Confederates Under General Jeff Thompson Defeated and Forced to Retreat

Battle of Fredericktown.

This was not the only gallant action of the week in Missouri.  Four days earlier was fought a small but brilliant battle at Fredericktown, which resulted in putting Jeff Thompson temporarily out of business.

The action really occurred on the last day of the previous week, the 21^st, but the pursuit started on the 22nd and lasted until the 24th.

General Grant was at this time in command at Cape Girardeau and one of the tasks assigned him by Fremont was to look after General Thompson, known as the “Swamp Fox.”

This was before Grant was know the country at large, yet in the campaign against Thompson he exhibited some of the characteristics that afterward made him famous.

He did not participate in the affair personally, but sent Colonel J. B. Plummer, of the Eleventh Missouri, telling him where to find Thompson if he found that elusive individual at all.   Directing Plummer to communicate with the Union force at Pilot Knob, and trusting details to his own judgment as the man on the ground.

This was characteristic of Grant.  He always left his inferiors free in the matter of details, while holding them strictly accountable for results.

Colonel Plummer started after Thompson on the 17th and reached Fredericktown at noon of the 21st.  There he found Colonel W. P. Carlin with almost 3,000 men, who had advanced from Pilot Knob.

Colonel Thompson had left Fredericktown the night before, taking the Greenville Road.

Colonel Carlin turned over to Plummer parts of three regiments of infantry, a troop of cavalry and a battery, but not without a dispute as to seniority in command.

Plummer previously has 1,300 troops and the accessions raised his force to above 3,000.  He reported that the Confederates had in the neighborhood of 4,000, but this was denied by Thompson.

Wiping Out Jeff Thompson

At 1 o’clock Plummer was in motion and had not proceeded more than half a mile along the Greenville Road when his advance guard encountered the enemy. 

Deploying one regiment to the left in a cornfield, Colonel Plummer brought up a battery and opened fire on the enemy until he compelled

a response.  The other forces were then brought up and deployed to right and left, when the battle opened all along the line, lasting two

hours and a half.

One of the hottest actions of the day occurred on the Union right, opposite which General Thompson himself was in command.  Here a Confederate cannon had been stationed in the road, and a troop of Union Cavalry was ordered to capture it, which they did,  but were in

such a hot fire that they were unable to hold it.  In this action fell Major Gavitt and Captain Highman, both of Indiana.

Aside from this one reverse everything favored the Federals, and the foe was soon in full retreat, which finally became a rout.

The pursuit was kept up till nightfall, and one troop of cavalry continued it far into the night, bringing back one gun and several prisoners.

The next morning the whole Union Army resumed the pursuit, but after following for ten miles and sending a troop of cavalry forward

twelve miles further, gave up the chase and returned to Fredericktown.

Colonel Plummer reported six killed, and sixty wounded on the Union side and said he buried 158 of the enemy, and other bodies wee

found later.  He took eighty prisoners, thirty-eight of whom were wounded. 

The Confederate Colonel, Lowe, who had been the leader of a command of Independents only less troublesome than that of Thompson,

was killed.

General Grant wrote a letter of congratulations to Colonel Plummer and thanked others of the command. 

General Fremont pronounced Fredericktown “one of the most admirable conducted engagements of the war.”

The net result was that for a considerable period the “Swamp Fox” ceased to trouble this section of Missouri.

The Daily Herald - October 18, 1911

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