The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The Pea Ridge Campaign (Jan-Mar/1862)

Van Dorn was at his headquarters in Pocahontas when he learned of the loss of Springfield and the disastrous chain of events in northwestern Arkansas. He departed at once for the Boston Mountains to assume personal command of the Confederate forces there. On the way he fell into a frigid stream (probably the Little Red River) and became ill. After an exhausting nine-day journey, much of it in an ambulance, Van Dorn reached the Boston Mountains late on March 2. The next day he, McCulloch, and Price conferred at Strickler's Station. Van Dorn was determined to strike back at the Federals as quickly as possible. When he learned that Curtis had placed his army in two widely separated camps, he decided to move the next morning. Van Dorn was confident that the Confederate Army of the West - the name he bestowed on his new command - could surprise the Yankees and open wide the road to Missouri.

Brigadier General Albert Pike
Commander, Pike's Indian Brigade

The Confederate plan was simple: the Army of the West would march rapidly to Fayetteville on Telegraph Road, then to Bentonville on the Elm Springs Road. At Bentonville the Confederates would turn west and overwhelm the Federal troops camped along McKissick's Creek, then turn east and do the same to the remaining Federal troops at Cross Hollows. With Curtis's force out of the way, the victorious Army of the West would press on toward St. Louis "and Huzza!" The key to success was the road junction at Bentonville. If Van Dorn could reach the town before Curtis realized what was happening, the Confederates would be between the two Federal forces and victory would be almost assured. Since speed would be required to achieve the necessary element of surprise, each soldier carried only his weapon, forty rounds of ammunition, a blanket, and three days' rations. All else would be left behind. Van Dorn blithely assumed that everything would go as planned and that his troops would subsist on captured enemy rations; he gave no thought to alternate sources of supply.

Determined to use all available manpower, Van Dorn ordered Brig. Gen. Albert Pike in the Indian Territory to mobilize Confederate Indian troops and rendezvous with the Army of the West at Bentonville. The treaties between the Confederacy and the Five Civilized Tribes specifically stated that Indian soldiers were not to be used outside the Indian Territory, but some Indians were willing to go if paid in advance. Pike began doling out Confederate money as fast as he could.

Painting which depicts the Battle of Elkhorn Tavern, also referred to as the Battle of Pea Ridge

On March 4, Van Dorn led the Army of the West out of the Boston Mountains. It was the largest and best-equipped Confederate military force ever assembled in the Trans-Mississippi: over sixteen thousand men and sixty-five guns. Van Dorn thought Curtis outnumbered him but the opposite was true. The Confederates had a three-to-two advantage in manpower and a four-to-three advantage in artillery over the Federals. No Confederate army ever marched off to battle with greater numerical superiority.

Unfortunately for the cause of Southern independence, the march to Bentonville was a disaster. Bouncing along Telegraph Road in his ambulance at the head of the column, Van Dorn set a rapid pace.

McCulloch's troops had been in winter quarters for months and were entirely unprepared for such a strenuous effort. Soon the roadside was littered his with large numbers of winded Rebels hobbled by blistered feet. Soldiers remarked sarcastically that Van Dorn "had forgotten he was riding and we were walking." That same day, a late winter blizzard swept across northwestern Arkansas, dropping temperatures and covering the road with ice and snow. Progress slowed to a crawl, and Van Dorn finally called a halt at Fayetteville. The next day, March 5, the Confederates plodded north across a frozen landscape and camped at Elm Springs. "I will never forget that night," wrote a Missouri soldier. "It had turned bitter cold.... We had no tents and only one blanket to each man. We built log heaps and set them afire to warm the ground to have a place on which to lie, and I remember well the next day there were several holes burned in my uniform by sparks left on the ground." The following morning, March 6, the Confederates ate the last of their meager rations and set out for Bentonville, twelve miles to the north. Despite the slow pace and the deteriorating condition of his army, Van Dorn remained confident that his plan to take the Federals by surprise was working.

