CHAPTER XIX.

THE BATTLE OF PEA RIDGE.

(April, 1862.)

THE DOUBLE SURPRISE.-OPENING OF THE BATTLE.-DEATH OF MCCULLOCH.-FIERCENESS OF THE CONFLICT.-HEROISM OF THE FOURTH IOWA.-COMMENCEMENT OF THE THIRD DAY'S BATTLE.-GLOOMY PROSPECTS.—SUBLIME BATTLE SCENE.-UTTER ROUT OF THE REBELS.SCENE AFTER THE BATTLE.

THE second day's battle was thus disastrously commenced, with the National troops being driven to form a new line under the enemy's fire. But this most difficult of all military evolutions was performed with great coolness and precision. Though the rebels had adroitly surprised their foe, by a circuitous night-march and an unexpected attack, General Curtis met the emergency with such presence of mind and promptness of action, that the transient advantage which the enemy had gained was more than overmatched.

Indeed, it would be difficult to say which party was taken most by surprise—the National troops, by the unexpected appearance of the rebel army on their flank and rear, or the rebels, by the promptitude with which their foe changed his face, and the bold and unflinching front with which he repelled their attack. The rebels were surprised that the National troops were not surprised. It is true that the rebels had cut off the retreat of the patriots, but since not one of the patriots dreamed of retreating, this did not prove to be a matter of much consequence. This heroic little band had not boldly adventured a march of two hundred and forty miles into the realms of rebellion to run away before the first show of a superior force.

Volunteers, it is often said, are superior to regulars in skirmishes and irregular warfare, in all those martial adventures which call for individual action and chivalrous daring, but inferior in those stern evolutions when the individual is lost in the mass, and where an army becomes an unthinking machine, moved by the will of another, reckless of blood and death. But Pea Ridge seems to refute this assertion. The Old Guard of Napoleon could not have more nobly met the crisis encountered by these young volunteers. To meet surprise without surprise, to be prepared for an attack wholly unprepared for, to form in line of battle while the battle rages these are feats which might test the mettle of the finest-drilled army in the world. Henceforth an army of volunteer patriots will never be deemed inferior to any other army which can be raised.

In the new line thus formed, Colonel Carr occupied the right, near Elkhorn Tavern. Opposed to him were the rebel Generals Van Dorn and Price. The centre was assigned to Colonels Davis and Osterhaus, with the

Third Division and part of the First. They were brought into immediate antagonism with the rebel Generals McCulloch and McIntosh, who had a large rebel force, assisted by their savage allies the Indians, under Generals Pike and Ross. The extreme left was held by Generals Sigel and Asboth, with the Second and a part of the First Division. A small force was also left at General Curtis's head-quarters, at the Sugar Creek crossing, to guard against any advance by the enemy along the Fayetteville road.

The onset was mainly upon the centre. Hour after hour the battle raged with fury rarely equalled, and, perhaps, never exceeded. Above the roar of cannon and the rattle of musketry, the shrill and demoniac war-whoop of the Indian pierced the ear. Excited and almost delirious with that frenzy which may glow in the bosom of a fiend, these untamed savages burst away from every restraint, and, like maniacs, rushed over the field, tomahawking and scalping the wounded wherever they found them, friend and foe alike. The rebels found that they had added but little to their strength in calling to their aid such atrocious allies. As the flood of battle surged to and fro, the rebel General McIntosh fell as he was desperately endeavoring to rally one of his shattered columns. Soon after, the notorious Ben McCulloch, one of the most coarse and brutal of the ruffians of the border, received his mortal wound from a Minié ball piercing his breast. As he was borne from the field to die, with horrid oaths he declared that he would not die; that he was not born to be killed by a Yankee. In this state of mind he lingered for a few hours, and at eleven o'clock at night, from the sulphurous gloom of the battle-field, his stormy spirit ascended to the tribunal of God. A few moments before his death, the surgeon told him that he could not possibly recover, and that he had but a few moments more to live. Fixing an incredulous look upon the surgeon, his only reply was, in contemptuous tones, "Oh, hell!" These were his last words on earth. Who can imagine what was his next utterance when he stood in the presence of his Maker!

The two leading rebel generals who conducted this attack being thus slain, and the National troops pressing the foe with the unfaltering intrepidity and resolution of veterans, the disheartened rebels wavered, fell back, broke, and fled in confusion. Their wild flight was hastened by the onward rush of the victors, and by incessant volleys from their well-served batteries, mowing down the disordered masses. The guns which the Union troops had lost in the morning were regained, and in that portion of the field the Stars and Stripes had gloriously triumphed.

