258

NATIONAL VICTORY AT PEA RIDGE.

Sigel first ordered Colonel Coler to post his Twenty-fifth Illinois along a fence in open view of the Confederate batteries, which immediately opened fire on them. At the same time, Sigel placed a battery of six guns on a rise of ground in their rear. Then the Twelfth Missouri wheeled into line on the right of Coler's regiment, and another battery of heavy guns was planted in a similar position behind these. Then other regiments and other batteries were brought into line; and, when all were in readiness, the infantry lay down in front of the heavy guns, and a terrible cannonade was opened. Battery after battery of the Confederates was silenced in the course of two hours, and so horrible was the tempest of iron that fell upon Van Dorn and his followers that they were compelled to fly to the shelter of the ravines of

Cross-Timber Hollow. Sigel's infantry at the same time crept steadily forward, and the troops of the center and right pressed onward and joined in the fight. When the Confederates fled, Sigel's whole division were seen climbing up and occupying the rugged hills from which the insurgents had been driven.'

The flight of Van Dorn's troops was so sudden, rapid, and scattering, that it was dif ficult for Curtis to determine which way to follow them with the best effect. General Sigel pushed forward along the main road toward Keitsville, where General Price had been posted. He too had fled, and the Confederate army, so strong and so confident of victory twenty-four hours before, was broken into fragments.3

1 "The upward movement of the gallant Thirty-sixth Illinois," said Curtis, in his report, "with its darkblue line of men and its gleaming bayonets, steadily rose from base to summit, when it dashed forward into the forest, driving and scattering the rebels from these commanding heights. The Twelfth Missouri, far in advance of others, rushed into the enemy's lines, bearing off a flag and two pieces of artillery. Everywhere our line moved forward and the foe as gradually withdrew. The roar of cannon and small arms was continuous, and noforce could then withstand the converging line and concentrated cross-fire of our gallant troops. Our guns continued some time after the rebel fire ceased, and the rebels had gone down into the deep caverns through which they had begun their precipitate flight. Finally, our firing ceased. The enemy suddenly vanished."

2" Following down the main road, which enters a deep cañon, I saw some straggling teams and men running in great trepidation through the gorges of the mountain. I directed a battery to move forward, which threw a few shots at them, followed by a pursuit of cavalry, comprised of the Benton Hussars, and my escort from Bowen's battalion, which was all the cavalry convenient at the time. General Sigel also followed in pursuit toward Keitsville, while I returned, trying to check a movement which led my forces north, where I was confident a frightened foe was not likely to go. I soon found the rebel forces had divided and gone in every direction, but it was several hours before I learned that the main force, after entering the cañon, had turned short to the right, following ravines which led into the Huntsville road in a due south direction. General Sigel followed, some miles north, toward Keitsville, firing on the retreating force that ran away; Colonel Bussy, with cavalry and the little howitzers, followed beyond Bentonville; I camped on the field, and made provision for burying the dead and care of the wounded."-General Curtis, in his official report.

3 Reports of General Curtis and his subordinate officers; also of Generals Van Dorn and Price.

THE RESULT OF THE BATTLE.

259

a March 6, 7, 8,

The hard struggle during those early days of Spring," in the extreme northwestern corner of Arkansas, called by the general name of the BATTLE OF PEA RIDGE,' notwithstanding its magnitude, was 1862. not of very great importance in its bearing upon the results of the war. There was heavy loss incurred by both parties. Although victory was awarded to the Nationals, the spoils that fell into their hands were of inconsiderable consequence, for Van Dorn managed very skillfully in carrying away nearly all of his artillery and baggage. Indeed, his whole design in giving battle on the morning of the 8th was to blind Curtis to the fact that he was withdrawing his troops and materials of war. His army was not captured, nor was it more than temporarily dispersed. There was great gallantry displayed on both sides, sufficient to receive the highest praise from, and give the greatest satisfaction to, the friends of each, but a stain that cannot be effaced tarnishes the glory of all the achievements of the Confederates on that occasion, because of their employment of Indians in that campaign, whose savage atrocities on the field of Pea Ridge are too well authenticated to be denied.*

3

Both parties tacitly agreed to fight no more in that exhausted section of the State, and both soon disappeared from the scene of this conflict. Van Dorn collected his scattered forces on the road between the Elkhorn Tavern and Bentonville, about eight miles from the battle-field, made an arrange

1 The Confederates gave it the general title of Battle of Elkhorn.

2 General Curtis reported his loss at 1,851 killed, wounded, and missing, of whom more than one-half (701) were of Colonel Carr's division. Among the slain was Colonel Hendricks. The loss of the Confederates was never reported. It could not have been less than that of the Nationals. Pollard (i. 277) says Van Dorn estimated his entire loss at "about 600."