General Peter J.Osterhaus

Unknown to Van Dorn, a Unionist resident of Fayetteville had informed Curtis of the Confederate advance on March 5. Curtis immediately ordered his forces to concentrate at Little Sugar Creek and to dig in atop the bluffs on the northern side of the valley. Struggling against the same miserable conditions as the Confederates, the Federals marched all night toward the rendezvous point. By the morning of March 6, nearly all of the Army of the Southwest was in place. The soldiers constructed earthworks, cleared fields of fire, and awaited the enemy.

The only Federals who failed to reach Little Sugar Creek without incident were six hundred men who served as rear guard for the force n that had been camped along McKissick's Creek. This detachment was under the personal command of Brig. Gen. Franz Sigel, who tarried behind to eat breakfast at a hotel in Bentonville. Sigel and his command were nearly cut off by a Confederate cavalry force led by Brig. Gen. James M. McIntosh. After a running fight east of Bentonville that covered four miles, Sigel finally managed to shake off his pursuers and join Curtis at Little Sugar Creek.

Brigadier General James McIntosh
Commander, McIntosh's Cavalry Brigade

When Van Dorn reached Bentonville later that day he realized that his plan had failed. The Federal army was reunited in an impregnable position at Little Sugar Creek, while the Confederate army was in desperate straits. After three terribly difficult days, men and animals were hungry and exhausted and straggling had become a serious problem. "Such a worn-out set of men I never saw," exclaimed a soldier. "They had not one single mouthfull of food to eat." Despite the desperate state of affairs, Van Dorn refused to consider falling back to the Boston Mountains; he was determined to strike the Federals a blow. As darkness fell on a singularly dismal Confederate encampment, Pike finally straggled in from the Indian Territory with about eight hundred mounted Cherokees and Texans.

That evening McCulloch told Van Dorn about the Bentonville Detour, a road that led around Curtis's right flank and intersected Telegraph Road near the Missouri state line, deep in the Federal rear. If the Confederates could reach Telegraph Road, the Federals would be cut off and would have no recourse but to surrender. Van Dorn decided to march at once. McCulloch and Price were appalled at the thought of a night march with the army in such a pitiful condition. The former appealed to Van Dorn "for God sake to let the poor, worn-out and hungry soldiers rest and steep that night ... and then attack the next morning." But Van Dorn insisted that the army move immediately.

Colonel Stand Watie
Commander, 2nd Cherokee Mounted Rifles

The march on the Bentonville Detour during the night of March 6-7 was a miserable experience. Men and animals proceeded along at a snail's pace, delayed by frigid streams and tangled barricades of trees felled by the Federals to obstruct precisely such a maneuver. Van Dorn's numerical superiority eroded as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of men fell out of the ranks and collapsed. At dawn on March 7, the head of the Confederate column had reached Telegraph Road, but the tail was still back at Little Sugar Creek. Van Dorn now made another snap decision: to save time, Price's division would proceed south on Telegraph Road on the east side of a rocky hill called Big Mountain; McCulloch's division would move south on Ford Road on the west side of Big Mountain. The two halves of the Army of the West would reunite around noon at Elkhorn Tavern atop the broad plateau of Pea Ridge. There the Confederates would deploy for battle and advance upon the unsuspecting Federals from the north. Van Dorn had no qualms about dividing his army in the presence of the enemy because he confidently assumed that the Federals were still in their fortifications at Little Sugar Creek, facing south.

6-pounder, Field Gun, Model 1841

Van Dorn's confident assumption was wrong. Federal patrols detected the Confederate movement on the Bentonville Detour early on March 7, and Curtis acted immediately to seize the tactical initiative. He launched two spoiling attacks intended to intercept and delay the approaching enemy forces on either side of Big Mountain. While these operations were underway, he began the enormously complex task of turning his entire army around to meet the threat from the north. By the end of the day, the Federals atop Pea Ridge had successfully completed a 180-degree change of front.

