Lone Jack

On August 15 and 16, 1862, Confederate and Union forces clashed at Lone Jack in Jackson County, Missouri, amid the ongoing Civil War. This engagement formed a piece of the broader guerrilla and recruiting effort waged by Confederate forces across Missouri that year.

Battle

Cockrell intended to hide his forces under Hunter, Jackman, and Tracy in a field on the town's western side long before dawn broke on August 16, keeping them concealed until combat began. The role of triggering the engagement fell to Hays, who was meant to strike from the north on horseback just as light appeared, at which point the hidden units would spring their own surprise assault against the flank. But Hays delayed, choosing instead to scout the positions of the other Confederate commands rather than press forward on schedule. By the time dawn broke, Foster's pickets had already noticed his approach, and this warning gave Foster's soldiers just enough time to form their lines, ruining the intended ambush.

Exposed by the rising sun while they waited on Hays to arrive, Jackman, Hunter, and Tracy launched their own assault, but Union resistance held them back. Hays finally moved, dismounting his men for an attack from the north. Combined with Tracy's men, this assault buckled the Union right and drove the 7th Missouri Cavalry, under Captain Milton H. Brawner, back toward the guns. There the artillery crews found themselves fighting for survival. Union Captain Long, whose 2nd Battalion Missouri State Militia Cavalry lay hidden behind a line of Osage orange trees, unleashed a crossfire that drove the Confederates back for a time.

Across the field,

Cole Younger

Thomas Coleman Younger, who fought as a Confederate guerrilla before becoming an outlaw, earned particular notice for what he did at Lone Jack. While the bulk of Quantrill's Raiders lingered in Independence, Missouri, plundering the town after their win in the First Battle of Independence, the eighteen-year-old Cole Younger had instead made his way to Lone Jack, where he rode along the front lines delivering supplies to the men fighting there. During the battle, Foster was wounded and taken prisoner, held for a time in a cabin by Confederate forces. There a Confederate officer who had despised him since long before the war began threatened to have him executed. Despite the officer's rank in the CSA, Younger shoved him bodily out of the cabin, saving Foster from Dr. Josiah Hatcher Caldwell's intended execution. Years afterward, when Younger was taken captive following the James-Younger Gang's raid on the First National Bank in Northfield, Minnesota, Foster returned the favor. By then editing the St. Louis Evening Journal, he spoke up in favor of showing Younger leniency.