The third brigade was commanded by Gen. Sweeney, and was composed of the 1st Iowa volunteers, under Lieut. Col. Merritt, the colonel, J. F. Bates, being sick in Springfield; the 1st Kansas, under Col. Geo. W. Deitzler; the 2d Kansas, under Col. Mitchell, and about 200 mounted Dade county home guards, under Capt. Clark Wright and Capt. T. A. Switzler. Gen. Sigel’s command consisted of eight companies of the 3d Missouri volunteers (Sigel’s regiment), under Lieut. Col. Albert; nine companies of the 5th Missouri, under Col. Salomon; one company, 1st regular cavalry, under Capt. Carr; one company, C, of the 2d U. S. dragoons, under Lieut. Farrand, and six pieces of light artillery manned by details from the infantry recruits under Lieuts. Schaeffer and Schuetzenbach. THE MARCH BEGUN—ROUTE OF GEN. LYON. At about 6 P. M. of Friday evening, the 9th, the movement of troops began. Gen. Lyon’s column went to the westward, on the Mt. Vernon road, Capt. Gilbert’s company of regular infantry having the advance. In a short time it was dark, but the march was continued. Although the march was intended to result in a surprise, and, it was expected, would be conducted silently, yet there was a great deal of noise made. The Iowa and Kansas volunteers were disposed to exercise their vocal organs, and camp songs of all sorts were sung _con spirito_, along the march. The 1st Iowa had a favorite song, the burden of which ran:— So let the wide world wag as it will, We’ll be gay and happy still. Gay and happy, gay and happy, We’ll be gay and happy still. The strains of this song were wafted out over the prairie, loud enough, it would have seemed, to have been heard by McCulloch’s pickets, if any were out. The Kansas men sang the “Happy Land of Canaan,” and raised the neighborhood with their vocal efforts. Toward midnight, however, the line became more quiet, by Gen. Lyon’s orders. The latter had remarked during the march that the Iowa troops had too much levity in their composition to do good fighting, but added that he would give them an opportunity to show what they were made of. It so turned out that the general was mistaken in his estimate of the fighting qualities of the Hawkeyes. Lyon marched west from Springfield on the Mt. Vernon road, about five miles, or a little east of where the town of Brooklyn now stands, when he turned south, and made his way over neighboring roads and across prairies as best he could nearly six miles, when he reached a point within striking distance of Price’s Missourians. The center of the camp of the Southerners was about six miles west, and about seven miles south of the public square of Springfield. Gen. Lyon had for guides Pleasant Hart, Parker Cox, and other men. Nearly twenty men have come forward to claim this distinction.