of Pilot Knob, which was then the southern terminus of the Iron Mountain Railroad. In this little fort were stored immense amounts of ordnance, commissary and quartermasters’ supplies, which Price greatly needed, and which lay directly between him and the great city, by capturing which he expected to bring Missouri over to the Confederacy. General Rosecrans, at the urgent request of General Ewing, reluctantly consented that he should lead this forlorn hope. He reached Pilot Knob in the nick of time—but four hours ahead of Price’s advance—and with but one thousand and eighty men he held Fort Davidson against two of the three divisions of Price’s army—those of Marmaduke and Cabell—numbering about fourteen thousand men—Shelpy’s division of about seven thousand men having been sent to Ewing’s rear at Mineral Point, twenty miles north of Pilot Knob, to cut the railroad and insure the destruction or capture of his entire command. After repulsing two assaults with great loss to the enemy, General Ewing, under cover of the night, evacuated and then blew up his untenable fort, and, favored by broken ground, though pressed on flank and rear, held his force in hand, and by dogged fighting for two days and nights, brought them to a fortified camp at Rolla, a hundred miles west of Pilot Knob. Price was thus delayed for a week, and drawn so far westward from his march on St. Louis, that reinforcements reached St. Louis and the great objective of his invasion was lost. He turned west and south and was soon driven from Missouri without striking an effective blow. General Rosecrans, in a special order issued October 6, 1864, said of this brilliant episode: “With pride and pleasure the commanding General notices the gallant conduct of Brigadier-General Thomas Ewing, Jr., and his command in the defence of Pilot Knob, and in the subsequent retreat to Rolla. With scarcely one thousand effective men, they repulsed the attacks of Price’s invading army, and successfully retreated with their battery a distance of one hundred miles, in the face of a pursuing and assailing cavalry force of five times their number. General Ewing and his subordinates have deserved well of their country. Under such commanders, the Federal troops should always march to victory.”