Missouri, where a then
little-known Colonel from Galena, Illinois,
Ulysses S. Grant, was in
command. They camped there about a month, learning to
drill despite
not
having been supplied with weapons or uniforms of any kind. The
Department
was under the overall command of the noted explorer John
C. Fremont, who was based in St. Louis and
turning out to be a gullible
mark for
sharpers and corrupt contractors. According
to George H.
Palmer,
a Monmouth College alumni who enlisted and kept a
journal
in which he recorded his experiences, when the regiment returned to St. Louis
and were encamped at Jefferson Barracks, they were issued swords and one-barreled
horse pistols that were found to be worthless.
On August, 25th, 1861, the
regiment was ordered to proceed to Lexington, Missouri, some 140 miles from St.
Louis. They arrived there on September 1st. After resting a few days they were ordered to
move to Warrensburg along with Colonel Peabody’s 13th MO. On the 2nd day of the march a courier
arrived with orders from Colonel Mulligan for most of the regiment to return to
Lexington. Rebel General Sterling Price
was marching north toward the Missouri River.
It was believed that he intended to attack the Missouri capitol
(Jefferson City) in order to re-instate a Confederate government there.
The 1st Illinois arrived back
in Lexington on September 10th.
Colonel Mulligan, being the senior commander, assumed overall command of
a Union force consisting of some 2700 men.
Price and his army had followed them closely, making camp at the
Fairgrounds just south of town. Price’s
army outnumbered the Union force by nearly five to one, and to make the
situation worse for the boys in blue, they had little in the way of artillery
except for 5 small brass pieces and 2 small howitzers.
The afternoon of Wednesday the 12th,
Price ordered his men forward. The
reconnaissance in force, some of which weaved among the tombstones of Machpelah
Cemetery, took considerable casualties as a hot reception had been prepared for
them by Colonel Peabody and the 13th Mo. The Federals only lost 4 killed and a number
of wounded during this assault, which might have even ended more disastrously for
Price’s men had a Union Officer not had issued a premature order for his troops
to fall back.
Both armies confronted each other warily
for the next few days. Finally Price
made his move on the morning of the 18th. Ordering his men forward, they quickly drove
in the Federal pickets, and their advance allowed them to set up four artillery
batteries, totaling 13 guns to be set up.
They then unloosed 9 hours of their explosive fury upon the besieged
Federals.
Once described in a Lexington newspaper as
“the largest and best arranged dwelling house west of St. Louis,” the Anderson
House had been commandeered by the Federals and turned into a hospital which
now housed over a hundred patients.
Noting its dominant position on the battlefield, Confederate General
Thomas Harris ordered his men to take the position. Angered at what he believed to be a violation
of the rules of war, and seeing that given its position just outside the Union
west line that his men were taking casualties from the Confederate
sharpshooters firing into the Union trenches from the upper floor of the
building, Colonel Mulligan ordered his nearby troops to retake the building.
George H. Palmer was a member of that
group. He’d spent the
previous
rainy night holding the reins of his horse, along with the rest of
his
company, who were being held in a reserve position. Finding this
duty to be monotonous, he gave the reins to a
companion. As he
shouldered
a musket, and accompanied the assault on the hospital.
Palmer
vividly records the adventure in his journal…
“I
joined them in the charge. We reached
into the building and drove the enemy from the lower floor, some of them
running toward the river and some of running up the stairs. They kept up a fire from the upper story and
from the direction of the river so that many were killed and wounded of our
party. After getting possession of the
lower floor we were no better off than we would have been had we nothing at all
of the house. I saw the officers trying
to get their men to go up the broad stairway to drive the enemy from the upper
story. With urging and ordering and
threatening no one offered to take the lead up the stairs. It looked like a desperate attempt. I was now filled with dash and
enthusiasm. I ran forward and jumped
onto the second step of the stairs and turned to the men and said “If you will
follow me I will lead you! We must drive
them out!” They cheered and came forward
like dear brave men that they were. And
on we went with a yell and a rush. We
went to the doors which were closed and locked.
I knocked open one door with the butt end of my musket and stepped into
the room, there were five Rebs there, 2 of whom raised their guns to shoot
me. I yelled at them to surrender which
they did after seeing the men behind me”
George Palmer was later awarded a Medal of
Honor for his heroic
initiative
in this action, but what occurred immediately after this incident
is
still a subject of controversy. Having
taken five prisoners and their
arms,
he ordered them out of the room. Getting
them down the stairs, the
soldiers
on the ground floor spotted them, and frustrated and angry at the
havoc
that the sharpshooters had wrought upon their comrades, they
rushed
and bayoneted or shot all five of Palmer’s prisoners. Palmer later
recalled
it as “horrible sickening butchery,” and he came close to
becoming
a victim of their fury as well as he pushed aside bayonets in a
futile
attempt to save them. The justification
given by others for the
murder
of these men though were that they had violated the rules of
combat
by taking a hospital and using it as a shelter to fire from. The
Union
assault incurred some 30 dead, some of whom were sacrificed
because
the attackers had to be prudent in their fire to prevent killing
their
sick and wounded comrades. It was later
said that some of the
rebels
were crouched and firing from behind sickbeds occupied by
bedridden
Union soldiers. Despite the heroics and
the bloodshed, the
Union
forces only held the hospital for a little over an hour. Harris
ordered
his men to retake it, which they accomplished with their superior
numbers. The Anderson House still stands on the
battlefield today, the
scars
of rifle and cannon shot bearing testimony to the fierce fighting that
centered around it.
