Wednesday · November 11, 2026

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Lyon is killed at Wilson's Creek; his beaten army falls back on Springfield

Outnumbered more than two to one, the Union commander dies leading a countercharge before his men run out of ammunition.

By August 1861, Missouri was tearing itself apart from the inside, a slave state that had stayed in the Union. It was riddled with secessionist militia, and its governor was working against Washington. Ten miles southwest of Springfield, Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon's Army of the West struck first, attacking a combined Confederate and Missouri State Guard camp along Wilson Creek. The fighting seesawed across a rise soldiers came to call Bloody Hill until Lyon was killed leading his men forward. Major Samuel D. Sturgis took command, found his troops exhausted and out of ammunition, and pulled them back to Springfield. Southwestern Missouri was now in Confederate hands…

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More from August 10

Guam is declared secure; 7,500 Japanese troops are still loose in the hills

Three weeks after wading ashore at Asan and Agat, Marines and Army troops end organized resistance on an island America lost in 1941.

Tokyo says it will surrender, but only if the Emperor stays on his throne

Four days after Hiroshima and one day after Nagasaki, Japan attaches a single condition to Potsdam's terms.

Reagan signs law admitting the internment camps were wrong; $20,000 to every survivor

The bill's number, H.R. 442, was chosen to honor the all-Japanese American regiment that fought in Europe while many of its soldiers' families remained in the camps.

The awkward National Military Establishment becomes the Department of Defense, with a deputy secretary to help run it.

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More from Civil War & Reconstruction

Lee asks Davis to let him go; Davis refuses

Days after retreating from Gettysburg, the general tells his president he has lost confidence in himself.

Fort Sumter takes another day of shelling; the fort answers with rubble, not guns

Five days into a sustained bombardment, Dahlgren's ships and Gillmore's batteries pound a fort already reduced to broken masonry.

Hall finds a second Martian moon, tucked in close to the planet

Six days after spotting Deimos, the Naval Observatory astronomer confirms an inner satellite so near Mars it nearly hides in the glare.

Fort Morgan falls; Page breaks his sword rather than hand it over

The last major fort guarding Mobile Bay surrenders after two weeks of siege fire, leaving Galveston as the Gulf's only open Confederate port.

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