On the right the battle was fought no less horoically by the patriots, but not with equally decisive results. Here Colonel Carr, with but little more than a single division, held at bay, for seven long and bloody hours, a foe nearly, if not quite, fifteen thousand strong. While the centre was sorely pressed, and the whole strength of the army was really needed to meet the assault at that one point, Colonel Carr, staggered by the tremendous blows he was receiving, sent imploringly to General Curtis for reënforcements. But it was not possible to send him any aid except a few horsemen, and the body-guard of General Curtis, with their light mountain howitzers. This little band, however, chanced to arrive at a very important crisis, and

rendered essential service. With them General Curtis sent word to Colonel Carr that he could not send him any more reënforcements, and that he must, at all hazard, stand firm.

But the multitudinous foe, in apparently resistless billows, surged on and on, till it seemed that the patriots would be inevitably overwhelmed. Again Colonel Carr sent to General Curtis that he could not hold his position much longer unless aid could be afforded him. The only succor which the commander-in-chief could send to his hard-pressed lieutenant was the word "Persevere." Wonderful is the power of a single heroic mind. Colonel Carr did persevere, and so inspired his men with his own heroism, that they stood their ground as the rock meets the surge. But the havoc in their ranks was dreadful. We know not that soldiers ever passed through a more fiery ordeal than did, on this occasion, the Ninth and Fourth Iowa, the Twenty-fourth Missouri, and Phelps's Missouri. Indeed, almost every man in that division merits honorable mention.

It will be remembered that General Curtis had left at his head-quarters a small force, to watch the Fayetteville road, to guard against an attack upon his rear by this approach from the south. About the middle of the afternoon, seeing no indications of the enemy upon that road, he ventured, in consideration of the terrific struggle in which Colonel Carr was engaged, to withdraw from that point three pieces of artillery and a battalion of infantry, and to send them to his imperilled right wing. Small as was this reënforcement, it reinvigorated the patriots, and with invincible resolution they maintained their post.

With great solicitude General Curtis watched the state of affairs with his left wing, where Generals Sigel and Asboth, in battle-array, and with shotted guns, awaited an assault. About two o'clock in the afternoon, Captain Adams, an aide of General Curtis, returned to him from the left wing with the intelligence that no attack had as yet been made there, and that General Sigel could see no indications of an immediate assault. It was soon after this that the rebels, in their attack upon the National centre, were repulsed, and vanished from view, retreating in confusion into the forest. The probability was very strong that, abandoning the left and the centre, they were preparing to concentrate all their force in an overwhelming, crushing charge upon the right.

With this prospect in view, General Curtis resolved immediately to move up his centre and left wing in support of Colonel Carr, and accordingly sent him word that he should be speedily reënforced. It was nearly five o'clock when these reënforcements reached the right wing. Colonel Carr had already been struck by several bullets, one of them inflicting a severe wound in the arm. Many of his field officers had fallen, and his numbers were very seriously diminished by the dead and wounded who strewed the ground. General Curtis accompanied the division of General Asboth. As he approached the line, shaken and torn by the storm of battle, he met the Fourth Iowa Regiment falling back in perfect order to obtain a new supply of ammunition, every cartridge being expended. Greneral Curtis, believing that he could support them by his reënforcements, ordered them immediately to return to the position they had left, and to

plunge upon the foe by a bayonet charge. Promptly and eagerly they responded to the order, in which they were joined by their heroic comrades of the Iowa Ninth.

In the mean time General Asboth planted his artillery on the road, and opened a tremendous fire upon the rebels at short range. The Second Missouri Infantry also deployed, and engaged the enemy with a rapid, accurate, and deadly discharge of musketry. As the battle was thus fiercely waged, the shades of night began to fall upon the field. But the fire on both sides, instead of slackening, seemed to grow more furious and destructive. One of General Curtis's body-guard fell dead at his side. His orderly was struck by a musket-ball. General Asboth received a severe wound in the arm. To add to the peril, the battery of General Asboth ran out of ammunition, and was compelled to fall back. By this withdrawal of support, another battery was compelled to follow. Still the infantry, thus abandoned for the time, remained firm, receiving the whole storm of war upon their bosoms, until the artillery, obtaining a new supply, returned to their positions and renewed their fire. Thus the terrific conflict continued until darkness enveloped the scene. battle and of blood was ended.