3 Van Dorn wrote to his superiors at Richmond, saying, “During the whole of this engagement I was with the Missourians under Price, and I have never seen better fighters than these Missouri troops, or more gallant leaders than General Price and his officers. From the first to the last shot, they continually rushed on, and never yielded an inch they had won; and when at last they had orders to fall back, they retired steadily and with cheers."

In a stirring address to his troops from "Camp Pea Ridge," a week after the battle, Sigel said: "You may look with pride on the few days just passed, during which you have so gloriously defended the flag of the Union. From two o'clock on the morning of the sixth, when you left McKissick's farm, until four o'clock in the afternoon of the ninth, when you arrived from Keitsville in the common encampment, you marched fifty miles, fought three battles, took not only a battery and a flag from the enemy, but more than one hundred and fifty prisoners. You have done your duty, and you can justly claim your share in the common glory of this victory. But let us not be partial, unjust, or haughty. Let us not forget that alone we were too weak to perform the great work before us. Let us acknowledge the great services done by all the brave soldiers of the Third and Fourth divisions, and always keep in mind that united we stand, divided we fall.' Let us hold out and push the work through-not by mere words and great clamor-but by good marches, by hardships and fatigues, by strict discipline and effective battles.

"Columbus has fallen, Memphis will follow, and if you do in future as you have done in these days of trial, the time will soon come when you will pitch your tents on the beautiful shores of the Arkansas River, and there meet our own iron-clad propellers at Little Rock and Fort Smith. Therefore keep alert, my friends, and look for ward with confidence."

4 According to the statement of eye-witnesses, and a correspondence between.Generals Curtis and Van Dorn, commenced when the latter asked (March 9th) the privilege of burying his dead, the Indians, under Pike and Ross, tomahawked, scalped, and shamefully mangled the bodies of National soldiers. These Indians, many of whom claimed to be civilized, were maddened with liquor, it is said, before the battle of the 7th, that they might allow the savage nature of their race to have unchecked development. In their fury they respected none of the usages of war, but scalped the helpless wounded, and committed atrocities too horrible to mention. When Curtis made the charge against these allies of the insurgents, Van Dorn did not deny it, but sought to break its force by accusing the Germans in Curtis's army of murdering prisoners of war.

We have already observed (pages 474 to 477, inclusive, volume I.) how the conspirators had tampered with the civilized and half-civilized Indians in the regions bordering on Kansas and Texas, and how in August, 1861, the Cherokees tendered their support to the Confederate cause. That was after the battle of Wilson's Creek, which the emissaries of the Confederates made the Indians believe was an overwhelming defeat to the Unionists, and utter destruction of the National power in Missouri. The battle of Bull's Run was represented as a complete discomfiture of the Government; and the flight of the Union army from that field, and the death of Lyon,

260

INDIANS EMPLOYED BY THE CONFEDERATES.

ment with Curtis for burying the Confederate dead, and, after accomplishing that humane object, withdrew; Curtis gave his army ample rest on the field of his victory, and finding no foe to fight in that section of Arkansas, he marched in a southeasterly direction to Batesville, the capital of Independence County, on the White River, where he arrived on the 6th of May.

and the falling back of the Union troops in Missouri after the battle of Wilson's Creek, fixed the impression on the minds of the Indians that henceforth the Confederate "Government" would be the only legitimate and powerful one on which they could rely.

While Chief Ross and his associates were perplexed by indecision, Ben. McCulloch and his Texans, who, as we have seen, abandoned Price in Missouri, marched to the Indian border, and required the Creeks and Cherokees to decide immediately to which cause they would adhere, on penalty of having their country ravaged by 20,000 Texas and Arkansas troops. This produced the council at Tahlequah on the 20th of August, and the message of Chief Ross, printed on page 476, volume I. A large minority of both nations, led by the Creek Chief Opothleyolo, resisted the Confederates and their Indian adherents. Between these and the Indian insurgents a battle was fought on the 9th of December, 1861, on Bushy Creek, 180 miles west of Fort Smith, when Opothleyolo and his followers, as we have observed, were driven into Kansas. The Indian Territory was then left in the undisputed possession of the Confederates; and there it was that Pike collected about 4,000 warriors, who appeared in the Battle of Pea Ridge. This was the only battle in the war in which any considerable number of Indians were engaged; and it was agreed by the Confederate officers that they damaged their cause more than they aided it. Pike and his Indians soon afterward disappeared from the stage, and were not again summoned to action. In his official report, General Van Dorn does not mention that any assistance was derived from the plumed Pike and his dusky followers. That degenerate Bostonian (see note 1, page 475, volume I.) soon took off his Indian costume and was hidden in the shadows of obscurity until the close of the war, when he re-appeared for a moment as a suppliant for mercy, and was granted a full pardon by President Johnson.

GRANT AND HIS ARMY.

261

CHAPTER X.

GENERAL MITCHEL'S INVASION OF ALABAMA.-THE BATTLES OF SHILOH.

Feb. 27,

1862.

Feb. 14.

