Iron County Register

Gen. Price's Raid.

Ed. Register:-As I have seen so much written concerning the battle of Pilot Knob, and concerning General Price and his forces, I feel it my duty to my comrades and the cause in which I was enlisted to write something.

I do not think General Price entered the State of Missouri with more than ten or fifteen thousand men, cavalry and artillery, and no infantry at all. If Gen. Price had any serious intentions of going to St. Louis, he could not have changed his plans by the weakening of his forces at Pilot Knob. His losses were not over four hundred, killed, wounded and missing, and a portion of them were conscripts, who took advantage of the moment and skipped for Arkansas.

The morning after the battle I was left with my company in the rear to visit the fort and see if the dead had been collected. The men gathering the dead told me they had found about all the dead bodies, of which I counted forty-seven men, very near, if not all, of Cabble's brigade of Arkansas troops. I took them to be his men from their uniforms, as they wore the gray, and the rest of the men wore mixed clothing; among the lot was the arm of a negro. I do not think the loss of the union forces was very heavy. They must have taken their dead and wounded with them.

I think that Gen. Price accomplished that which he intended to accomplish when entering the State of Missouri: that of recruiting his army. When he went out of the State into Kansas they issued rations for thirty-five thousand men, while he did not have more than ten thousand armed and fighting men.

I know there is a great deal of difference in this and what has been written concerning Price's raid and Pilot Knob battle; but believe they are as near the facts as can be given. While the union forces defended the fort well, we had many harder fights on Price's raid than the battle of Pilot Knob.

C. K. POLK.