severely wounded, Gen. Curtis's orderly was hit, and one of his bodyguard fell dead. As the shades of night fell, a messenger from Sigel gave tidings that he was coming up on the left, and would soon open fire. Asboth's batteries fell back, being out of ammunition, and the Rebels were enabled to fire the last shot. A little after dark, both armies sank down on the battle-field, and slept amid the dead and the dying. Curtis, finding that Van Dorn had concentrated all his forces on this point, directed Davis to withdraw all his reserve from the center, and move forward to the ground on Carr's left, which was effected by midnight. Sigel, though he had reported himself just at hand at dark, was obliged to make a detour, and did not reach headquarters till 2 a. M. Van Dorn slept that night at the Elkhorn Tavern, from which he had dislodged Davis by such desperate efforts." He had thus far been fighting a part of our forces with all of his own, and had only gained ground where his preponderance of numbers was overwhelming. Curtis reports his entire command in Arkansas at 10,500, cavalry and infantry-of whom 250 were absent after forage throughout the battle-and 48 pieces of artillery. He estimates the Rebel force in battle at 30,000, including 5,000 Indians." Pollard says, "Van Dorn's whole force was about 16,000 men." But now our whole army was in hand, while at least a third of it had not yet fired a shot. Not a man in our ranks doubted that our victory must be speedy as well as decisive. The sun rose; Gen. Curtis awaited the completion of his line of battle by Asboth's and Sigel's divisions getting into position; but no shot was fired by the enemy. At length, Curtis ordered Col. Davis, in our center, to begin the day's work. He was instantly replied to from new batteries and lines which the Rebels had prepared during the night, some of the batteries raking our right wing so that it was constrained to fall back a little, but without slackening its fire. Asboth's and Sigel's divisions were soon in position, completing our line of battle a little to the rear of the first, but without a break, and much of it on open ground, our left wing extended so that it could not be flanked. Gen. Curtis ordered his right to advance to the positions held the night before, and, finding himself an elevation on the extreme right, considerably in advance, which commanded the enemy's center and left, here posted the Dubuque battery, directing the right wing to advance to its support, while Capt. Hayden opened from it a most galling fire. Returning to the center, he directed the 1st Iowa battery, Capt. David, to take position in an open field and commence operations; and so battery after battery opened 13 Pollard says, "We had taken during the least camp-talk amongst officers high in comday 7 cannon and about 200 prisoners." 14 The Richmond Whig of April 9th, 1862, has a Rebel letter from one present to Hon. G. G. Vest, which says: "When the enemy left Cove creek, which is south of Boston Mountain, Gens. Price, McCulloch, Pike, and McIntosh seemed to think-at mand so represented-that our united forces would carry into action nearly 30,000 men, more frequently estimated at 35,000 than a lower figure. I believe Gen. Van Dorn was confident that not a man less than 25,000 were panting to follow his victorious plume to a field where prouder honors awaited them than any he had yet gathered." VAN DORN RETIRES FROM PEA RIDGE. fire, the infantry moving steadily to their support, while the left wing was pushed rapidly forward, climbing a low cliff from which the Rebels had been driven by our guns, and crowding them back into the deep ravines of Cross-Timber Hollow. The 36th Illinois was prominent in this movement; while the 12th Missouri, pushing into the enemy's lines, captured a flag and two guns. The flight of the Rebels was so sudden and swift, and the ravines wherein they disappeared so impracticable for cavalry, that our commanders were for some time at fault in the pursuit. Gen. Sigel pushed north on the Keytesville road, where but few of them had gone; and it was not till afternoon that Gen. Curtis ascertained that, after entering the Hollow, the main Rebel force had turned to the right, following obscure ravines which led into the Huntsville road, on which they escaped. Col. Bussey, with our cavalry and howitzers, followed them beyond Bentonville." Gen. Curtis reports his entire loss in the battle at 1,351, of whom 701 -more than half-were of Col. Carr's division. The Rebel loss can hardly have been less; since, in addition to Gens. Ben McCulloch and McIntosh killed, Gens. Price and Slack were wounded. 31 mistakably ours, but the trophies were not abundant. No cannon, nor caissons, nor prisoners of any account, save a few too severely wounded to hobble off, were taken; and, though a letter to The New York Herald, written from the battle-field on the 9th, speaks of "a considerable quantity of wagons, supplies, etc., a load of powder, and nearly a thousand stand of arms," as captured by Sigel during his pursuit of the fugitives upon the Keytesville road, they do not figure in either of Sigel's official reports of the battle, nor yet in those of Curtis. The beaten Confederates, fleeing with celerity in different directions and by many paths, finally came together in the direction of Bentonville, some 8 miles from the Elkhorn Tavern, whence Van Dorn dispatched a flag of truce to Curtis, soliciting an arrangement for burying the