The Engagement
The Unionist force occupied two adjoining farms ~600 yards apart belonging to Henry Harms and John Heisterberg. The Home Guards called the location Camp Lyon. Cook had about 400 infantry muskets. While up to 900 men had initially gathered, as many as half were furloughed for lack of weapons or for other reasons.
O'Kane's force marched from Warsaw toward Cole Camp on June 18 to attack the gathering Home Guard. A respected older citizen, John Tyree, had witnessed the preparations of the secessionists and reported it to the officers at Camp Lyon. As he returned from reporting this, he was captured by O'Kane's force. Some of the men recognized him from earlier in the day, surmised what he had done, tied him to a tree and shot him. (Ironically, he was a slaveowner although a Union man.)
Despite Tyree's warning, Cook's preparations were inadequate, for his pickets were overrun without alerting the sleeping Home Guard. There were admissions of extensive drinking in the camp and the men were slumbering in the early morning hours of June 19 when the attack began. O'Kane's infantry double-quicked from the east to the Heisterberg barn where a portion of the Home Guard were and delivered a volley into the shocked men. However, a company of Home Guard under Captain Elsinger was just north of the barn. They responded with fire into the flank of the attackers, but having little ammunition were soon forced to withdraw.
O'Kane's mounted force then slammed into and drove away another nearby group of Home Guard that was attempting to form to repel the infantry.
Meanwhile, the remaining unengaged Union men at the Harms barn under Captains Grother and Mueller formed to join the fracas. The presence of a Union flag now in the hands of the rebels confused the men and they held their fire until they were fired upon. They withdrew without engaging and the fighting ended.
Capt. Cook supposedly fled at the beginning of the fight. He claimed to have left to consult with Captain Totten of Lyon's forces, but his men claimed otherwise and Henry Imhauser was elected commander in July. The regiment disbanded in September, and in November, Cook was "shot by rebels" in Henry County. His widow was denied a pension because Cook "was not in U.S. service at time of death."
Walter S. O'Kane subsequently served as Aide-de-Camp, 8th Confederate Cavalry Division, and died 1908 in Arkansas.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Cole Camp (1861)
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“But not gold in commercial quantities,
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What gold more innocent could one have asked for?”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“We must continually remind students in the classroom that expression of different opinions and dissenting ideas affirms the intellectual process. We should forcefully explain that our role is not to teach them to think as we do but rather to teach them, by example, the importance of taking a stance that is rooted in rigorous engagement with the full range of ideas about a topic.”
—bell hooks (b. 1955)