This performance was repeated several times along the road, which ran around the ridges through a growth of scrubby blackjacks, which broke up Sigel's men and also the eager Confederates who were trying to cut them off.
Col. Elijah Gates, 1st Mo. Cav., Price's Division, led the pursuers with great activity and skill. There were incessant assaults with constant volleys of artillery, until Col. Osterhaus, who had reached Curtis's line, was ordered back to his relief, preceded by Col. Bussey with the 3d Iowa Cav. When they met Gen. Sigel he had just broken through the Confederate cavalry, which was still making efforts to surround him, but the arrival of the reinforcements caused the Confederates to withdraw, and the Union troops marched back to the camp which had been formed at Sugar Creek. The Union loss in this affair was reported as 35 killed and wounded.
{321} After a forced march of 42 miles from Huntsville, Col. Vandever's Brigade reached Pea Ridge at dusk, and Curtis had his whole army together. A night attack from the south was confidently expected, and every preparation was made for it.
When night came on Van Dorn built fires, pretending to go into camp, but moved forward until he came upon the blocked road, which halted him until after midnight, when he moved forward much embarrassed by the obstructions Dodge had placed in the wretched roads. Dodge on his return from blockading the roads notified Gen. Curtis of Price's movement to the rear, but Gen. Curtis did not believe it, as other reports were to the effect that Van Dorn's attack would be on the Sugar Creek front.
Price having been delayed until after midnight, did not reach the telegraph road, a mile or so north of Elkhorn Tavern, until 7 o'clock on the morning of the 7th.
McCulloch, in the meanwhile, was forming his men in the fields and woods near Leetown, west of Pea Ridge, with Albert Pike's Indians behind him.
While, therefore, Curtis's men were straining their eyes southward from his strongly fortified position on Sugar Creek for the advance of the enemy, the whole Confederate army had gained their flank and rear, with Price's Division directly across their line of communication and retreat.
{322} Seeing no enemy in front, Curtis's men had a good, leisurely breakfast, but about 7 o'clock their commander was startled to learn of McCulloch's position on his right and Van Dorn and Price in his rear. With great promptness he faced his men about and swung his line back so that his new right-formerly his left-rested on Elkhorn Tavern, while his left rested where his old right had been, on the slope above Sugar Creek. This reversed the order of the divisions-Col. Carr's being the right at Elkhorn Tavern and Gen. Asboth's the extreme left, with Col. Osterhaus's and Col. Davis's in the center.
It was now about 8:80 o'clock, and Gen. Curtis directed Col. Osterhaus to advance a force of cavalry, artillery and infantry and bring on the battle.
There was soon after a swelling up of the firing about Elkhorn Tavern, where Carr was, which disturbed Curtis. He wanted the battle where he was preparing for it, and hoped that his opening it would stop any flank movements to his right. While Osterhaus was getting ready to advance, Curtis rode over to Elkhorn Tavern to see what the trouble was with Carr.
During the early morning Price's troops getting into position on the main road had run afoul of the Union pickets about a mile northeast of Elkhorn Tavern. A little after 7 o'clock two companies of cavalry and one of infantry were sent out in that direction to investigate. They found a force of cavalry, which they drove back until they saw the woods full of Confederates, when they took cover behind trees and rocks and began a noisy skirmish, with the enemy slowly pressing forward and extending out on both flanks, as Van Dorn and Price brought their troops up and put them into line.
{323} The affair showed such seriousness that Col. Dodge came up about 9 o'clock with his brigade, and formed in line of battle to the right of Elkhorn Tavern, with the 85th Ill. on the left, the 4th Iowa in the center, the 3d Ill. Cav. on the right, and the pieces of the 1st Iowa Battery distributed along the line, and immediately moved forward and engaged the enemy.
In the meanwhile Van Dorn and Price were placing their strong force of eight batteries in advantageous positions to crush out the Union artillery and pave the way for the advance of the infantry. When the storm burst the Confederate artillery quickly overwhelmed the Union guns, but Col. Dodge was able, after a sharp struggle, to beat back across the open fields the advance of the very much superior forces of the Missouri divisions, commanded by Gens. Steen, Clark, Frost, Rains and Green. He was so hard pressed, however, that Col. Carr, who accompanied Col. Dodge, sent back for his other brigade-Col. Vandever's-a mile and a half away, which arrived and went into position near Elkhorn Tavern in time to aid in repelling a fresh assault.
