A Dismal Close For The Union Cause

Jim's Photo From Wilson's Creek

From the History of the Twenty-Fourth Michigan of the Iron Brigade:

In the West a battle was fought at Wilson's Creek, Missouri, in August, in which Gen. Lyon of the Union army was killed. In October the Union Gen. Baker lost his life at Ball's Bluff on the Potomac. In November two rebel emissaries, Mason and Slidell, were forcibly taken from the British steamer Trent, and a war with England barely averted. The South had been the best prepared to fight. Most of the army and many of the navy officers were from that section and joined the Southern forces with a few notable exceptions. And thus the year 1861 closed dismally for the Union cause.