Shortly before noon Col. Peter J. Osterhaus led his division north from Little Sugar Creek. Near the hamlet of Leetown, he encountered McCulloch's division on Ford Road. Osterhaus was riding ahead of his infantry and was accompanied only by a small force of cavalry and artillery. Despite facing overwhelming odds, Osterhaus unlimbered his guns and opened fire. McCulloch was surprised to encounter the Federals so far north of Little Sugar Creek. He responded by sending his massed cavalry sweeping across a wheatfield toward the Federal position. Three thousand Texas and Arkansas horsemen overwhelmed Osterhaus's small command. "In every direction I could see my comrades falling," wrote a Federal soldier. "Horses frenzied and riderless, ran to and fro. Men and horses ran in collision crushing each other to the ground. Dismounted in every direction. Officers tried to rally their men but order troopers ran I gave way to confusion. The scene baffles description."

Major General Sterling Price
Commander, Price's Division (Missouri State Guard), Army of the West

A few hundred yards to the west, Pike conformed to McCulloch's movements by ordering his command to attack as well. The Cherokees, half mounted, half dismounted, picked their way through a patch of woods and drove off two isolated companies of Federal cavalry. (Contrary to legend, the Indians did not take part in the massed cavalry charge. Their small Victory in the woods was tarnished when a handful of Indians murdered, mutilated, and scalped several Federal soldiers.)

The surviving Federals fell back through a thick belt of trees and across a large cornfield owned in part by Samuel Oberson. On the south side of the field they met the rest of Osterhaus's division and formed a line of battle facing north. Osterhaus sent a message to Curtis stating that he had met the enemy and needed reinforcements. He then readied his command for another Rebel onslaught. Though the Confederates were out of sight on the north side of the belt of trees, Osterhaus ordered his remaining artillery to fire over the trees in hopes of causing some disorder in the enemy ranks. This simple directive had dramatic effects. The first salvo of shells landed among the Cherokees who were celebrating their victory. The Indians had never experienced artillery fire before and were terrified by the explosions. They fled from the field and played only a marginal role in the remainder of the battle. The barrage also convinced McCulloch that he could not push on to Elkhorn Tavern and leave such a substantial enemy force in his rear. He halted his division and deployed for battle at Leetown. In all of the excitement and confusion, McCulloch neglected to inform Van Dorn that the reunion of the two halves of the Army of the West at Elkhorn Tavern would be delayed. Osterhaus's aggressive spoiling attack had achieved its goal of disrupting enemy plans.

McCulloch prepared for a general infantry assault against the Federals in Oberson's field. He moved to the extreme right of the Confederate line and rode forward through the belt of trees to reconnoiter the Federal position himself. This was a habit he had developed as a captain in the Texas Rangers and had not been able to shake despite his promotion to high command. Along the north edge of the field, a company of skirmishers from the Thirty-sixth Illinois saw McCulloch riding directly toward them. The entire company fired a volley and the general tumbled from his saddle, killed by a bullet in the heart. Command of the division passed to Brig. Gen. James M. McIntosh, who recklessly advanced through the belt of trees only to be struck down like his predecessor by a bullet through the heart. McIntosh was the victim of a volley from another company of the Thirty-sixth Illinois. The loss of McCulloch and McIntosh demoralized and paralyzed the right and center of the Confederate line at Leetown. Col. Louis Hebert, now the ranking officer of McCulloch's division, was in command of the Confederate left. Hebert was in a dense patch of woods and was unaware of the disaster that had befallen his superiors. Thinking that the scattered firing in Oberson's field was the signal for the general infantry assault that McCulloch had planned, Hebert led four regiments south toward the exposed right flank of the Federal line.

Personal Battleflag of Major General Earl Van Dorn. This flag was presented to General Van Dorn by Miss Constance Cary, while he was a division commander in the Army of Northern Virginia. Although Van Dorn had this flag with him at Pea Ridge, it is unsure whether he used it here. The original is in the collection of the Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, VA.