ET us return to Tennessee, and observe what Generals Grant and Buell did immediately after the fall of Fort Donelson, and the flight of the Confederates, civil and military, from Nashville. We left General Grant at the Tennessee capital, in consultation with General Buell. His praise was upon every loyal lip. His sphere of action had just been enlarged. On hearing of his glorious victory at Fort Donelson, General Halleck had assigned' him to the command of the new District of West Tennessee, which embraced the territory from Cairo, between the Mississippi and Cumberland Rivers, to the northern borders of the State of Mississippi, with his headquarters in the field. It was a wide and important stage for action, and he did not rest on the laurels he had won on the Tennessee and Cumberland, but at once turned his attention to the business of moving vigorously forward in the execution of his part of the grand scheme for expelling the armed Confederates from the Mississippi valley. For that purpose he made his headquarters temporarily at Fort Henry, where General Lewis Wallace was in command, and began a new organization of his forces for further and important achievements. Foote's flotilla was withdrawn from the Cumberland, and a part of it was sent up the Tennessee River, while its commander, as we have observed, went down the Mississippi with a more powerful naval armament to co-operate with the land troops against Columbus, Hickman, Island Number Ten, and New Madrid.

An important objective was Corinth, in Northern Mississippi, at the intersection of the Charleston and Memphis and Mobile and Ohio railroads, and the seizure of that point, as a strategic position of vital importance, was Grant's design. It would give the National forces control of the great railway communications between the Mississippi and the East, and the border slave-labor States and the Gulf of Mexico. It would also facilitate the capture of Memphis by forces about to move down the Mississippi, and would give aid to the important movement of General Curtis in Arkansas. Grant was taking vigorous measures to accomplish this desirable end, when an order came from General Halleck, directing him to turn over his forces e March 4. to his junior in rank, General C. F. Smith, and to remain himself

e

at Fort Henry. Grant was astonished and mortified. He was unconscious of acts deserving of the displeasure of his superior, and he requested Halleck

262

EXPEDITION UP THE TENNESSEE.

to relieve him entirely from duty. That officer, made satisfied that no fault could justly be found with Grant, wrote a letter to head-quarters that removed all misconception, and on the 14th of March the latter was restored to the chief command.' This satisfied the loyal people, who were becoming im patient because of seeming injustice toward a successful commander.

1862.

Meanwhile the troops that gathered at Fort Henry had been sent up the Tennessee in transports. The unarmored gun-boats Tyler and Lexington had gone forward as far as Pittsburg Landing, at the termination of a road from Corinth, and about twenty miles from that place. There they were assailed by a six-gun battery, which, after a mutual cannonade, was silenced. When the report of this success reached General Smith, sixty-nine transports, with over thirty thousand troops, were moved up the river. The advance (Forty-sixth Ohio, Colonel a March 10, Worthington) landed at Savannah," the capital of Hardin County, on the eastern bank of the stream, and took military possession of the place. General Smith, whose headquarters were on the steamer Leonora, immediately sent out scouts in the direction of Corinth, where Beauregard was straining every nerve to concentrate an army to oppose this formidable movement. Their reports satisfied him that the Confederates were not then more than ten thousand strong in his front, and that their capture or dispersion would be an easy matter. He hoped to be allowed to move upon them at once, and, as a preparatory measure, he ordered General Lewis Wallace, with his division, to Crump's Landing on the west side of the river, four miles above Savannah, and thence sixteen miles westward to Purdy, a village on the railway between Humbolt, in Tennessee, and Corinth, to destroy portions of the road and important bridges in that vicinity, and especially one with extended trestle-work at each end, a few miles south of Purdy. This was a hazardous undertaking, for General Cheatham, with a large force of the Confederates, was lying near, in the direction of Pittsburg Landing. But it was successfully accomplished by a battalion of Ohio cavalry, under Major Hayes, in the midst of a series of heavy thunder

CHARLES FERGUSON SMITH.3

It seems that some malignant or jealous person had made Grant's consultation with Buell at Nashville seem like an offense against General Halleck, his immediate chief; and the march of General Smith's forces up the Cumberland from Fort Donelson was condemned as a military blunder. Grant's inability, on account of sufficient reasons, to report the exact condition of his forces at that time was also a cause of complaint; and, without inquiry, he was suspended from the chief command for ten days.-See Coppée's Grant and his Campaigns. Note on page 81.

2"It is difficult to conceive any thing more orderly and beautiful," wrote General Wallace to the author, soon afterward, "than the movement of this army up the river. The transports of each division were assembled together in the order of march. At a signal, they put out in line, loaded to their utmost capacity with soldiers and materials. Cannon fired, regiments cheered, bands played. Looking up the river, after the boats had one by one taken their places, a great dense column of smoke, extending far as the eye could reach, marked the sinuosities of the stream and hung in the air like a pall. It was, indeed, a sight never to be forgotten."

3 From a photograph by Brady, taken before the war.