Battle of Pea Ridge

• 1. Introduction

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  The Battle of Pea Ridge lasted just two days in March 1862, but its outcome settled the fate of Missouri for the rest of the Civil War. On the morning of the 7th of March, a Union army of roughly 10,250 men faced a Confederate force nearly 16,000 strong near a small crossroads hamlet in the Ozark hills of northwestern Arkansas. The Federal commander, Brigadier General Samuel R. Curtis, was outnumbered, cut off from his supply line, and surrounded on three sides. By nightfall on the 8th, the Confederates were in retreat and the Union controlled most of northern Arkansas and Missouri. How did Curtis manage it? The answers lie in a collision of poor Confederate logistics, the deaths of two Southern generals within hours of each other, and one of the most effective artillery barrages of the entire war.

• 2. Road to Arkansas

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  Sterling Price's Confederate Missouri State Guard had been pushed out of Missouri in the latter part of 1861. By early 1862, Curtis decided to keep the pressure on and pursue Price's forces south into Arkansas with his Army of the Southwest. Curtis moved his soldiers and 50 artillery pieces into Benton County, Arkansas, and along Little Sugar Creek. The Federal army was a patchwork of regiments drawn from Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio. More than half the Union soldiers were German immigrants, organized into the 1st and 2nd Divisions under Brigadier General Franz Sigel, himself a German immigrant who had expected to lead the Arkansas campaign. When Sigel learned that Curtis held command instead, he threatened to resign. To manage the friction, the native-born regiments were grouped into separate divisions, creating an ethnic balance across the army's four commands.

  Price retreated rapidly south along the Wire Road, with Curtis close behind. Skirmishes flared at Potts Hill and Little Sugar Creek as Confederate reinforcements reached Price. The combined rebel force kept withdrawing deeper into Arkansas, stretching Curtis's supply line thin. Deciding he could not advance further without reinforcements, Curtis dug in along the north bank of Little Sugar Creek, pointing his artillery south to meet an assault he expected from that direction. The Confederates, meanwhile, set up camp in the Boston Mountains around Fayetteville, where Major General Earl Van Dorn had been appointed overall commander of the Trans-Mississippi District partly to manage a running rivalry between Price and Brigadier General Benjamin McCulloch of Texas.

• 3. Van Dorn's Gamble

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  Van Dorn's Army of the West numbered approximately 16,000 men, including some 800 Indian troops fighting under Brigadier General Albert Pike. His plan was to flank Curtis entirely and attack the Federal rear, forcing a retreat north or encirclement. To move fast, Van Dorn ordered his soldiers to leave tents and cooking utensils behind. Each man carried three days' rations, forty rounds of ammunition, and a blanket. The supply trains were left in the rear. This decision to strip down would prove fatal to Confederate chances.

  On the 4th of March, 1862, Van Dorn split his army into two columns under Price and McCulloch and sent them north along the Bentonville Detour, a route designed to loop behind Curtis's fortified position. The march ran through a freezing storm. By the time the Confederate columns reached Bentonville, the men were hungry and exhausted after a three-day forced march from Fayetteville through Elm Springs and Osage Spring. Meanwhile, scouts and Arkansas unionists had warned Curtis, and he rapidly pulled his outlying units behind Little Sugar Creek. One brigade marched 42 miles in 16 hours from Huntsville to reinforce the Federal line. On the night of the 6th of March, Colonel Grenville Dodge led parties onto the Bentonville Detour to fell trees and obstruct the road between Twelve Corner Church and Cross Timber Hollow. The night march of Van Dorn's army was slowed by clearing those obstructions, by poor staff work, and by sheer exhaustion.

• 4. Collapse at Leetown

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  McCulloch's division swung west on Ford Road and collided with Federal forces near the small village of Leetown on the morning of the 7th of March. At 11:30 a.m., Colonel Peter J. Osterhaus rode north through a belt of timber onto Foster Farm and discovered McCulloch's entire division marching east only a few hundred yards away. Osterhaus ordered Colonel Cyrus Bussey's small cavalry force to attack and buy time. Three Federal cannon opened on the Confederates, killing at least ten before McIntosh's 3,000 horsemen swept south, overwhelmed Bussey's troopers, and captured the guns. To the west, two companies of the 3rd Iowa ran into Pike's Cherokee cavalry and were routed. The killed-to-wounded ratio among those Iowa soldiers, 24 killed and 17 wounded, suggested that Native American fighters killed a number of the wounded, and that some Union dead were scalped and mutilated. The incident followed Pike for the rest of his life.

  Benjamin McCulloch rode forward personally into the belt of timber to scout Federal positions. Illinois skirmishers shot him through the heart. Command passed to McIntosh, but his staff decided not to tell the subordinate officers that McCulloch was dead, fearing it would break morale. Without consulting Colonel Louis Hébert, who commanded the infantry, McIntosh impulsively led his former unit, the dismounted 2nd Arkansas Mounted Rifles, into an attack. He was shot dead before the unit cleared the timber. Hébert, not yet knowing he was in command of the whole division, led the left wing of the assault south into the woods while the right wing colonels pulled back waiting for orders that never came. Around 2:00 p.m., Colonel Jefferson C. Davis arrived with the Federal 3rd Division, diverted from Elkhorn Tavern by Curtis after Osterhaus's report. After hard fighting in dense woods, Hébert's force was pressed from three sides. Hébert himself wandered through a gap in the Federal lines with a small party and was captured later that afternoon. Brigadier General Albert Pike, technically outside the division's chain of command, assumed command around 3:00 p.m. and by 3:30 p.m. was already ordering a retreat back to Twelve Corners Church, leaving several units behind on the field.

