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Nathaniel Lyon Biography

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LYON, Nathaniel (1818-61). An American soldier, prominent in the contest between the Unionists and Secessionists in Missouri immediately preceding and in the early part of the Civil War. He was born in Ashford, Conn., graduated at West Point in 1841, served as second lieutenant in the Florida War in 1841-42, and in the Mexican War in 1846-47, participating during the latter in all the important battles of the Southern campaign and receiving the brevet rank of captain. From 1848 to 1861 he was on frontier duty at various posts. He became a captain in 1851, and on Feb. 7, 1861, was placed in command of the United States arsenal in St. Louis, Mo., where he immediately associated himself with Francis P. Blair, Jr., and other ardent Unionists, for the purpose of balking the schemes of the Secessionists, and of preventing the withdrawal of Missouri from the Union. He organized and drilled recruits, took energetic measures to hold the arsenal against threatened attacks, and on April 21, General Harney being temporarily removed, assumed command of the Department of the West. On May 10 he surprised and captured a force of Secessionists at Camp Jackson in St  Louis, on May 17 was promoted to be brigadier general of volunteers, and on May 31, by the President's appointment, again supplanted Harney as commander of the department. Finally breaking off all friendly relations with Governor Jackson. the leader of the disloyal element in Missouri, he sent troops to the southwestern part of the State to ward off or meet a threatened Confederate attack from Arkansas and intercept the retreating Missouri Secessionists, and himself advanced at the head of a Federal force against the capital, Jefferson City, which he occupied on June 15. He defeated a Confederate force under General Marmaduke at Boonville on the 17th, and on August 10 attacked a greatly superior body of Confederates under General Price at Wilson's Creek, where, after fighting desperately for some time, he was instantly killed while leading a charge. (See WILSON'S CREEK, BATTLE OF.) His entire fortune, $30,000, was bequeathed to the Federal government for use in prosecuting the war. A series of able letters, dealing with the political situation in 1860, was published with a memoir soon after his death, under the title, The Last Political Writings of Gen. Nathaniel Lyon (1862).

Bibliography. Woodward, Life of General Nathaniel Lyon (Hartford, 1862); Peckham, Gen. Nathaniel Lyon and Missouri in 1861 (New York, 1866); T. L. Snead, The Fight for Missouri (ib., 1888); Lucien Carr, Missouri: A Bone of Contention (ib., 1888); J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, vol. iii (ib., 1907); J. K. Hosmer, The Appeal to Arms (ib., 1907).