Federal reinforcements arrived at Leetown just in time to block Hebert's assault. When Curtis received Osterhaus's message calling for support, he dispatched a division led by Col. Jefferson C. Davis. Davis reached Leetown in mid-afternoon and deployed his men in the woods on Osterhaus's right. The fighting in the heavy woods was confusing and intense. An Illinois soldier recalled that the air around him was "literally filled with leaden hail. Balls would whiz by our ears, cut off bushes closely, and even cut our clothes." The Federals lay down to avoid the deadly fire, an unusual tactic so early in the war. An officer was convinced his men "would have been utterly annihilated" had he not "fought them flat on their bellies on the ground. The Confederates had superior numbers and steadily pushed the Federals back. At one point several hundred Confederates burst out of the woods and overran a Federal battery in the southeastern corner of Oberson's field. For a few moments, it seemed as if Hebert had achieved a breakthrough, but Federal regiments to right and left turned toward the Confederates and drove them back into the woods. As the afternoon wore on, hundreds of exhausted Confederates simply lost heart and drifted to the rear. Hebert was captured when he became disoriented in the smoky woods and wandered into the Federal lines.

Brigadier General Franz Sigel
Commander, 1st & 2nd Divisions, Army of the Southwest

The loss of Hebert was the final blow to the disorganized Confederate effort at Leetown. Now utterly leaderless, the Rebels milled around waiting for orders. Pike attempted to assume command, but many officers refused to recognize his authority. Pike eventually led about half of McCulloch's shrunken division away from Leetown and around Big Mountain toward Elkhorn Tavern. The other half of the division remained behind or drifted away from the battle toward Little Sugar Creek. By late afternoon the fighting at Leetown had sputtered out. An outnumbered Federal force, ably co-commanded by Osterhaus and Davis and blessed with remarkable good fortune, had wrecked a larger Confederate force, had killed or captured three senior Confederate officers, and had kept the Army of the West divided.

While these events took place at Leetown during the afternoon of March 7, another and far more severe engagement raged two miles to the east in the vicinity of Elkhorn Tavern. Earlier that morning, as noted above, Curtis had launched two spoiling attacks. The first was commanded by Osterhaus, the second by Col. Eugene A. Carr, a tough regular army officer. Carr deployed his division along the northern escarpment of Pea Ridge near Elkhorn Tavern. The Federal line looked down into Cross Timber Hollow, a deep and narrow valley. Price's division, personally led by Van Dorn, approached from the north on Telegraph Road. Around noon, the Rebel column began to climb up the steep slope that led from Cross Timber Hollow to Pea Ridge. The Federals opened fire and the battle was on.

Van Dorn, like McCulloch, was surprised to encounter Federal troops so far north of Little Sugar Creek. He deployed Price's division and sent it up the slope, but Carr counterattacked so vigorously that the Confederates gave up the initiative and assumed a defensive posture. A furious exchange of artillery fire filled the hollow with smoke, and fighting flared all afternoon along the steep rocky slope as soldiers of both sides blundered about in the haze. During a confused engagement on the Confederate right, Brig. Gen. William Y. Slack of Missouri was mortally wounded.

The Battle of Pea Ridge - Van Dorn's men attack Curtis

Hours passed before Van Dorn grasped the tactical situation, for he could see almost nothing from his position at the bottom of Cross Timber Hollow. Around mid-afternoon, he learned that McCulloch's division was bogged down at Leetown. About the same time, he belatedly realized that Price's division was much larger than the Federal force opposing it. He directed Price to extend his line beyond the flanks of the shorter Federal line. Late in the afternoon, Price's left reached the high ground a mile east of Elkhorn Tavern. Van Dorn ordered a general assault: the Confederate right and center would attack uphill and smash the Federals near the tavern, while the Confederate left would roll up the Federal right atop Pea Ridge.

Federal Army Regimental Battleflag. According to the regulations, this was to be dark blue, with a large national emblem. Many times, other designs were substituted. The regimental flag of the 37th Illinois (the Fremont Rifles) had a large portrait of General Fremont on one side and scenes from the General's career on the other. The9th Iowa's regimental flag was white with Iowa's state seal on one side and red with the Massachusetts seal on the other.

