Initially the colonel of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, 5th Division, Missouri State Guard, Alonzo Slayback was an officer on General John Marmaduke’s staff when he participated in the Battle of Springfield on January 8, 1863. In his memoirs (only a portion of which survive) he detailed the hours after the failed assault on the city, as Confederate forces were preparing to retreat toward Hartville, Missouri:
“Again we had spent from midnight until daylight, dispatching messengers, consulting spies, and deciding whether to risk another days conflict, or abandon our dead & bleeding comrades to the horrors of a captive hospital. Porter had not come. Reinforcements we knew approached the enemy. We had no spare force to interpose. At last, Marmaduke reached the conclusion to post-pone a second attack until after a junction with Porter. We marched leisurely that day, and were not pursued. About nightfall we reached Sand Springs...”
Image Courtesy Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield; WICR 32441
