Hey everyone, welcome to episode 67 of our Civil War podcast, I'm Rich.

And I'm Tracy, thanks for tuning into the podcast.

As y'all will recall, we've spent the last several episodes setting the stage for

the Battle of Wilson's Creek.

We've seen that basically at the start of the Civil War, Missouri was a mess.

And then by late July 1861, Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon and his command, dubbed

the Army of the West, were at Springfield, deep in southwestern Missouri, trying to keep

that portion of the state in union hands.

And a driveline away from Springfield was an ad hoc southern army of Arkansas state

troops, Missouri State Guardsmen and Confederate Army soldiers, about 12,000 men and all, under

the overall command of Confederate Brigadier General Ben McCulloch.

By the first week of August, Lyon's force of volunteers and U.S. regulars had shrunk

to about 5,000 or so men, as the 90 day enlistments of the volunteers began to expire and has repeated

requests for reinforcements had been denied.

Those manpower concerns, added to Lyon's deteriorating supply situation, meant that

the Army of the West would have to pull back 100 miles to Rala, the nearest railhead.

But Lyon didn't like the idea of withdrawing before he'd given the enemy a good kicking,

and he was also concerned that the enemy would overtake him as he withdrew from Springfield

and force him to fight at a disadvantage.

So he decided to gamble and strike out at McCulloch.

By that time the southern army was only about 10 miles away, just to the southwest of Springfield.

The southerners encampment lay on both sides of Wilson's Creek, where the stream ran roughly

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