est by two or three different
roads, Lyon moved out, August 1, on the Cassville road, had a
skirmish with the enemy's advance-guard at Dug Springs the next
day, and the day following (the 3d) again at Curran Post-office.
The enemy showed no great force, and offered but slight resistance
to our advance. It was evident that a general engagement could
not be brought on within the limits of time and distance to which
we were confined by the state of our supplies. It was therefore
determined to return to Springfield.

General Lyon was greatly depressed by the situation in which he
was placed, the failure of expected reinforcements and supplies
from St. Louis, and an evidently strong conviction that these
failures were due to a plan to sacrifice him to the ambition of
another, and by a morbid sensitiveness respecting the disaster to
the Union people of southwestern Missouri, (who had relied upon
him for protection) which must result from the retreat of his army.
Lyon's personal feeling was so strongly enlisted in the Union cause,
its friends were so emphatically his personal friends and its
enemies his personal enemies, that he could not take the cool,
soldierly view of the situation which should control the actions
of the commander of a national army. If Lyon could have foreseen
how many times the poor people of that section were destined to be
overrun by the contending forces before the contest could be finally
decided, his extreme solicitude at that moment would have disappeared.
Or if he could have risen to an appreciation of the fact that his
duty, as the commander in the field of one of the most important
of the national armies, was not to protect a few loyal people from
the inevitable hardships of war (loss of their cattle, grain, and
fences), but to make as sure as possible the defeat of the hostile
army, no matter whether to-day, to-morrow, or next month, the battle
of Wilson's Creek would not have been fought.

A MISSING LETTER FROM FReMONT TO LYON

On August 9 General Lyon received a letter from General John C.
Fremont, then commanding the department, which had been forwarded
to him from Rolla by Colonel John B. Wyman. The letter from General
Fremont to Colonel Wyman inclosing that to General Lyon appears
among the published papers submitted by Fremont to the Committee
on the Conduct of the War in the early part of 1862, but the
inclosure to Lyon is wanting. The origin