The second day of

The soldiers of both armies, in utter exhaustion, threw themselves upon the ground, with their arms by their side, and sought such repose as could then and there be found. It was certain that the dawn would renew the strife with still greater desperation. General Curtis arranged his infantry in the edge of the wood, with the open field before them, while from each company a few men were detached to bring water and provisions to their comrades, who had almost forgotten their hunger in the exhaustion of their fatigue. Thus the patriots slept in the midst of the wounded and the dead scattered all over the field around them, and separated but a few yards from the foe. Detached parties were also busy, all through the night, in bringing up ammunition, and preparing all the minute details for the third day's fight, which would doubtless prove to the one party or the other decisive.

The ground was still covered with a thin mantle of snow. A cold March wind swept the field. The armies lay so close to each other that neither party dare light its camp-fires, for fear of drawing shot and shell from hostile batteries in shortest range. Even to the most sanguine in the patriot camp, the night must have been one of fearful gloom. The prospect for the morrow was certainly dark. Both parties had massed their whole force upon almost a single point, for a final struggle. The rebels outnumbered the patriots three to one. The retreat of the pa

triots was cut off; and their defeat would prove not only the utter annihilation of the army, but the destruction of the Union cause throughout Southern Missouri for months to come.

The rebels, conscious of the superiority of their numbers, and elated with hope, were anticipating an easy victory. “The next morning," says the “Richmond Whig," "we all expected to capture the entire Union army.” Their confidence was not unnatural. They had virtually crowded the whole National army into one narrow spot, where they had massed their

whole force, in a commanding position, ready to hurl it upon the shattered ranks of the Unionists, weakened by the terrible losses of the preceding days. Eagerly they awaited the rising of the morrow's sun.

Strange as it may seem, General Curtis had such confidence in his officers and soldiers, that he did not allow himself to cherish a doubt of ultimate victory. But these sanguine views were not generally cherished by his staff. An officer of the regular army, who was engaged in the battle, writes:

"The morning of the eighth was one of the deepest anxiety on the part of our army. The Confederate forces held the only road for our retreat. Both armies had drawn their lines close. The woods and hills literally swarmed with foes. The prisoners we had taken assured us that the Confederates were perfectly sanguine of capturing our entire force, together with all our supplies. They outnumbered us three to one. Our men were much exhausted with two days' fighting and with loss of sleep, the nights being too cold to sleep without fire, and our proximity to the enemy not allowing us to build fires along our advance lines. Nearly a thousand of our men were dead or wounded. Both parties were eager for the fray-one stimulated by an apparent certainty of success and hopes of plunder; the other determined to conquer or die."

wrote:

The correspondent of the “Boston Transcript," writing from the spot, says: "At the close of the second day, all the leading officers, except Sigel and Dodge, were disheartened, and regarded surrender as a foregone conclusion.' "In the same spirit the correspondent of the "New York Herald " "Most of the officers were fearful of the result of the conflict on the morrow, since that of the day's battle had been so unfavorable. Some turned their thoughts on escape; but saw not how it was to be accomplished, as our only lines of retreat to the north were completely cut off. Around head-quarters most of the commanders passed a sleepless night. Though there were but few words spoken, nearly every one felt that the following dawn would but usher in our defeat."

That these gloomy anticipations were so gloriously disappointed—that the rebels were not only repulsed, but disastrously routed-is due, primarily, indeed, to the bravery of a soldiery who would not be beaten, but largely to the skill of General Sigel in the disposition and, management of the forces under his command. No fame is so fair that jealousy cannot sully it. No task of the historian is so honorable or so agreeable, as that of giving a patriot soldier his true position in the esteem and affection of mankind. So long as the names of Carthage and Pea Ridge are remembered, the name of Franz Sigel will be cherished with honor by every true American

Let the reader now endeavor to form a definite conception of the posttion of the patriot army. Their lines extended on the ridge from the Leestown cross-road in a gentle concave curve, following the bend of the valley, to the Keatsville road. The Third and Fourth Divisions, under Colonel Carr, which had been terribly weakened by the prolonged contest of the previous day, strengthened by Colonel Davis's Division, held the right on the Keatsville road, near Elkhorn Tavern. The First and Second Divisions, under the personal command of General Sigel, occupied the left, resting on and across