dead, which was accorded. Pollard makes a scarcity of ammunition a main reason for Van Dorn's retreat, and it is probable that neither army was well supplied with cartridges at the close of this protracted though desultory struggle. He adds that "Gen. Curtis was forced to fall back into Missouri," and that the "total abandonment of their enterprise of subjugation in Arkansas is the most conclusive evidence in the world that the Federals were worsted The victory at Pea Ridge was un- by Gen. Van Dorn;" but fails to vision was placed in position to follow; while Gen. Van Dorn so disposed of his remaining force as best to deceive the enemy as to his intention, and to hold him in check while executing it. An attempt was made by the enemy to follow the retreating column. It was effectually checked, however; and, about 2 P.M., the Confederates encamped about six miles from the field of battle, all the artillery and baggage joining the army in safety. They brought away from the field of battle 300 prisoners, 4 cannon, and 3 baggage-wagons." As this was the only important battle in which 'Indians' in considerable numbers took part, and as they were all found fighting-or, more strictly, yelling on the side of the Confederacy, a few words of explanation may be pertinent. mention the fact that the Confederate | century, it is certain that the mass of army was also compelled to fall back the Indians there collected still reto a region less wasted and exhaust-garded with just indignation the ed than that which for many miles wrongs they had experienced, rememsurrounded the well-fought field of bering fondly the pleasant streams Pea Ridge. and valleys of the lower Alleghanies, from which they had been forcibly and wrongfully expelled. But their Chiefs had been early corrupted in their old homes, by the example and practice among their White neighbors of slaveholding-a practice novel indeed, but eminently congenial to the natural indolence and pride of the savage character. They, consequently, adhered to it in their new location; and, since to hold slaves was a proof of wealth and importance, nearly every one who by any means obtained property, exchanged a part of it for one or more negroes; who, if they did not by labor increase his wealth, were certain, by flattery and servility, to magnify his conscious importance. Thus thoroughly saturated with the virus of slaveholding, the most civilized Indian tribes fell an easy prey to the arts of the Confederate emissaries. The agents through whom they received their annuities and transacted most of their business with the Federal Government, had nearly always been Democratic politicians of course, pro-Slavery, and generally Southern—and for the last eight years emphatically so. These agents had little difficulty, at the outset of the Rebellion, in persuading their Chiefs that the old Union was irrecoverably destroyed; that it was scarcely probable that an effort would be made to restore it; and that, at all events, their interests and their safety dictated an alliance with that Confederacy which was 16 See Vol. I., pages 102-6. We have seen" that the important aboriginal tribes known to us as Creeks and Cherokees, holding from time immemorial extensive and desirable territories, mainly within the States of North Carolina and Georgia, but extending also into Tennessee and Alabama, were constrained to surrender those lands to the lust of the neighboring Whites, and migrate across the Mississippi, at the instance of the State authorities, resisted, in obedience to treaties, by President John Quincy Adams, and succumbed to, in defiance of treaties and repeated judgments of the Supreme Court, by President Andrew Jackson. They were located, with some smaller tribes, in a region lying directly westward of Arkansas and north of the Red river, to which the name of Indian Territory was given, and which, lying between the 34th and 37th parallels of North latitude, and well watered by the Arkansas and several affluents of that and of Red river, was probably as genial and inviting as any new region to which they could have been transferred. Yet, though their removal had been effected nearly a quarter of a THE WAR AMONG THE INDIANS. their immediate neighbor, and of which the conservation and perpetuity of slaveholding was the most cherished idea. Some of those Chiefs have since insisted that they were deceived by the Confederate emissaries, and especially by Gen. Albert Pike, chief Commissioner for Indian Affairs of the Confederacy, who had led them to confound that concern with the Union. What is certain is, that, directly after tidings reached them of the battles of Bull Run and Wilson's creek-the latter reported to them from that side as a complete discomfiture of the North, which view the undoubted death of Lyon and abandonment of Springfield tended strongly to corroborate-the Chiefs of most of the tribes very generally entered into a close offensive and defensive alliance with the Confederacy; even so cautious and politic a diplomatist as John Ross throwing his weight into that scale. It is said that, after the death of Lyon, Ben McCulloch's brigade of Texans was marched back to the Indian border, and that the Creeks and Cherokees were impressively required to decide quickly between the North and the South; else, betwixt Texas on the one side and Arkansas on the other, a force of 20,000 Confederates would speedily ravage and lay waste their country. They decided accordingly. Yet a very large minority of both Creeks and Cherokees rallied around the Chief Opothleyolo, made head against the current, and stood firm for the Union. Assembling near the Creek Agency, they tore down the Rebel flag there flying and replanted the Stars and Stripes; and a letter" from Col. McIntosh to the True Dem Oct. 17, 1861. 