py
Drainesville, eighteen miles northwest of Washington. At the same time,
General Stone was directed to keep watch of Leesburg, from which the
patrols afterward reported a weak Confederate force. An advance was
ordered, whereupon Colonel Evans, who had given the Confederates great
help at Bull Run, concentrated his forces on the road leading from
Leesburg to Washington, and, on the morning of the 21st, had assumed a
strong position and was ready to be attacked.

[Illustration: FORTIFYING RICHMOND.

In the foreground we see R.E. Lee and two other confederate officers
directing the work.]

The Union troops were ferried across the river in three scows, two
skiffs, and a life-boat, which combined would not carry one-fourth of
the men. When all were over they advanced to Leesburg, where no
Confederate camp was found, but the enemy in the woods attacked them.
Colonel E.D. Baker, a civilian officer from California, hurried across
the river with 1,900 men and took command. The enemy was reinforced and
drove the Unionists back. Colonel Baker was killed and the Federals
fled in a panic to the Potomac, with the Confederates upon them. The
fugitives swarmed into the boats and sank three of them; others leaped
over the bank and swam and dived for their lives, the enemy shooting and
bayoneting all who did not surrender. When the horrible affair was over,
the Union loss was fully a thousand men. This occurrence was in some
respects more disgraceful than Bull Run.

MILITARY OPERATIONS IN MISSOURI.

Claiborne F. Jackson, governor of Missouri, was a strong secessionist,
and did all he could to take the State out of the Union, but the
sentiment against him was too strong. St. Louis was also secession in
feeling, but Captain Nathaniel Lyon kept the disloyalists in subjection
so effectively that he was rewarded by being made a brigadier-general.
Governor Jackson by proclamation called out 50,000 of the State militia
to repel the "invasion" of the State by United States troops. Sterling
Price, a major-general of the State forces, was dispatched to Booneville
and Lexington, on the Missouri River.

Colonel Franz Sigel, with 1,100 Union troops, had an engagement in the
southwestern part of the State and was compelled to retreat, but he
managed his withdrawal so skillfully that he killed and wounded a large
number of his pursuers. General Lyon joined Sigel near Springfield, and
the Confederates, under General Ben McCulloch, retreated t