The Rebels struck with barely an hour of daylight remaining and fierce fighting erupted along the northern escarpment of Pea Ridge. An Iowa soldier wrote that the Rebels came on "with a yell and a fury that had a tendency to make each hair on one's head to stand on its particular end." In the center the Confederates overwhelmed the Federals and captured Elkhorn Tavern. Lt. Col. Francis J. Herron led his men in a desperate rear guard defense that earned him a Medal of Honor, but he was wounded and captured. A quarter mile to the east, on a farm owned by Rufus Clemon, the Confederates had a tougher time, for a brigade commanded by Col. Grenville M. Dodge fought from behind a breastwork of logs and repulsed several assaults. The Federals finally retreated when the swarming Confederates threatened to engulf them. Carr's division fell back through thick woods about half a mile to the south side of Benjamin Ruddick's cornfield. There they regrouped astride Telegraph Road and made another stand.

In the deepening twilight, Van Dorn made a final effort to sweep away the stubborn Federals. Masses of Confederate troops poured across the cornfield, "their cheers and yells rising above the roar of artillery," only to be mowed down in heaps by blasts of canister. The surviving Rebels fell back toward the tavern as darkness covered the battlefield. The unsuccessful attack in Ruddick's field late on March 7 was the high water mark for the Confederate war effort in the Trans-Mississippi. Henceforth, the Federals would control the course of the battle and, to a considerable degree, the course of the war in Arkansas and adjacent states.

During the night of March 7-8, Curtis used interior lines to consolidate the Army of the Southwest. He moved all of his scattered forces from Little Sugar Creek and Leetown to join Carr on Telegraph Road. He also distributed food, water, and ammunition. Van Dorn attempted to do the same with the Army of the West, ordering the fragments of McCulloch's division to join him at Elkhorn Tavern. Several thousand Rebels marched all night on the roundabout route around Big Mountain but arrived in such pitiful condition as to be almost useless. The Confederates were without food, except for what little was found in Federal haversacks and sutlers' wagons. They also were without adequate ammunition, for in the confusion of the march along the Bentonville Detour the previous night, the ammunition train had been left behind at Little Sugar Creek, a dozen miles distant.

The next morning, March 8, Curtis waited to see if Van Dorn would continue to press his attack. When nothing happened, Curtis concluded that the Confederates had shot their bolt and that he now held the initiative. He ordered his artillery to wheel forward. For two hours, twenty-seven Federal cannons hammered the Confederates at ever-closer ranges. The most intense artillery bombardment of the war up to that time, it made a great impression on the soldiers who were present. "It was a continual thunder, and a fellow might have believed that the day of judgment had come," said an Iowa soldier. The tremendous noise could be heard fifty miles away. The devastation wrought on the Confederates was terrible.

General Asboth and his dog York go off to battle at Pea Ridge. (Image: Frank Leslie's Illustrated)

Around ten o'clock Curtis ordered a general advance. Nearly ten thousand Federal soldiers swept across the fields and woods atop Pea Ridge, converging on Elkhorn Tavern from the west and south. "That beautiful charge I shall never forget," wrote a Federal officer. "With banners streaming, with drums beating, and our long line of blue coats advancing upon the double quick, with their deadly bayonets gleaming in the sunlight, and every man and officer yelling at the top of his lungs. The rebel yell was nowhere in comparison." Van Dorn realized that his position was hopeless and ordered a general withdrawal. The retreat rapidly degenerated into a rout after Van Dorn rode away to the east on Huntsville Road, leaving behind not only most of his wounded, but also large numbers of his men who were still engaged. Leaderless, panicked Rebels fled in all directions as thousands of cheering Federal soldiers met at the tavern. Curtis rode among his men, waving his hat and shouting "Victory! Victory!" Despite being outnumbered and surprised by Van Dorn's unorthodox and reckless tactics, Curtis had achieved one of the first major Federal victories in the Civil War.

The victory did not come cheap. Pea Ridge cost the Federals 1,384 casualties: 203 killed, 980 wounded, and 201 missing, roughly 13 percent of the 10,250 troops engaged in the battle. Confederate casualties are uncertain because Van Dorn lied about his losses in order to hide the magnitude of his defeat. A conservative estimate is that the Confederates suffered at least 2,000 casualties, approximately 15 percent of the 13,000 troops engaged in the battle. (The Army of the West contained roughly 16,500 men when it set out from the Boston Mountains and the Indian Territory, but suffered severe attrition because of Van Dorn's insistence on haste, and lost nearly one-fourth of its strength before reaching the battlefield. Attrition during the retreat also was severe but cannot be estimated.)