33 ocrat" called loudly for reenforcements to the Rebel array in the Indian Territory, and expressed apprehension that the Northern party might prove the stronger. A battle between the antagonistic Indian forces took place Dec. 9th, 1861, on Bushy creek, near the Verdigris river, 180 miles west of Fort Smith, the Confederates being led by Col. Cooper, the Unionists by Opothleyolo. The result was not decisive, but the advantage appears to have been with the Rebel party, the Unionists being constrained soon after to make their way northward to Kansas, where they received the supplies they so much needed, and where a treaty of close alliance was negotiated" between Opothleyolo and his followers on one side, and Col. Dole, U. S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, on the other. The Rebels were thus left in undisputed possession of the Indian Territory, from which they collected the four or five thousand warriors who appeared at Pea Ridge; but, though the ground was mainly broken and wooded, affording every facility for irregular warfare, they do not seem to have proved of much account, save in the consumption of rations and massacre of the Union wounded, of whom at least a score fell victims to their barbarities. Their war-whoop was overborne by the roar of our heavy guns; they were displeased with the frequent falling on their heads of great branches and tops of the trees behind which they had sought shelter; and, in fact, the whole conduct of the battle on our part was, to their apprehension, disgusting. The amount of effort and of profanity expended 18 Little Rock, Arkansas. 19 At Leavenworth, Feb. 1, 1862. by their White officers in trying to | generally swampy, wooded, and thin keep them in line at the front, probably overbalanced the total value of their services; so that, if they chose to depart for their homes soon after the close of the battle, it is not probable that any strenuous efforts were made to detain them." ly settled country, where none but negroes made any professions of Unionism, and, being joined at Jacksonport" by Gen. C. C. Washburne, with the 3d Wisconsin cavalry, which had come through from Springfield alone and unassailed, proceeded to Augusta, where he took leave" of the White, and, assuming a generally S. W. direction, took his way across the cypress swamps and canebrakes of the Cache, where his advance (the 33d Illinois, Col. Hovey), which had been struggling over roads heavily obstructed by fallen trees, was attacked" by some 1,500 Rebel cavalry, mainly Texans, led by Gen. Albert Gen. Curtis, after resting and refitting his army, finding no enemy in its vicinity, again put his column in motion, proceeding S. S. E. through north-western Arkansas to Batesville," on White river, near which point he had expected to meet gunboats with supplies from below. He found the river, however, at an unusually low stage for the season-Rust, who held him in check for an barely four feet; while the gunboats required six or seven; beside which, the Mound City, which attempted the ascent, had been resisted and blown up in a fight with the Rebel battery at St. Charles some days before. Being compelled, therefore, to depend for all his supplies on wagontrains from Rolla, Mo., now several hundred miles distant, he did not feel strong enough to advance on Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas, nearly 100 miles S. S. W. from his present position. Having halted seven weeks, wholly unmolested, at Batesville, he again set forth," crossing the Big Black by a pontoon-bridge, and pursuing a southerly course through a O Pollard says: The Indian regiments, under Gen. Pike, had not come up in time to take any important part in the battle. Some of the red men behaved well, and a portion of them assisted in taking a battery; but they were difficult to manage in the deafening roar of artillery, to which they were unaccustomed, and were naturally amazed at the sight of guns that ran on wheels. They knew what to do with the rifle; they were accustomed to the sounds of battle as loud as their own war-whoop; and the amazement of these hour, until he was joined by the 1st Indiana cavalry, Lt.-Col. Wood, with two howitzers, when an impetuous charge was made by the Indianians, whereby the enemy were routed and put to flight. The bodies of 110 dead Rebels were buried by our soldiers, whose loss was but 8 killed and 45 wounded, including Maj. Glendennin, who led the charge, receiving a shot in the breast,' which proved mortal. The Rebels were satisfied with this experiment, and gave no further trouble. Gen. Curtis again struck" White river at Clarendon, just below the mouth of the Cache, only to learn, with intense chagrin, that Col. Fitch, simple children of the forest may be imagined at the sight of such roaring, deafening, crashing monsters as 12-pounders running around on wheels. Gen. Van Dorn, in his official report of the battle, does not mention that any assistance was derived from the Indians-an ally that had, perhaps, cost us much more trouble, expense, and annoyance than their services in modern warfare could, under any circumstances, be worth." |