More artillery had been brought up, but not enough to successfully contend with Van Dorn's massed guns.
The Union infantry lay behind the cover of fences, logs and stumps, and when the Confederate infantry was pushed forward waited until it was within 100 paces, and then poured a deadly fire into it which shattered the ranks and drove it in retreat. Gen. Slack, one of Price's ablest brigade commanders, was killed and Lieut.-Col. Cearnal severely wounded.
{324} There was a lull in the battle about 2 o'clock while Van Dorn and Price were reforming their men for a fresh and more determined assault. The brunt of it fell upon Col. Vandever on the crest of a hill about 300 yards north of Elkhorn Tavern. Vandever succeeded in driving back the enemy, though at a great cost, since the 9th Iowa lost upward of 100 men and Col. Phelps's 26th Mo. about 75.
Though the enemy was repulsed, Col. Vandever deemed it better to fall back to Elkhorn Tavern, leaving the battleground in the possession of the enemy.
Col. Carr sent to Gen. Curtis for reinforcements, but Curtis, still believing that the main fighting was in front of Leetown, could only spare him his headquarters guard, with two howitzers. He also sent urgent counsel to Carr to "persevere" and hold his ground with the utmost obstinacy.
Another lull in the battle occurred while Van Dorn and Price were bringing up and forming fresh troops. This time it was Gen. Clark's Missouri Division, reinforced by other troops. The Union soldiers received it, as they had the others, lying behind fences and logs and waiting until the enemy was where every shot would tell.
It was about 3 o'clock when this charge was repulsed.
Again Col. Carr sent to Gen. Curtis for reinforcements, and this time the General sent him five companies of the 8th Ind., under Lieut.-Col. Shunk, and three rifled cannon.
{325} Van Dorn and Price now brought up everything, and concentrated their energies for a supreme effort to drive the stubborn Yankees from the field and achieve a victory before darkness should intervene. Their artillery speedily overpowered and drove off the Union guns, but when the infantry advanced it met the same terrific fire. This time the rebels did not give way, but pressed on around the left flank so that the Second (Vandever's) Brigade had to fall back. The First Brigade (Dodge's) held its position until night. The log barricades it had built enabled it to defeat charge after charge of the enemy, and when they swung around this flank a part of the 8th Ind. and 3d Ill., in a countercharge, drove the enemy back, protecting and holding that flank until dusk. In this bloody melee Lieut.-Col. Herron and Lieut.-Col. Chandler were wounded and captured, and nearly all the field officers were more or less severely wounded. Col. Dodge had three horses shot under him, and was himself wounded, and Col. Carr received the fourth wound of that day. Three of the Union guns were taken.
The Second Brigade when it fell back took up a new and strong position a quarter of a mile to the rear, facing open ground, and resumed the battle.
As evening was coming on, Curtis became at last convinced that the fighting in his front was over, and started the First and Second Divisions over to the right to the assistance of the Fourth. Gen. Asboth hurried forward in person with four companies of the 2d Mo. and four guns of the 2d Ohio Battery, and assisted in checking and driving back the last assault.
Gen. Curtis came up, formed a new line along the edge of the timber, with the fields in front, and the men lay down on their arms for the night.
Let us return to the left, in front of Leetown, where the main battle had been expected by both sides.
{326} Col. Osterhaus does not seem to have formed any very dear plan when he went out from the center at 9 o'clock to open the battle with McCulloch's and Pike's forces. Gen. Curtis sent Col. Bussey out in advance with five companies of the 3d Iowa Cav., four of the 5th Mo. Cav., four companies of the 1st Mo. Cav., and two companies of the 4th Mo. Cav., with three pieces of Capt. Elbert's Battery. Col. Greuset's Brigade of infantry followed the cavalry at a short distance.
Col. Bussey went out to Leetown and thence to the open fields about half a mile north. The infantry took position in the fields north of Leetown. Col. Osterhaus came up to the head of the cavalry column where Col. Bussey was, and they saw the Confederates in plain view about a quarter of a mile away. It was Van Dorn's trains and cavalry guards which they saw moving towards the telegraph road. They did not see, however, McCulloch's troops, Mcintosh's Brigade of cavalry and Pike's Indians formed in heavy masses to the right and close to them.