Additional Sources:

www.price.gv2.net
www.nps.gov
freepages.military.rootsweb.com/~mikegoad
www.multied.com/CivilWar
www.lib.utexas.edu
www.oldgloryprints.com
www.cwbattlefields.com
www.swcivilwar.com
www.civilwarweb.com
freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~janicekmc
oha.ci.alexandria.va.us
www.oldprintshop.com

The Confederate retreat from Pea Ridge was as disastrous as the advance and the battle. Late on the evening of March 8, most of the Army of the West reassembled at Van Winkle's Mill on the east side of the White River. The men were famished. They devoured everything in sight, but the sparsely populated Ozark countryside provided only a fraction of the food necessary to feed thousands of men and animals. For the next week, the pathetic column staggered south on primitive trails through almost uninhabited country, generally moving up the narrowing valleys of the Middle and West Forks of the White River. A Texas soldier observed that he was "in much greater danger of dying from starvation in the mountains of northern Arkansas than by the enemy's bullets." Hundreds of Rebels wandered away in search of food and never returned to the ranks. The trail of the defeated, dissolving army was littered with discarded clothing, weapons, coffee pots, and even flags. By the time the Confederates crossed the Boston Mountains and followed Frog Bayou down to the Arkansas River near Van Buren, they were a pitiful remnant of the proud army that had opened the campaign two weeks earlier.

The Confederate Monument is dedicated to the Confederate soldiers who fell near the Elkhorn Tavern during the battle of Pea Ridge. It is located in a field just south of the Tavern

While the troops recuperated, Van Dorn received a telegram from General P. G. T Beauregard in western Tennessee. Beauregard suggested that Van Dorn transfer the Army of the West to Corinth, Mississippi, as part of a concentration of all Confederate armies west of the Appalachian Mountains. The purpose of this grand design was to assemble a force powerful enough to defeat Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Federal army camped at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. Van Dorn agreed and began to move his force eastward from Van Buren. Heavy spring rains turned the roads into sloughs, slowing the march. The leading elements of the army did not begin boarding steamboats at Des Arc on the White River until April 6. By then, it was too late - the battle of Shiloh was underway. Without Van Dorn's sizable contingent, the Confederates failed to destroy Grant's army and were driven from the field. Van Dorn did not know this and continued to hurry his command across the Mississippi River. The transfer was complete by the end of April.

Close up of the Confederate Monument

Unknown to Beauregard or anyone else in the Confederate high command, Van Dorn did not merely move the Army of the West out of Arkansas, he abandoned the Trans-Mississippi altogether. He carried away nearly all troops, weapons, equipment, stores, machinery, and animals. Van Dorn's unauthorized actions meant that in order for the Confederates in the Trans-Mississippi to continue fighting, they would have to start from scratch. Arkansas was thrown into turmoil by this unexpected and alarming development. Gov. Henry M. Rector protested to President Davis and vaguely threatened to secede from the Confederacy and form a new political entity west of the Mississippi River. Brig. Gen. John S. Roane succinctly informed Beauregard of the situation in Arkansas: "No troops - no arms - no powder - no material of war - people everywhere eager to rise, complaints bitter."

Rugged and Sublime: The Civil War in Arkansas

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Good morning Gail. I was just reading Phil's post he pinged us all too about Kerry and the Death Penalty, looked up and saw your ping. I'm so glad you and Phil and so many others aren't letting this SOB and his deeds go unnoticed. We must shout about this from the roof tops so he is beaten and beaten good.

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Inquiring mind wants to know during Nam what was the total commitment was required from a service member? Was hanoi john technically in the inactive reserve when he met with the commies in Paris? Was he still technically in the inactive reserve when he was doing his protesting?

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We're entertaining guests for the next couple of days. My sisiter from the East Coast and her family will be coming down later today.