Thus ended our first battle. Would to God it had been our last, and the last of the war! General McCulloch called it “The Battle of Oak Hill,” but the Federals called it “The Battle of Wilson’s Creek.”
This first battle was interesting to me in many ways. I had been reading of them since my childhood and looking at pictures of battlefields during and after the conflict, but to see a battle in progress, to hear the deafening roar of artillery, and the terrible, ceaseless rattle of musketry; to see the rapid movements of troops, hear the shouts of men engaged in mortal combat, and to realize the sensation of being a participant, and then after hours of doubtful contest to see the enemy fleeing from the field—all this was grand and terrible. But while there is a grandeur in a battle, there are many horrors, and unfortunately the horrors are wide-spread—they go home to the wives, fathers, mothers, and sisters of the slain.
After the battle was over we were slowly moving in column across the field unmolested, but being fired on by some of the enemy’s sharpshooters, who were keeping up a desultory fire at long range, when young Mr. Willie, son of Judge A. H. Willie, a member of Company A, which was in advance of us, came riding up the column, passing us. I was riding with Captain Taylor at the head of our company, and just as Willie was passing us a ball from one of the sharpshooters’ rifles struck him in the left temple, and killed him. But for his position the ball would have struck me in another instant.
After all the Federals capable of locomotion had left the field, we were moved up the road on which Sigel had retreated, as far as a mill some five miles away, where we had ample witness of the execution done by our cavalry—dead men in blue were strewn along the road in a horrible manner. On returning, late in the afternoon, we were ordered back to the camp we had left in the morning. As we had witnessed the grandeur of the battle, Felps and myself concluded to ride over the field and see some of its horrors. So we rode leisurely over the field and reviewed the numerous dead, both men and horses, and the few wounded who had not been carried to the field hospitals. General Lyon’s body had been placed in an ambulance by order of General McCulloch, and was on its way to Springfield, where it was left at the house of Colonel Phelps. His horse lay dead on the field, and every lock of his gray mane and tail was clipped off by our men and carried off as souvenirs.