Col. Osterhaus ordered Capt. Welfley to open on the men in front, and the shells caused a very visible stampede. Osterhaus then ordered Col. Bussey to send two companies down the road to investigate the position. Col. Bussey ordered Lieut-Col. Trimble, who commanded the 3d Iowa Cav., to execute this order, while he gave his attention to the Fremont and Benton Hussars, then coming forward and forming line in rear of the guns.
Lieut-Col. Trimble started with five companies of the 3d Iowa Cav., only to run into a heavy line of battle at close musket range, receiving a deadly fire which killed several of his men and was himself severely wounded in the face.
{327} A minute later Mcintosh, at the head of five regiments of cavalry, and Pike leading three Indian and two Texas regiments, burst upon the cavalry and over the guns with appalling yells and a tempest of bullets. The Union cavalry was simply ridden down by overwhelming numbers and mixed up in a hand-to-hand conflict, but fought their way out and retreated through the open field to Osterhaus's infantry, where Col. Bussey rallied them and formed in line.
The yelling Confederates rushed on until they came upon Greusel's line, where their yells were hushed by a storm of canister and bullets which stopped their advance. The Union line moved into the timber, where McCulloch was found working his way towards Curtis's camp. A terrible battle was fought with varying success until at 11 o'clock Col. Jeff Davis came to Osterhaus's assistance with the Third Division. The fighting was obstinate and bloody, generally duels between opposing regiments which crept slowly toward one another until they got within 60 or 70 yards, when they would open fire, maintaining it until one or the other gave way. The irregular lines thus surged back and forward for perhaps an hour, with the Union troops generally gaining ground.
During this fighting Gens. McCulloch and Mcintosh were both shot through the heart by Union sharpshooters. Gen. McCulloch, who was easily distinguished by his peculiarly-colored clothes, was killed by Peter Pelican, of Co. B, 36th Ill. How Gen. Mcintosh was killed does not appear, further than he was shot through the heart. The shooting that day was remarkably accurate. The men who held the rifles were perfectly accustomed to their use.
{328} After four hours of constant and desperate fighting there was a noticeable fading in the vim of the Confederate assaults and diminishing stubbornness of resistance to the Union blows. When the Union soldiers pushed on through the woods after their enemies they found them falling back across the fields beyond in great disorder. A few shells from the Union guns frustrated all attempts to rally them. Osterhaus and Davis pushed their skirmishers through the woods for a mile, and the cavalry went still further, finding the three guns of the flying battery with the carriages burned off, and reporting back that everything seemed to be in full retreat for Bentonville.
One squad of cavalry came back with Col. Hebert, the next in command to Gen. Mcintosh; Col. Mitchell and Maj. W. F. Tunnard, of the 3d La., of the same division; a Major, two Captains and 33 privates, all having been separated from their commands in the rush through the woods, and unable to regain them.
After the fall of Gens. McCulloch and Mcintosh the command in that part of the field devolved upon Gen. Albert Pike, and it is rare that so great a responsibility falls upon one so unfit. Something of a poet Pike certainly was; much more of a successful politician and place-hunter, but nothing of a leader of men upon the battlefield. His soldiership became sicklied o'er when he went beyond the parade ground. Apparently he did not know what to do, nor, if he did, how to do it.
Regimental commanders reported that they were unable to find him.
{329} His own verbose report, made six days after the battle, is quite full of unintentional humor. He says that after the first charge the field was "a mass of the utmost confusion, all talking, riding this way and that, and listening to no orders from any one." He could get no one to pay any attention to what he said. His Indians, who had stopped in the charge to scalp the dead and wounded, would at once stampede whenever a shell was thrown in their direction. He devoted himself for a couple of hours to what has been described as "heavy standing around."
Then he fell back with some of the troops a short distance and did some more standing around, until a Union artillerist noticed him and threw a shell in his direction, when he fell back out of range, and again stood around until some one informed him that a body of 7,000 Federals was moving around the left flank. He quickly decided that the "position was not tenable," and fell back still more, "when the officers assured me that the men were in such condition that it would be worse than useless to bring them into acton again that day." Such is the demoralization of "standing around."
