twelve miles distant, was repulsed after a spirited attack, with a
total loss of sixty-eight. A week later an Ohio regiment took the cars
to make a reconnoissance toward Vienna, a village not far south of
Washington. They were surprised by Confederates, who placed two guns on
the track and fired on the train as it came around a curve. The Ohioans
sprang to the ground, and after some fighting drove their opponents
back.

All this time both North and South were struggling for possession of the
neutral States. Governor Jackson, of Missouri, was straining every nerve
to force his State into secession. Early in May two or three regiments
of militia were got together and drilled in a camp near St. Louis.
Cannon were sent by President Davis, boxed up and marked "marble."
Captain Lyon, of the regular army, who held the St. Louis arsenal with a
few companies, reconnoitred the secessionist camp in female dress. The
next day, May 10th, assisted by local militia, he suddenly surrounded it
and took 1,200 prisoners. A month later he embarked some soldiers on
three swift steamers, sailed up the Missouri to Jefferson City, the
state capital, and raised the Union flag once more over the State House.
Governor Jackson fled. During the next month all the armed disunionists
were driven into the southwestern part of the State.

[Illustration: Portrait.]
General John C. Fremont.

The last of July a state convention organized a provisional government
and declared for the Union. But the secessionists, under General Price,
continued the struggle. The Union forces, after a brave fight against
great odds at Wilson's Creek, August 10th, in which Lyon was killed, had
to retreat north. General Fremont had shortly before been put at the
head of the Western Department, which included Missouri, Kentucky,
Illinois, and Kansas. His difficulties were great. He was unable to
clear the State of secessionists, who besieged Lexington and took it on
September 20th. Generals Hunter and Halleck, Fremont's successors, were
equally unsuccessful, and the State was harassed by a petty warfare all
the year.

In Kentucky, Governor Magoffin was inclined to secession. The
Legislature leaned the other way, but preferred neutrality to active
participation on either side. September 6th, Brigadier-General U. S.
Grant occupied Paducah, an important strategical point at the junction
of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers. Next day the Confederate General Polk,
advancing fr