2 Sep 61, Dry Wood Creek, Mo - Battleground 4: Shiloh

2 September 1861, Dry Wood Creek, Mo [Curt Cabbage]

Following the Southern victory at Wilson's Creek near Springfield on Aug. 10, 1861, Maj. Gen. Sterling Price led the pro-Confederate Missouri State Guard, which numbered about 10,000 men, north to capture Lexington. He detoured to attack Fort Scott, Kansas, where Brig. Gen. and U. S. Senator James H. Lane, a notorious Kansas marauder, had gathered 2,500 men. On Sept. 1, Price concentrated south of Nevada. His scouts raided Fort Scott, which alerted Lane, who prepared to evacuate. Early on Sept. 2, Lane sent Col. James Montgomery with 450 cavalry and a 12-pounder mountain howitzer to slow Price's advance.

That afternoon Price's Missourians, now 12,000 strong, marched on Fort Scott in a three-mile column. Around 4:30 p.m., their advance guard crossed Dry Wood Creek at Hogan's Ford two miles south of Deerfield and collided with Montgomery's Kansans, who drove them across the creek and onto the prairie.

Price rushed Capt. Hiram Bledsoe's three-gun battery to a hill east of the creek and deployed infantry in support. The Kansans occupied the wooded creek bottom and opened a rapid fire with their Sharps breech-loading rifles. The Missourians replied with muskets and shotguns from the 6-foot-tall prairie grass. Montgomery's efficiently-served howitzer soon silenced most of Bledsoe's guns. Capt. Henry Guibor's four-gun battery came to Bledsoe's aid, but took losses and was in danger of being outflanked.

Price was forced on the defensive; the volume of enemy fire convinced him that he faced a larger force than he actually did. He reinforced his line, then advanced. Montgomery was low on ammunition and he fell back, then retreated to Fort Scott as the sun was setting.

The fight had lasted less than two hours. Casualties had been light because of the thick woods and high grass. Price reported two killed and 23 wounded; Montgomery acknowledged five killed and six wounded. The sight of these casualties had a moving effect on Robert S. Bevier, a major in the Missouri State Guard: "We passed some of the dead and wounded, the first sad results of real war I had seen, and the solemnity attending the awful mystery of mortal dissolution crept over my soul."

Lane abandoned Fort Scott. Price declined to follow, since his goal was to free Missouri, not invade Kansas. He continued north and captured Lexington, but was eventually forced from the state.