IT

CONFEDERATES FIGHTING BEHIND HEMP BALES AT LEXINGTON. SEE PAGE 312.

1 THE SIEGE OF LEXINGTON, MOJ

BY COLONEL JAMES A. MULLIGAN.

O N the night of the 30th of August, 1861, as the “ Irish Brigade” (23d IllinoisVolunteers) lay encamped just outside of Jefferson City, Mo. , I receivedorders to report to General Jefferson C. Davis , commanding in the town.On doing so, I was informed by General Davis that the cavalry regiment ofColonel Thomas A. Marshall, which had left for the South-west some daysbefore, had reached Tipton, where it was hemmed in by the enemy, andcould neither advance nor return, and that he wished me to go to Tipton,join Colonel Marshall, take command of the combined forces, cut my waythrough the enemy, go to Lexington, and hold it at all hazards.

The next morning the “ Irish Brigade ” started with forty rounds of ammu-nition and three days’ rations for each man. We marched for nine dayswithout meeting an enemy, foraging upon the country for support. Wereached Tipton, but found neither Colonel Marshall nor the enemy, and wepassed on to a pleasant spot near Lexington where we prepared for our entryinto the city. The trouble was not so much the getting into Lexington as thegetting out. At Lexington we found Colonel Marshall’s cavalry regiment andabout 350 of a regiment of Home Guards. On the 10th of September wereceived a letter from Colonel Everett Peabody, of the 13th Missouri Regi-ment, saying that he was retreating from Warrensburg, 34 miles distant,and that the rebel General Price was in full pursuit with an army of 10,000men. A few horns later Colonel Peabody joined us.

There were then at this post the “ Irish Brigade,” Colonel Marshall’s Illinois cavalry regiment (full), Colonel Peabody’s regiment, and a part of the 14thMissouri —in all about 2780 men, with one six-pounder, | forty rounds of

i Reprinted, with revision, from newspaper re-ports of a lecture by Colonel Mulligan, who waskilled during the war (see page 313). In cer-tain important particulars, the text has beenaltered to free it from clearly demonstrable er-rors.— Editors.

t This is without doubt a mistake. Colonel Mul-ligan had 7 six-pounders (Waldschmidt, 2 ; Adams,3, and Pirner, 2); Pirner also had 2 brass mor-tars for throwing six-inch spherical shells, of whichhe had but 40, which were soon exhausted. TheConfederate artillery consisted of 16 guns in five

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