Hey everyone, thanks for downloading this 66th episode of our Civil War podcast.

My name is Rich.

I'm Tracy. Hello y'all. Welcome to the podcast. Rich and I used the last two shows to talk about the Mayhem that broke out in the important border state of Missouri at the start of the Civil War.

And we closed out the last episode with the Battle of Carthage, a clash that ended up being a dramatic running fight in which Franz Zegel's outnumbered Federals finally succeeded in escaping from Claiborne Fox Jackson State Guardsman.

While that drama was playing out off to the north, back at Boonville, Nathaniel Lyon had received reinforcements from Iowa and had finally assembled his supply train.

And so on July 3rd, he started marching his 2,350 men south through the Missouri countryside in a belated pursuit of Jackson and the State Guard.

As Lyon's force marched steadily southward, it was joined by a column of 2,200 regulars and Kansas volunteers under the command of Samuel Sturgis.

The Kansans had joined the regulars at Fort Leavenworth, and then together they marched onto Kansas City, and from there Sturgis's column moved to link up with Lyon.

Sturgis was a west pointer, a Mexican war veteran, and had seen considerable action on the frontier fighting Indians.

When the Civil War started, he'd been in command of a couple companies of cavalry at Fort Smith, Arkansas.

To avoid capture, Sturgis and his men evacuated that imperiled post in April 1861 and had made their way north to Kansas.

After Sturgis and Lyon linked up, they learned on July 9th that Siegel's force had retreated from Carthage several days earlier and that the German was being pursued by Jackson State Guard as he made his way to Springfield, but he was in danger of being surrounded and destroyed.

That news wasn't true. Jackson State guardsmen were in no condition to vigorously pursue Siegel. Nevertheless, the faulty intelligence and the seeming prospect of Siegel's imminent annihilation caused intense excitement in Lyon's command and prompted him to hurry his troops towards Springfield on a rapid forced march.

In a letter to a hometown newspaper, one of the Iowans, a fellow named Ralph Zeblin, wrote that,

quote, we had a hot southern sun to march under, but we kept on with but very few failing. The dust and heat were oppressive.

Along the roadside were strewn by scores the regulars as we called the United States troops and the Missouri volunteers.

But after that jab at the others, Zeblin admitted, quote, I carried myself along more sleep than awake, end quote.

After two days of exhausting marching in the brutal heat covering more than 50 miles, Lyon received word that Siegel's force was safe at Springfield.

Upon receiving that welcome news, Lyon eased up on the killing pace and then riding ahead of his foot sore and weary column, he arrived in Springfield on the evening of July 13th.

But after arriving in Springfield, Lyon faced a couple of problems. Even after his column linked up with the federal's already there, Lyon would still only have about 6,000 men, and that number would only shrink in the very near future as some of the volunteers 90 day enlistments expired.

And then since the town was over a hundred miles from the nearest railhead at Rala, the supply situation at Springfield was worrisome and would only grow more critical with each passing day.

With the Victoria State Guard still somewhere nearby, and with a Confederate force of unknown strength likely coming up from Arkansas, a less headstrong, less aggressive officer than Lyon, might have considered with drawing his threadbare and hungry force from such a perilous,

...