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Updated: June 3, 2025
In the morning, yielding to the request of Zagonyi, he remained at a farm-house where the troop had halted for refreshment, it being arranged that he should rest an hour or two, come on in his carriage with a small escort, and overtake Zagonyi before he reached Springfield. The Prairie Scouts numbered one hundred and thirty, so that the troop was nearly three hundred strong.
It is beyond the praise of words. It is wonderful that Major Zagonyi should have been able in so few days to bring into such splendid discipline a body of new recruits. They plunged into the woods, and commenced a straggling bush-fight, as they were skilled to do. Frémont has treated her subject. It is novel, but not ineffective.
He has hitherto proceeded on a walk, but now he presses on at a trot. His horsemanship is perfect. Asboth is a daring rider, loving to drive his animal at the top of his speed. Zagonyi rides with surpassing grace, and selects fiery chargers which no one else cares to mount. Colonel E. has an easy, business-like gait. But in lightness and security in the saddle the General excels them all.
He came up at a gallop, and was about to follow Fairbanks, when he saw a Guardsman who pointed in the direction in which Zagonyi had gone. He took this for an order, and obeyed it. When he reached the gap in the fence, made by Foley, not seeing anything of the Guard, he supposed they had passed through at that place, and gallantly attempted to follow. Thirteen men fell in a few minutes.
Zagonyi was most scrupulous in his selection; but so ardent was the desire to serve under the eye and near the person of the General, that in five days after the lists were opened two full companies were enlisted. Soon after a whole company, composed of the very flower of the youth of Kentucky, tendered its services, and requested to be added to the Guard.
"I kind o' wanted to be in the front," was the answer. "What could I say to such a man?" exclaimed Zagonyi, speaking of the matter afterwards. There was hardly a horse or rider among the survivors that did not bring away some mark of the fray. I saw one animal with no less than seven wounds, none of them serious. Scabbards were bent, clothes and caps pierced, pistols injured.
The farther corner of the wood is reached, and Zagonyi beholds the terrible array. Amazed, he involuntarily cheeks his horse. The Rebels are not surprised. There to his left they stand crowning the height, foot and horse ready to ingulf him, if he shall be rash enough to go on. The road he is following declines rapidly.
There is no report from Springfield. Zagonyi sent back for reinforcements before he reached the town, and Carr's cavalry, with two light field-pieces, have been sent forward. Captain R., my companion this afternoon, has also gone to learn what he may. While I am writing up my journal, a group of officers is around the fire in front of the tent. They are talking about Zagonyi and the Guard.
When the line was formed in the Plaza, Zagonyi noticed the bugler, and approaching him said, "In the midst of the battle you disobeyed my order. You are unworthy to be a member of the Guard. I dismiss you." The bugler showed his bugle to his indignant commander; the mouth-piece of the instrument was shot away. He said, "The mouth was shoot off.
The number of wounded could not be ascertained. After the conflict had drifted away from the hill-side, some of the foe had returned to the field, taken away their wounded, and robbed our dead. The loss of the Guard was fifty-three out of one hundred and forty-eight actually engaged, twelve men having been left by Zagonyi in charge of his train.
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