Finally, it occurred to him to take what troops he could gather and join Gen. Van Dorn, whose cannon had been thundering two or three miles away all this time. First, however, he decided to march them back some distance to a creek, "where they could all get a drink, and join Gen. Van Dorn in the morning."
Col. E. Greer, 3d Tex. Cav., who became the senior officer of McCulloch's Division, reported that he gathered up fragments of regiments to the number of 3,000 after the casualties to his superiors, and being informed that Gen. Pike had left the field with the remainder of the command, retired some distance, sending word to Gen. Van Dorn that, unless he ordered otherwise, he would march to join him at 1:30 in the morning. Van Dorn approved of this.
{330} The night of March 7 closed down with a tumult of widely-varying emotions in the 33,000 men who joined battle in the morning. All of Gen. Pike's Indians, except a portion of Col. Standwaitie's regiment of Cherokee half-breeds, and several thousand whites were rushing off toward the Arkansas River at full speed. The remnant of McCulloch's Division, which Col. Greer had rallied, and which had some fight left in it, unutterably weary, hungry and depressed, bivouacked near the battlefield, awaiting Van Dora's orders. Price's Missourians, who were no less weary and hungry than their comrades, from a night of severest marching and a day of sharp fighting, camped on the ground which they had wrung from Carr's Division by seven hours of bitter struggling and the cost of a number of prominent officers and several hundred men. Their success, though dearly bought, was sufficient to encourage them. They had captured several hundred prisoners and two pieces of artillery. They had driven Carr's Division back a quarter of a mile, were across the Union line of retreat, and Van Dorn had his headquarters at Elkhorn Tavern.
{331} Price had greatly endeared himself to his troops by his conduct during the day. He was everywhere at the front, leading and encouraging his men, and though wounded in the arm had refused to quit the field. His generalship was not so conspicuous as his soldiership. With him and Van Dorn it was the story of Wilson's Creek over again. Instead of lining up their superior force and sending all forward with a crushing solidarity, they had personally led detachments, and when these had been fought out, gone back and brought up fresh forces, Van Dorn had shown generalship only in the concentration of his artillery. He had been so engrossed in this, and in pushing forward detachments he had better left to the Missouri leadership that he neglected his powerful right wing, which had gone to pieces, as there was no one left to take the place of McCulloch and Mcintosh. He hoped, though, with the aid of 3,000 men whom Greer was bringing to him, to complete his victory in the morning.
There was much to depress Curtis's men in their tireless bivouac south of Elkhorn Tavern. Dodge's and Vandever's Brigades had been very roughly handled in the long struggle. Rebel bullets had made sad havoc in their ranks. They had lost two guns and over a quarter of their force in killed and wounded. Osterhaus's and Davis's Divisions, in the center, had had costly encounters with the enemy, and had lost five pieces of artillery. They did not then know that in reality the victory was theirs, but believed that most of the enemy had merely left their front to augment the mass which was formed across their line of retreat They therefore looked forward to the morrow with well-grounded apprehension. They had no rations in their haversacks, and their animals had been without forage for two or three days. Unless the enemy could be driven from their "cracker line" the very next day, starvation for man and beast stared them in the face.
{332}
CHAPTER XIX. THE VICTORY IS WON.
Gen. Curtis's army was far from realizing as the night closed down on that exciting March 7 how completely it had whipped the overwhelming numbers of Van Dorn, Price, McCulloch, Mcintosh and Pike. Those of Jeff C. Davis's and Osterhaus's Divisions, who had done the heavy fighting on the Leetown front, knew that they had driven away the mass of the enemy in their front until there was no longer any show of opposition. They of Carr's Division, on the extreme right, the brigades of Dodge and Vandever, realized that they had had a terrible fight, in which they had generally defeated the enemy, inflicting great slaughter, though they had suffered heavily themselves. Still, the enemy had gained a little ground. The men of Carr's Division felt that now, since the rest of the army was coming to their help, they would undoubtedly win a victory in the morning, and clear the rebels from the road leading back to Springfield. This confidence was shared by the men of Jeff C. Davis's and Osterhaus's Divisions, who had come to their assistance, and they all felt more hopeful than did Sigel and Asboth's Division, which had taken little or no part in the fighting. The following remarkable letter from Gen. Asboth to Gen. Curtis, written at 2 o'clock in the morning of March 8, reveals the general belief of that portion of the army that the condition was desperate and it would require extraordinary efforts to release the army from a very hazardous situation: {333} Headquarters Second Division, Camp Near Sugar Creek, Ark.,
March 8, 1862; 2 a. m. General: As Oen. Sigel, under whose command you have placed me, with my division, has not yet returned to our camp, I beg to address you, General, directly, reporting that all the troops of the Second Division were yesterday, as well as now, in the night, entirely without forage; and as we are cut off from all supplies by the enemy, outnumbering our forces several times, and as one more day without forage will make our horses unserviceable, consequently the cavalry and artillery as well as the teams, of no use at all, I would respectfully solicit a decided concentrated movement, with the view of cutting our way through the enemy where you may deem it more advisable, and save by this, if not the whole, at least the larger part of our surrounded army.
