thousand men, while we could muster less than six thousand. General
Price assumed the offensive, moving slowly toward Springfield, as if
sure of his ability to overpower the National forces. General Lyon
determined to fall upon the enemy before he could reach Springfield,
and moved on the 1st of August with that object in view.

On the second day of our march a strong scouting party of Rebels was
encountered, and a sharp skirmish ensued, in which they were repulsed.
This encounter is known in the Southwest as "the fight at Dug Spring."
The next day another skirmish occurred, and, on the third morning,
twenty-five miles from Springfield, General Lyon called a council
of war. "Councils of war do not fight" has grown into a proverb. The
council on this occasion decided that we should return to Springfield
without attacking the enemy. The decision was immediately carried out.

The beginning of August, in Southwest Missouri, is in the midst of the
warm season. The day of the march to Dug Spring was one I shall never
forget. In Kansas, before the war, I once had a walk of several miles
under a burning sun, in a region where not a drop of water could be
found. When I finally reached it, the only water to be found was in
a small, stagnant pool, covered with a green scum nearly an inch in
thickness. Warm, brackish, and fever-laden as that water was, I had
never before tasted any thing half so sweet. Again, while crossing the
Great Plains in 1860, I underwent a severe and prolonged thirst, only
quenching it with the bitter alkali-water of the desert. On neither of
these occasions were my sufferings half as great as in the advance to
Dug Spring.

A long ride in that hot atmosphere gave me a thirst of the most
terrible character. Making a detour to the left of the road in a vain