Zagonyi's Charge with Fremont's Body-Guard—A Picturesque Fol-de-rol.
By Colonel William Preston Johnson.
In some recent studies on the late civil war, the attention of the writer has directed itself to the amazing exaggeration of certain fighters, and the equally wonderful credulity of certain writers. This was quite notable in the war in Missouri in 1861. The following instance will illustrate this class of cases. Its extreme improbability rests not more upon its explicit denial by the Confederates engaged, than on the internal evidences of inveracity. The writer has no individual interest in the question, except that of historical truth. But if this communication should tend to elicit the exact facts in this case, or to start similar inquiries in other cases, it will do something towards giving a solid basis to our war history, which should not rest upon fiction.
Among the stories that have been repeated until they have acquired currency and are liable to pass into history, unless contradicted, one of the most conspicuous in the Missouri campaign is the myth of "the charge of Zagonyi." Major Zagonyi, a Hungarian, the commander of Fremont's body-guard, gained great credit for the prodigious prowess of his command from his report of a charge in which he led 150 of them against 2,200 Confederates, whom he routed and slaughtered fearfully. His story is told in the Report on the Conduct of the War (part 3, page 186) and is vouched for by General Fremont (ibid, page 72); and, altogether, makes a very amusing piece of war literature.
This fierce hussar beholds the enemy in line of battle; he charges down a lane 200 yards, in which forty of his men are unhorsed. He continues thus:
"I formed my command, which at the time was hardly more than 100 men, and with them I attacked the enemy, and in less than five seconds the enemy were completely broken to pieces and running in every direction. My men were so much excited that ten or fifteen of them would attack hundreds of the enemy; and in that single attack, I lost fifteen men killed—that was all I lost in dead; and the enemy's dead men on the ground were 106.
"Question. How did you kill them—with sabres or with revolvers?"
"Answer. Mostly with the sabre. We Hungarians teach our