Gen. Curtis seems to have realized quite early in the afternoon the condition of affairs on his left in front of Leetown, and that the fight there was over. He therefore directed the cavalry under Col. Bussey to take up the best positions, holding the ground. All the infantry and artillery were ordered over toward the Springfield road to form a new line of battle, substantially a prolongation of that established at the close of the fighting by the stubborn resistance of Dodge's and Vandever's Brigades, which had so decisively repulsed the last attacks upon them the previous evening.
{384} Sigel, who had a remarkable faculty for incurring criticism in every battle, had not made use of Gen. Asboth's Division at any time to relieve the pressure upon Davis and Osterhaus, so that it had hardly fired a shot. He now had trouble about getting his troops into line, and it was 8 o'clock in the morning before he finally took his place on the left, notwithstanding the fact that he was ordered to have his divisions in line before daylight. Curtis had now all his artillery up, and though it was not so numerous as that opposed to him, it was better equipped and drilled, and promptly opened the battle with a fire to which the Confederate guns could make no adequate reply. The whole line then moved forward with blazing rifles, sweeping unchecked up the hillsides, straight for the enemy's front. In a few minutes the Confederate line parted in the center and disappeared. Most of the Missourians fell back toward Keetsville, directly north. Greer and his remnants ran around our left toward Bentonville, pursued by Col. Bussey's cavalry. Van Dorn and Price with another remnant broke around our right, going through an obscure hollow and taking the road to Huntsville. Like most men of impetuous initiative, Van Dorn when he was whipped was badly whipped. He sent riders post haste to order his trains burned, but Gen. Green, who commanded the train guard, was of cooler mettle, and succeeded in getting the trains away safely.
Gen. Sigel pursued the central portion through Keetsville, seven miles to the north, capturing nearly 200 prisoners and a great quantity of arms and stores. He believed Curtis would retreat, and was well on his way to Springfield when ordered back by Curtis to make his camp on the battlefield with the rest. Gen. Curtis officially reported his loss as follows: {335} UNION LOSSES.
Command.
Killed.
Wounded It will be noticed by the above figures that Davis's Division lost four officers and 42 men killed, 18 officers and 256 men wounded, while Sigel's two divisions lost only three officers and 28 men killed, seven officers and 149 men wounded.
The heaviest loss fell upon the 9th Iowa, which had 39 killed, 176 wounded and four missing. The next heaviest was upon the 4th Iowa, which had 18 killed, 139 wounded and three missing.
Gen. Van Dorn estimated his loss at 1,000 killed and wounded and 300 missing. This is known to be inaccurate, because more Confederate than Union dead were buried on the battlefield, and Gen. Curtis sent 500 prisoners to the rear.
The question naturally occurs: Why did Van Dorn relinquish such a supreme effort with such a small loss?
{336} Our amusing acquaintance, Gen. Pike, does not conceal the fact that he and those around him were very badly whipped. After joining Van Dorn he resumed his old habit of standing around "observing the enemy." He reports that he did this for two hours at a stretch when Curtis was delivering the final crushing blows upon Van Dorn. He then moved with much promptness toward the rear, for an officer came up with the stunning intelligence, "You are not safe here, for the enemy's cavalry are within 150 yards of you." This seemed to have escaped his "observation" up to that time. He rode on, and his pace was accelerated by hearing another officer cry out "Close up; close up; or you will all be cut to pieces."
