A few days later there was a brilliant affair at Springfield, not far from the scene of General Lyon's defeat and death in August. There was a small, select cavalry organization known as General Frémont's body-guard, commanded by Major Charles Zagonyi, a Hungarian, who had seen service in Europe. On the 24th Zagonyi received orders to take a part of his command, and Major White's battalion of prairie scouts, and march on Springfield, fifty miles distant, with all possible haste. It was supposed that the Confederate troops there numbered four hundred. The {119} order was obeyed with alacrity, and early the next day he neared the town. Here he captured half a dozen Confederate soldiers of a foraging party, and from them and certain Unionists among the inhabitants, he learned that the enemy in the town numbered two thousand instead of four hundred. Undaunted by this, he resolved to push forward. Some of the foraging party who escaped carried the news of his approach, and the Confederates made quick dispositions to receive him. Finding a regiment drawn up beside the road, he avoided it by a detour and came in on another road, but here also the enemy were ready for him. Placing his own command in the advance, with himself at the head, he prepared to charge straight into the midst of the enemy. For some unknown reason, White's command, instead of following directly, counter-marched to the left, and Zagonyi with his one hundred and sixty men went in alone. They began with a trot, and soon increased the pace to a gallop, unmindful of the fire of skirmishers in the woods, which emptied several of their saddles. The enemy, infantry and cavalry, was drawn up in the form of a hollow square, in an open field. Zagonyi's band rode down a lane, jumped a brook, threw down a fence, and then charged right across the field into the midst of their foes, spreading out fan-like as they neared them, and using their pistols and sabres vigorously. The Confederate cavalry gave way and scattered almost at once; the infantry stood a little longer, and then retreated. Major White with his command came up just in time to strike them in the flank, completing the rout. An eye-witness wrote: "Some fled wildly toward the town, pursued by the insatiate guards, who, overtaking them, either cut them down with their sabres or levelled them with shots from their pistols. Some were even chased through the streets of the city and then killed in hand-to-hand encounters with their pursuers." Zagonyi raised the National flag on the court-house, detailed a guard to attend to his wounded, and then retired to Bolivar. His own account of the fight, given in Mrs. Frémont's "Story of the Guard," is quaint and interesting. [Illustration: FORTIFICATIONS AND INTRENCHMENTS AT PILOT KNOB, MO.] {120} [Illustration: CHARGE OF FRÉMONT'S BODY-GUARD UNDER MAJOR ZAGONYI, NEAR SPRINGFIELD, MO.] [Illustration: PURSUIT OF THE ENEMY.] [Illustration: MAJOR CHARLES ZAGONYI.]