s in order to empty
into the James River, a tributary of White River. Tyrel's Creek and
Skegg's Branch, which have considerable valleys, are tributaries of
Wilson's Creek. Above Skegg's Branch rises a hill, since known as Bloody
Hill, nearly 100 feet high. Its sides are scored with ravines, the rock
comes to the surface in many places, and the hight was thickly covered
with an overgrowth of scrub-oak. There are other eminences and ravines,
generally covered with scrub-oak and undergrowth, and the Confederates
were camped in an irregular line along these for a distance of about
three miles up and down Wilson's Creek, from the extreme right to the
extreme left. Here they remained three days, with the much-disturbed
McCulloch riding out every day with his Maynard rifle slung over his
shoulder for a personal reconnoissance, which, as far as could be judged
from his conversation on his return, was quite unsatisfactory.

155

He had little stomach for the attack, and naturally found reasons
against it.

Price and his Generals, on the other hand, were fretting over the delay.
Price's accurate information of Lyon's condition made him sure that Lyon
would do the obvious thing--retreat. It was the warlike thing to do
to attack at once, which had every chance of success. Success meant as
telling a stroke for Secession in the West as Bull Run had been in
the East It would be quite as sensational, for there was no refuge or
rallying point for the beaten Union army short of Rolla, 120 miles away,
and the rough country, cut by innumerable valleys, gorges and streams,
would enable the swarming mounted force to get in its wild work, and not
permit the escape of a man, a gun or a wagon.

McCulloch, yielding to Price's importunities, ordered the army forward,
and at dawn of Aug. 19 he and Mcintosh were sitting down to breakfast
with Price and Snead, preparatory to leading their forces forward, when
they were startled by their pickets being driven in. McCulloch, who had
hated Rains from Old Army days, and despised him and his Missourians
since the Dug Springs affair, remarked contemptuously, "O, it's only one
of Rains's scares," and turned to his meal.

156

But the matter instantly became more pressing than breakfast. Gen.
Lyon had returned to Springfield Monday, Aug. 5, to meet an intense
disappointment. Not a thing had been sent to meet his desperate needs.
Fremont had ordered one regiment from Kansas and from the Missouri Ri