He halted presently, but had to start again, for a shell was sent by the enemy up the road from the point of the hill around which he had just passed. The cry of "The cavalry are coming was raised, and everything became confusion." He escaped the "enemy's cavalry by rapid riding," but was unable to get ahead of his fastgoing troops and stop them, until they reached Elm Spring, many miles away. He came to this sage conclusion: The enemy, I learn, had been encamped at Pea Vine Ridge for three weeks, and Sigel's advance was but a ruse to induce our forces to march northward and give them battle in positions selected by themselves.
There were others who shared his feelings; for he says: Just before night, Saturday afternoon, I had met Col. Rector in the hills, who told me he had about 500 men with him; that they were in such condition that they could not go more than six or eight miles a day, and that he thought he would take them into the mountains, hide their arms in a secure place, and, as he could not keep them together and feed them, let them disperse. He asked my opinion as to this, and I told him that no one knew where the rest of the army was; that Gens. Van Dorn and Price were supposed to be captured and the train taken; that if his men dispersed with their arms they would throw them away, and that I thought the course he proposed was the wisest one under the circumstances. The enemy were pursuing on all the roads, and as it was almost impossible for even a dozen men in a body to procure food, I still do not see what better he could have done.
{337} Curtis's cavalry found these guns and brought them into camp; also, all the artillery that was captured the day before from Davis's and Carr's Divisions.
Gen. Van Dorn made several reports which are strangely inconsistent with one another, and seem the natural efforts of a man to find the best excuses that will present themselves from day to day for his failure in a great effort. His first report, which was to Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston and the Confederate War Department, and sent two days after the battle, reads as follows: Headquarters Trans-Mississippi District, March 9, via Hog Eye; March 10, 1862.
Fought the enemy, about 20,000 strong, 7th and 8th, at Elkhorn, Ark. Battle first day from 10 a. m. until after dark; loss heavy on both sides. Gens. McCulloch and Mcintosh and Col. Hebert were killed; Gens. Price and Slack were wounded (Gen. Price flesh wound in the arm); the others badly wounded, if not mortally; many officers killed and wounded; but as there are some doubts in regard to several I cannot yet report their names. Slept on the battlefield first night, having driven the enemy from their position.
The death of Gens. McCulloch and Mcintosh and Col. Hebert early in the action threw the troops on the right under their commands in confusion. The enemy took a second and strong position. Being without provisions and the right wing somewhat disorganized, determined to give battle on the right on their front for the purpose only of getting off the field without the danger of a panic, which I did with success, but with some losses.
I am now encamped with my whole army 14 miles west of Fayetteville, having gone entirely around the enemy. I am separated from my train, but think it safe on the Elm Springs road to Boston Mountains. The reason why I determined to give battle at once upon my arrival to assume command of the army I will give in report at an early day.
{338} In this it will be seen that he disclaimed any intention on the second day of making more than a fight to cover his retreat. This is clearly an afterthought to excuse the poor battle that he put up. There is no doubt that he had still hoped to whip Curtis's army, and that he had men enough to do it, if they had been handled properly and had fought with the same determination and aggressiveness that the Union troops did. For some weeks he continued to send in reports, explanatory and partially contradictory of his first.
Gen. Sterling Price's report, made March 22, gives no idea that the retreat was determined on after the events of the first day, but says with relation to the close of the struggle on the evening of March 7: The fiercest struggle of the day now ensued; but the impetuosity of my troops was Irresistible, and the enemy was driven back and completely routed. My right had engaged the enemy's center at the same time with equal daring and equal success, and had already driven them from their position at Elkhorn Tavern. Night alone prevented us from achieving a complete victory of which we had already gathered some of the fruits, having taken two pieces of artillery and a quantity of stores.
My troops bivouacked upon the ground which they had so nobly won, almost exhausted and without food, but fearlessly and anxiously awaiting the renewal of the battle in the morning.
The morning disclosed the enemy strengthened in position and numbers and encouraged by the reverses which had unhappily befallen the other wing of the army when the brave Texan chieftain, Ben McCulloch, and his gallant comrade, Gen.
Mcintosh, had fallen, fearlessly and triumphantly lead-. ing their devoted soldiers against the Invaders of their native land. They knew, too, that Hebert-the accomplished leader of that veteran regiment, the Louisiana Third, which won so many laurels on the bloody field of the Oak Hills, and which then as well as now sustained the proud reputation of Louisiana-was a prisoner in their hands. They were not slow to renew the attack; they opened upon us vigorously, but my trusty men faltered not. They held their position unmoved until (after several of the batteries not under my command had left the field) they were ordered to retire. My troops obeyed it unwillingly, with faces turned defiantly against the foe.
