On August 10, 1861, the quiet hills and oak groves southwest of Springfield, Missouri, erupted in one of the fiercest fights the state would ever see. The Battle of Wilson’s Creek was the first major Civil War engagement west of the Mississippi River. It pitted a smaller but determined Union force under Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon against a larger Confederate and Missouri State Guard army led by Sterling Price and Ben McCulloch.
The clash was about more than territory. Missouri’s political future hung in the balance, with both sides determined to control this divided border state. The fighting lasted just six hours, but it claimed the life of Lyon, made heroes and villains on both sides, and set the tone for the war in the Trans-Mississippi Theater.
Today, the preserved battlefield still tells the story of courage, loss, and the struggle for Missouri’s place in the nation’s most defining conflict.
