nks of Congress are hereby given to the brave
officers and soldiers who, under the command of the late
Gen. Lyon, sustained the honor of the flag, and achieved
victory against overwhelming numbers at the battle of
Springfield, in Missouri, and that, in order to commemorate
an event so honorable to the country and to themselves, it
is ordered that each regiment engaged shall be authorized to
bear upon its colors the word "Springfield," embroidered in
letters of gold. And the President of the United States is
hereby requested to cause these resolutions to be read at
the head of every regiment in the Army of the United States.

189

CHAPTER XII. A GALAXY OF NOTABLE MEN

The Union commanders were naturally very apprehensive that as soon as
Price and Mc-Culloch realized that the field had been abandoned they
would precipitate upon them their immense horde of vengeful horsemen.
Such was not the case. Nothing tells so eloquently of the severity of
the blow which Lyon had dealt his enemies than that it was two whole
days before Price and McCulloch were in a frame of mind to move forward
10 miles and occupy Springfield, the goal of their campaign. This delay
was golden to the Union commanders, hampered as they were by hosts of
Union refugees fleeing from the rebel wrath, and incumbering the column
with all manner of vehicles and great droves of stock. Considering the
activity of the Missourians in guerrilla warfare, and the vicious way
they usually harried the Union forces, it is incomprehensible, except on
the theory that the Confederate forces had been stunned into torpor
by the blow. The Union column was able to make its long retreat of
125 miles from Springfield to Rolla and traverse an exceedingly rough
country cut up every few miles by ravines, gorges and creeks, without
the slightest molestation from the six or eight thousand horsemen whom
McCulloch had complained were so much in the way during the battle on
the banks of Wilson's Creek.

190

Gen. McCulloch made a number of lengthy and labored explanations to the
Confederate War Department of his failure to make any pursuit, but in
the light of facts that then should have been attainable none of these
was at all satisfactory. He admits that he did not enter Springfield
until after his scouts had brought him satisfactory assurances that the
Union army had abandoned the town. Aug. 12 he advanced to Springfield,