{339} It will be noticed that Price is not as frank as usual in giving reasons for his rapid retirement at the moment when, he claims, he was in the full flush of victory. "The retirement of several batteries not under my command" is a conspicuously inadequate excuse.
In the course of a month or so Van Dorn managed to gather himself together again so as to begin voluminous communications with Richmond, explaining that "I was not defeated, but only foiled in my intentions."
He proposed to return to his old Pocahontas plan, "relieve Gen. Beauregard by marching my army upon the Federals at New Madrid or Cape Girardeau, and thence on to St. Louis." He would turn his cavalry loose on Gen. Curtis's long line of communications, and send Gen. Pike with his Indians to harry southwestern Missouri and Kansas.
The Confederate War Department did not think highly of this, but shortly transferred him and his troops east of the Mississippi.
Gen. Price was also transferred east of the Mississippi, with the Missouri troops he had taken into the Confederate army, and his farewell to the Missouri State troops is worth reproducing as a specimen of the heated rhetoric customary in those days: Headquarters Missouri State Guard,
Des Arc, Ark., April 8, 1862. (General Orders No. 79.)
Soldiers of the State Guard: I command you no longer. I have this day resigned the commission which your patient endurance, your devoted patriotism and your dauntless bravery have made so honorable. I have done this that I may the better serve you, our State and our country-that I may the sooner lead you back to the fertile prairies, the rich woodlands and majestic streams of our beloved Missouri-that I may the more certainly restore you to your once happy homes and to the loved ones there.
Five thousand of those who have fought side by side with us under the Grizzly Bears of Missouri have followed me into the Confederate camp. They appeal to you, as I do, by all the tender memories of the past, not to leave us now, but to go with us wherever the path of duty may lead, till we shall have conquered a peace and won our independence by brilliant deeds upon new fields of battle.
{340} Soldiers of the State Guards! Veterans of six pitched battles and nearly 20 skirmishes! Conquerors in them all!
Tour country, with Its "ruined hearths and shrines," calls upon you to rally once more In her defense, and rescue her forever from the terrible thraldom which threatens her. I know that she will not call In vain. The Insolent and barbarous hordes which have dared to Invade our soil and to desecrate our homes have Just met with a signal overthrow beyond the Mississippi Now Is the time to end this unhappy war. If every man will but do his duty, his own roof will shelter him In peace from the storms of the coming; Winter.
Let not history record that the men who bore with patience the privations of Cowskln Prairie, who endured uncomplainingly the burning heat of a Missouri Summer and the frosts and snows of a Missouri Winter; that the men who met the enemy at Carthage, at Oak Hills, at Fort Scott, at Lexington and on numberless lesser battlefields In Missouri, and met them but to conquer them; that the men who fought so bravely and so well at Blkhorn; that the unpaid soldiery of Missouri were, after so many victories and after so much suffering, unequal to the great task of achieving the Independence of their magnificent State.
Soldiers, I go but to mark a pathway to our homes. Follow me!
Very few but those who had already been cajoled into the Confederate service followed.
A great deal of bitterness was developed from the discovery upon the battlefield of a number of Union dead who had been scalped by Pike's Indians. Many of these belonged to the 3d Iowa Cav., and the investigation of the matter was conducted by order of Col. Bussey, by his Adjutant, John W. Noble, afterwards Secretary of the Interior. Col. Bussey became Assistant Secretary of the Interior.
{341} The bodies of at least eight of the 3d Iowa Cav. were exhumed and found to have been scalped and the bodies otherwise maltreated after their deaths by the scalping knives and tomahawks of merciless Indians. The matter was made subject of a strong communication from Gen. Curtis to Gen. Van Dorn, and the latter's Adjutant-General, Dabney H. Maury, replied, cordially condemning any such deeds, but claiming that, on the other hand, many prisoners of war had been killed in cold blood by Curtis's men, who were alleged to be Germans. The letter said: The General commanding feels sure that you will do your part as he will in preventing such atrocities in the future, and that the perpetrators of them will be brought to justice, whether Germans or Choctaws.