[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 7]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 10503-10504]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    COMMEMORATING THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CIVIL WAR BATTLE OF 
                           CARTHAGE, MISSOURI

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. BILLY LONG

                              of missouri

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 6, 2011

  Mr. LONG. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 150th 
anniversary of the Civil War Battle of Carthage, Missouri.
  The western plains of Missouri would not likely have been the scene 
of an important battle in the early months of the Civil War. Yet as the 
Missouri State Guard, under Major General Sterling Price, moved south 
toward Confederate reinforcements in Arkansas, with the Union Army 
under Brigadier General Nathanial Lyon in hot pursuit, the engagement 
at Carthage, on July 5, 1861, would become the largest battle of the 
Civil War thus far.
  The Federal pursuit of the secessionist militia was not a single 
column chase. Lyon's forces split with the intention of cutting off the 
Missouri State Guardsmen and preventing their reinforcements from 
arriving from Arkansas. They intended, too, to blunt the wave of pro-
militia public sentiment stemming from the humiliation of the Camp 
Jackson Affair. With a three pronged attack, Lyon hoped to nip their 
recruitment and burgeoning morale in the bud.
  Union Colonel Franz Sigel arrived in Sarcoxie on June 29, and 
discovered that not only were Price and his men camped south of Neosho, 
but deposed Missouri Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson, with his thousands 
of Missouri State Guardsmen, was waiting in Lamar for Brigadier General 
John S. Rains, commanding a state force out of Lexington. Sigel decided 
to move southwest to take out Price, then head north to take on Jackson 
and Rains. When Sigel reached Neosho on July 3, he was surprised to 
learn that Price had already reached Arkansas, and was camped near 
Maysville. That same day Rains reached Jackson's camp, while Lyon moved 
south out of Boonville, in hopes of buttressing his forces with 
reinforcements out of Kansas. His goal was Springfield.
  Sigel modified his plan, leaving a garrison of 94 men under Captain 
Joseph Conrad at Neosho. He continued on toward Carthage on July 4, and 
while camping for the night east of town, his outposts on the northern 
edge of town discovered that Jackson, and his 4000 men, were camped 
within 15 miles of Carthage.
  Colonel Sigel had 1100 men and eight six-pounder guns. None of the 
men were cavalry. He couldn't have known that half of Jackson's men 
were unarmed, and most were untrained, unorganized, and similarly 
afoot. Though Sigel's men were three month volunteers, they were well 
trained for the military maneuvers the former German soldier would 
order. They were well rested, well fed, and well organized under their 
disciplined leader.
  The same could not be said of the Missouri State Guard. They seemed 
to run on pure adrenaline and excitement--never mind that those that 
had shoes might not have guns, or those that had guns might not have 
ammunition. They wore the clothes they enlisted in,

[[Page 10504]]

thus there were no uniforms to distinguish them from one another, let 
alone from the opposing side or civilians. Jackson was a civilian, and 
as a commander in the Missouri State Guard, issued orders in his 
capacity as commander in chief, albeit a deposed one. Their 
organization, their discipline, and their capacity to serve as a 
cohesive military unit operating toward a common goal, was vastly 
limited before they even met their enemy.
  Rains had joined up with Jackson north of Carthage, and the 
excitement in the camp at the oncoming hostilities created such a stir 
that most of the men heading out before dawn to battle the Federals had 
not eaten or adequately rested for the battle. Sigel's men, on the 
other hand, were fully prepared to endure the long day ahead of them, 
despite the enormous numbers and seeming advantages of the enemy.
  At 8:30 a.m., Sigel's advance guard skirmished briefly with Captain 
Joseph ``Jo'' Shelby's cavalry company. Sigel then sent in two 
companies of infantry in support, and the bulk of his own troops to 
take on Jackson's main force gathering on a nearby hill. One company 
and one piece of artillery remained with the wagon train to protect the 
rear.
  The Missouri State Guard forces gathering on the high ground between 
North Fork and Dry Fork, north of Carthage, were representative of 
Jackson's forces in whole. There was no reserve, unless the unarmed 
mass of men at the rear could be considered as such. Jackson seemed to 
operate on the notion that sheer numbers would intimidate, and thus 
force the retreat, of Sigel.
  The Union forces began firing, their German sharpshooters and 
competent artillery an excellent asset. The shots reverberated through 
the Ozark hills, and word of the battle reached the small Union 
garrison at Neosho. Captain Conrad received orders from Sigel to 
retreat to Sarcoxie, if necessary. Knowing his commander was hotly 
engaged and greatly outnumbered, Conrad commenced to a southward 
retreat. It was too late. Confederate forces out of Arkansas, alongside 
Missourians under Sterling Price, were already on a northward march to 
assist Jackson and Rains. Conrad and his men became prisoners of war.
  The Union battery continued to pummel the scattered Missourians, 
eventually ceasing fire for lack of ammunition. Sigel assumed the 
Guardsmen guns were running low, as well. He had ordered the advance of 
his troops when he noticed the mass of Rebel cavalry on his perimeter. 
He likely believed that the enemy reserve would be armed, but little 
did he know that there what he saw was not a reserve to speak of, nor 
were any of them armed. His advance quickly became a retreat, a 
maneuver for which the German leader would be notorious.
  It was a slippery spot from which to escape, and he barely achieved 
it. He concealed one of his batteries in an advantageous hilly spot, 
and briefly held the ford. Upon the advance of a State Guard cavalry to 
the east, which wrapped around the rear of his forces and secured Buck 
Branch to the south, Sigel realized his strength was in jeopardy. His 
men blasted their way south through Buck Branch in a furious move, 
fortuitously through inadequately armed State Guardsmen.
  His military skill checked the advancing Rebels at Spring River, and 
again south of Carthage in a desperate move to save the Union supply 
line. Reaching the previous night's camp south of James Spring, Sigel 
ordered his rear guard to keep Confederates out of Carthage proper. The 
pursuing Guardsmen were met with Union gunfire, and the sun set on a 
continued barrage of bullets. Sigel moved his forces east, along the 
Sarcoxie road, and continued to give as good as he got from the Rebels. 
He marched through the night, rested at Sarcoxie, and moved on to the 
relative safety of Mount Vernon thereafter.
  Both sides claimed Carthage as a victory. At the time, the prevention 
of further Union encroachment into southwestern Missouri gave the 
Confederates their sense of victory. Sigel's vastly outnumbered army 
may have failed to achieve the Union mission of checking the Southern 
troops, but his precarious escape with relatively low casualties gave 
his day at Carthage a higher regard in historical interpretation. The 
Union reported 44 casualties, not counting the 94 men captured at 
Neosho. The Confederate tally is estimated at between 74-200.
  The State Guard united with their Confederate brethren out of Texas 
and Arkansas, and was reinvigorated by the success at Carthage. The 
scattered but passionate men received a heavy dose of training, 
consideration from the leaders in Richmond for their persistence, and a 
much needed boost to their enthusiasm after their defeat at Boonville. 
Hoping to parlay the passion into a campaign to recapture the state, 
Jackson, Price and their men would continue their struggle against the 
Union at Wilson's Creek, and beyond.

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