Palmer had praise for the brave fighting done by the Missouri Regiments
and their Colonels Peabody and White, but in his journal hurled withering scorn
upon his commanding officer, Colonel Sam Marshall, who he labeled as
“inefficient.” Palmer noted that he saw
him two or three times during the battle. The brave leader was laying in the
deepest trench that he could find while the battle was raging. Palmer watched his commander at one point
urinate while he was on his hands and knees, being too afraid to raise himself
to stand upright while the fighting went on.
The next day the Confederates consolidated
their gains and kept the besieged Unionists under a heavy bombardment. By this time thirst was also a foe that the
bluecoats had to deal with. Wells within
the Union lines had gone dry, and the Confederates were situated to deny access
to either the river or to a nearby spring.
On the evening of the 19th
Confederate General Thomas Harris
discovered
some hemp bales in a nearby warehouse.
He came up with
the ingenious idea of converting them into a
moveable breastwork. The
bales
were all soaked in the river overnight to render any heated rounds
fired
into them from the Union guns incapable of setting them ablaze.
The hemp bales were rolled toward the Union
line, the Rebels using
them
as cover as they pressed ever closer. In some cases they were
stacked
two high to provide additional protection.
It was time for a
desperation
move if the defenders would be able to hold on.
George
Palmer
was a part of it, and he describes it in his journal..
“Things
began to look bad for us. My company was
ordered to charge mounted these breastworks (a thing perfectly absurd) We were
armed with horse pistols and sabres. We
would have to ride all the way under the enemy’s fire and would have to jump or
make our own horses climb over our own ditches to reach the enemy’s infantry
who were strongly posted behind hemp bales with two pieces of artillery in position
behind the bales. We mounted and at the
command forward rode out of the ravine.
The Charge ended just as I supposed it would. Lt. Douglas rode at the head of the
column. I was near him. The head of column had no sooner debouched
than a terrific fire met it. Douglas
received a wound in his leg and went at once to the rear. Two men and several horses were shot, the
column hesitated then became confused, and went back to cover, which I thought
a very wise thing to do.”
By early afternoon this rolling fortress
had been pushed close enough
to
the Union lines to where it became obvious to Colonel Mulligan that
the
Confederates could rush and overrun his greatly outnumbered force.
He opted to surrender at about 2pm. The surrendered Union soldier
were
then compelled to listen to a speech by deposed pro-Confederate
Governor
Claiborne Jackson who harangued them for entering his state
without
being asked to and for waging war upon its citizens. The Union
troops
were then paroled by General Price with the exception of Colonel
Mulligan,
who refused parole. Price was so
impressed with the
Colonel’s
demeanor during and after the battle, that he loaned him his
own
horse and buggy and ordered that he be safely
escorted to the Union
lines.
Colonel Estvan, one of the Confederate
leaders, paid tribute to the Bravery and tenacity of the Union defenders. He observed that “cut off from all help,
short of provisions (water), opposed by a force three times its number, even
the bravest might feel discouraged. But
Colonel Mulligan met our attacks with undaunted bravery, and when we approached
too near, he sallied forth and drove us back.
It was only after fifty-two hours of uninterrupted fighting, when all
its means were exhausted that Mulligan, finding his small garrison was worn out
by exertions and without a chance of relief, resolved, after holding a council
of war, to hoist a white flag as a sign of capitulation.”
George Palmer was among those who were
collected as prisoners and paroled, but he slipped away before he had to take
an oath that he would not fight against the Confederacy until he was duly
exchanged. The fact that his regiment
had never been uniformed worked to his advantage. His informal dress made him look more like a Rebel,
so he took advantage of this and slipped away in the confusion before the oath
was administered.
The next morning (the 21st) he
and his comrades began their march north to the Hannibal and St, Joseph
Railroad. He complained that the Rebels
started them off without a mouthful of food, although they had captured enough
supplies when they took Lexington where they could have distributed them 2-3
days rations. He, like so many of his
fellow soldiers, was forced to beg for food during the 40 mile march to the
railroad. From there they travelled to
Quincy, Illinois, and from there to St. Louis.
The regiment was mustered out in October of 1861 by order of the
Secretary of War. Palmer sourly observes
in his journal that “when this regiment was organized it was one of the finest
regiments in the Volunteer Army.” He
paused, then wrote and underlined for emphasis the next six words. “It was ruined by its Colonel.”
Thus perished the 1st Illinois
Cavalry. Not with a bang, but with a
stroke
of a bureaucrat’s pen. Hard luck and
poor leadership can be
written
on its obituary as the reason for its early demise.
Notes
Many
thanks to Phil Reyburn for the packet of information he supplied me. I could have fleshed out other personalities
as well, but given the suggested word limit, it seemed natural to let George H.
Palmer take center stage. His Civil War
Journal is accessible online, and the man’s literate and cogent observations
really helped to bring the battle to life.
I also accessed the following
“The
Patriotism of Illinois” 1865
“History
of First Cavalry “ Adjutant General’s report
“Monmouth Review Atlas”
10/04/1861
“First
Battle of Lexington” Wikipedia
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