Springfield was a Civil War engagement fought in Missouri, 1861. It was a Union victory.
Having accomplished little since taking command of the Western Department, with headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont formulated a plan to clear Maj. Gen. Sterling Price's Rebels from the state and then, if possible, carry the war into Arkansas and Louisiana. Leaving St. Louis on October 7, 1861, Frémont's combined force eventually numbered more than 20,000. His accompanying cavalry force, numbering 5,000 men and other mounted troops, included Maj. Frank J. White's Prairie Scouts and Frémont's Body Guards under Maj. Charles Zagonyi. Maj. White became ill and turned his command over to Zagonyi. These two units operated in front of Frémont's army to gather intelligence. As Frémont neared Springfield, the local state guard commander, Col. Julian Frazier, sent out requests to nearby localities for additional troops. Frémont camped on the Pomme de Terre River, about 50 miles from Springfield. Zagonyi's column, though, continued on to Springfield, and Frazier's force of 1,000 to 1,500 prepared to meet it. Frazier set up an ambush along the road that Zagonyi travelled, but the Union force charged the Rebels, sending them fleeing. Zagonyi's men continued into town, hailed Federal sympathizers and released Union prisoners. Leery of a Confederate counterattack, Zagonyi departed Springfield before night, but Frémont's army returned, in force, a few days later and set up camp in the town. In mid-November, after Frémont was sacked and replaced by Maj. Gen. Hunter, the Federals evacuated Springfield and withdrew to Sedalia and Rolla. Federal troops reoccupied Springfield in early 1862 and it was a Union stronghold from then on. This engagement at Springfield was the only Union victory in southwestern Missouri in 1861.
Near Springfield, Missouri, on October 25, 1861, Union and Confederate-aligned forces clashed in what became known as the First Battle of Springfield, part of the ongoing struggle for control of the region during the Civil War. This engagement came in the wake of Wilson's Creek, after which the Missouri State Guard, a militia loyal to the Confederate cause, pushed northward and overcame Union defenders at Lexington during a siege. In response to that setback, Union Major General John C. Frémont launched an offensive pushing into the southern portion of the state. Most of the State Guard withdrew to Neosho, though a contingent of newly recruited soldiers, numbering somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 and led by Colonel Julian Frazier, remained stationed at Springfield.
On October 24, Frémont dispatched his personal bodyguard unit, under the command of Major Charles Zagonyi, to scout toward Springfield. This force linked up with a cavalry unit called the Prairie Scouts at Bolivar before continuing the advance the following day. A skirmish with a small detachment of State Guard troops cost Zagonyi the advantage of surprise, prompting him to swing his column westward instead. Around four in the afternoon, his men ran into Frazier's force, which had positioned itself defensively along a ridge with patches of woodland. What exactly transpired next remains unclear in the historical record, but Zagonyi's troops succeeded in pushing back Frazier's men, then rode into Springfield itself before pulling back northward as evening approached.
The account Zagonyi later gave of the fight was deliberately misleading, crafted to magnify his own unit's role while diminishing that of the Prairie Scouts. In practical terms, the battle changed little, since Union forces simply retook Springfield two days afterward. Frémont himself was stripped of his command in early November, and the officer who replaced him abandoned the campaign altogether, pulling Union troops back and thereby allowing the Missouri State Guard to move back into Springfield. That occupation proved temporary, however, as the Guard was ultimately pushed out of Missouri entirely by early 1862.
Missouri became a flashpoint almost as soon as the Civil War began, with Union troops and the state's own authorities pulled into direct confrontation. The trouble escalated on May 10, 1861, when Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon seized a militia camp that Missouri's governor, Claiborne Fox Jackson, a Confederate sympathizer, had assembled, an episode remembered as the Camp Jackson affair. In answer, Jackson organized a new pro-Confederate force called the Missouri State Guard and put Sterling Price at its head. On June 11, Price, Lyon, and Jackson sat down together at the Planter's House Hotel, and by the close of that meeting Lyon announced that open warfare had arrived. Lyon pressed forward from there, seizing Jefferson City, the state capital, and pushing the Missouri State Guard out of the Missouri River Valley. Command of Union operations in the state initially fell
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