• 5. Elkhorn Tavern

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  While McCulloch's division was disintegrating at Leetown, Price's column came down from Cross Timber Hollow toward Elkhorn Tavern. Around 9:30 a.m., Price's advance guard struck a company of the 24th Missouri Volunteer Infantry. Colonel Eugene Carr rushed to the tavern with his 4th Division and spread his regiments along the plateau edge facing north. The 1st Iowa Battery sent four guns forward to slow the Confederate approach. Van Dorn, with some 5,000 soldiers available against Carr's badly outnumbered force, chose caution and ordered Price to fully deploy before attacking. By the time Price's infantry began moving uphill, they ran into Carr's men advancing aggressively downhill. The Confederate push stalled near Elkhorn.

  By 12:30 p.m., Carr's second brigade under William Vandever had arrived and immediately counterattacked Price's right flank. At 2:00 p.m., Van Dorn learned that McCulloch's division would not be arriving. On his own initiative, Henry Little waved his 1st Missouri Brigade forward and the Confederate assault began rolling uphill again. Price was wounded but stayed in command. Carr himself was wounded three times, in the ankle, neck, and arm, but refused to leave the field. Around 4:30 p.m., Price's left flank emerged from Williams Hollow and outflanked Carr's line. Dodge's brigade collapsed at Clemon's farm, and Vandever's men were steadily pushed back past the tavern. They finally stopped the Confederate drive at Ruddick's field, more than a quarter mile south of Elkhorn. At 6:30 p.m., Curtis attempted a brief counterattack but recalled his men in the dark. For his actions that day, Carr was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1894.

• 6. The Second Day

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  That night, temperatures fell sharply and the men of both armies shivered without shelter. Curtis refused to retreat despite being cut off from Missouri. Brigadier General Alexander Asboth, wounded in the final action of March 7, pressed Curtis several times during the night to withdraw. Curtis predicted victory in the morning and held firm. What Curtis did not know was that Van Dorn's ammunition train had been mistakenly sent back to Camp Stephens during the previous afternoon. By morning, the Confederate reserve artillery ammunition was six hours away.

  Brigadier General Franz Sigel sent Osterhaus to scout the open prairie west of Elkhorn at dawn. Osterhaus found a knoll that promised an excellent artillery position. By 8:00 a.m. the Federal line extended from left to right: Asboth, Osterhaus, Davis, and Carr, deployed in a continuous line facing north. It may have been the only time during the entire Civil War that a full army was visibly drawn up in one unbroken battle line from flank to flank. Sigel massed 21 cannons on the knoll. The bombardment that followed was, in the words of one account, one of the few times during the Civil War when a preparatory artillery barrage effectively softened up an enemy position and paved the way for an infantry assault. Confederate counter-battery fire was ineffective. Near the base of Big Mountain the incoming shells created a lethal mixture of rock shrapnel and wood splinters, driving the 2nd Missouri Brigade from its positions. Van Dorn put one panicking battery commander under arrest, but could not stop the Federal guns.

  By 9:30 a.m., Sigel's divisions had wheeled to face northeast. Van Dorn discovered that his reserve ammunition was with the wagon train, a six-hour march away. He ordered a retreat via the Huntsville Road. At 10:30 a.m., Sigel sent his two divisions forward. Asboth's regiments drove the 2nd Cherokee Mounted Rifles from the point of Big Mountain. Around noon, Sigel's soldiers met Davis' men near Elkhorn Tavern and a shout of "Victory" went up from the Federal ranks.

• 7. Aftermath

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  Federal forces reported 1,384 total casualties: 203 killed, 980 wounded, and 201 missing. Carr's 4th Division bore the heaviest toll, losing 682 men, almost all on the first day. Confederate losses are harder to pin down. Van Dorn reported 800 killed and wounded plus between 200 and 300 prisoners, but more recent estimates place Confederate casualties at approximately 2,000. The senior officer toll on the Southern side was severe: McCulloch, McIntosh, and William Y. Slack were killed or mortally wounded, Price was wounded, Hébert was captured, and Benjamin Rives was mortally wounded.

  Separated from their supply trains, Van Dorn's men retreated for a week through sparsely settled country, living off what little food they could find from local inhabitants. Thousands of Price's troops deserted and drifted back to Missouri. Van Dorn refused to concede defeat, saying he had "only failed in my intentions." Among soldiers on both sides, a saying circulated after the battle: "Nobody was whipped at the Battle of Pea Ridge, but Van Dorn." Within weeks, Van Dorn's army was transferred east across the Mississippi River to reinforce the Confederate Army of Tennessee, leaving Arkansas with almost no defense.

  Curtis continued his advance south, eventually seizing Helena, Arkansas, on the 12th of July. Sigel's erratic conduct during the battle, including an unauthorized march toward Keetsville, Missouri, and an attempt to claim credit for the Union victory, created a lasting rift with Curtis. Sigel was soon transferred to a command in Virginia. Of all the Confederate officers engaged, Henry Little was judged to have shown the most ability, effectively functioning as commander of Price's division by the battle's end.

• 8. The Ground Today

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  Pea Ridge National Military Park was established in 1956 and is considered one of the best-preserved Civil War battlefields in the country. A reconstruction of Elkhorn Tavern stands at the original location where the heaviest fighting occurred on both days of the battle. The park also preserves a 2.5-mile section of the Trail of Tears, the forced removal route that passed through this same landscape before the war. Twelve Corner Church, which served as a reference point for Van Dorn's flanking march, still stands today within the park boundary.