After I found a position beyond the range of musketry, the artillery would insist upon searching me out.  While I was seated under a small oak-tree, with my left arm through my horse’s bridle, and my pencil busy on my note-book, the tree above my head was cut by a shell.  Moving from that spot, I had just resumed my writing, when a shot tore up the ground under my arm, and covered me with dirt.  Even a remove to another quarter did not answer my purpose, and I finished my notes after reaching the rear.

It is not my intention to give the details of the battle—­the movements of each regiment, battalion, or battery, as it performed its part in the work.  The official record will be sought by those who desire the purely military history.  It is to be regretted that the official report of the engagement at Wilson Creek displays the great hostility of its author toward a fellow-soldier.  In the early campaigns in Missouri, many officers of the regular army vied with the Rebels in their hatred of “the Dutch.”  This feeling was not confined to Missouri alone, but was apparent in the East as well as in the West.  As the war progressed the hostility diminished, but it was never entirely laid aside.

The duration of the battle was about four and a half hours.  The whole force under the National flag was five thousand men.  The Rebels acknowledged having twelve thousand, of all arms.  It is probable that this estimate was a low one.  The Rebels were generally armed with shot-guns, common rifles, and muskets of the old pattern.  About a thousand had no arms whatever.  Their artillery ammunition was of poorer quality than our own.  These circumstances served to make the disparity less great than the actual strength of the hostile forces would imply.  Even with these considerations, the odds against General Lyon were quite large.

Our loss was a little less than one-fifth our whole strength.  Up to that time, a battle in which one-tenth of those engaged was placed hors de combat, was considered a very sanguinary affair.  During the war there were many engagements where the defeated party suffered a loss of less than one-twentieth.  Wilson Creek can take rank as one of the best-fought battles, when the number engaged is brought into consideration.

The First Missouri Infantry went into action with seven hundred and twenty-six men.  Its casualty list was as follows:—­

Killed................................   77
Dangerously wounded...................   93
Otherwise wounded.....................  126
Captured..............................    2
Missing...............................   15
—–­
Total..........................  313

The First Kansas Infantry, out of seven hundred and eighty-five men, lost two hundred and ninety-six.  The loss in other regiments was quite severe, though not proportionately as heavy as the above.  These two regiments did not break during the battle, and when they left the ground they marched off as coolly as from a parade.