The bloodiest battle west of the Mississippi River was fought at Pea Ridge. Iowa General, Samuel R. Curtis, was in charge of the Union forces. Nearly all of the Iowa troops that were not with Grant at Fort Donelson were with General Curtis at Pea Ridge. The Southern forces were under General Van Horn and outnumbered the Northern army by many thousands. The battle lasted 3 days, March 6, 7, and 8, 1862. The first 2 days of the battle definitely went in favor of the Confederate forces. Union forces were driven back and nearly surrounded. On the 3rd day, however, the Union was victorious and drove the Southern army into the Ozark Mountains.
Another Iowan, General Francis J. Herron, was in command of the last important battle fought west of the Mississippi. Outnumbered in this battle, too, the Union forces fought and won a brilliant victory at Prairie Grove, Arkansas, Dec. 7, 1862. It is said that artillery was used to better advantage by General Herron, and played a more important part there, than in any other battle of the war. I had visited Prairie Grove the day before I came to Pea Ridge.
Pea Ridge was part of a larger campaign for control of Missouri. Seven months earlier, the Confederates defeated a Union force at Wilson’s Creek, 70 miles northeast of Pea Ridge. Gen Henry Halleck, the Federal commander in Missouri, organized an expedition to drive the Confederates from southwestern Missouri. In Feb 1862, Union Gen Samuel Curtis led the 12,000-man army toward Springfield, MO. Confederate Gen Sterling Price retreated from the city with 8,000 troops in the face of the Union advance. Price withdrew into Arkansas, and Curtis followed him.Gen Curtis' Union Army of the Southwest had pushed into Arkansas and established a defensive position on the bluffs overlooking Little Sugar Creek. At the same time, Gen Earl Van Dorn was in command of Confederate forces in the trans-Mississippi with the objective of destroying Curtis and his 12,000 Federal troops.
Rather than attack Curtis' fortifications, Van Dorn marched around the Union right flank, near Pea Ridge, a maneuver that would divide the 2 wings of his Army. Under the commands of Gen Benjamin McCullough and Gen Sterling Price, they were separated by Pea Ridge and ended up fighting a divided battle, unable to support each other. Union troops had detected Van Dorn's moves and were enroute to meet the Southern force.
Successive waves of Confederate attacks on both Union flanks, forced the Union to fall back to Ruddick's Field. Late in the afternoon Union commander Curtis organized a counterattack which was later recalled.
Meanwhile, McCullough's 8,000 Confederates, veterans of Wilson's Creek, (I visit there next), marched east on Ford Road. Just before noon, they were attacked by Cyrus Bussey's Union cavalry. The attack bought the Union division commander time to bring up his infantry. While moving his troops into position. The remaining Confederates, including a brigade of Native Americans under Gen Albert Pike, attempted to drive off the Federal attack, but were haulted by the arrival of a division of Union infantry.
McCulloch commanded the Confederate right wing on March 7, 1862, and after much maneuvering his troops, initially, overran a key Union artillery battery. Union resistance stiffened in the late morning. As McCulloch rode forward to scout out enemy positions and rally his troops, he was shot out of the saddle and died instantly. McCulloch always disliked army uniforms and was wearing a black velvet civilian suit and his Wellington boots. Credit for the fatal shot was claimed by sharpshooter Peter Pelican of the 36th Illinois Infantry.
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| Gen James McIntosh |
McCulloch's next in command, Gen James McIntosh, head of the cavalry, was killed a few minutes later in a charge to recover McCulloch's body. Confederate Col Louis Hébert was captured in the same charge. Without support from Price's troops and no remaining leadership, the remnants of McCullough's command slowly fell apart and were forced to withdraw.
Though the Federals had been badly beaten during the fighting on March 7, they still held a strong position south of Elkhorn Tavern. That night, Gen Curtis consolidated his forces, the same troops that had successfully driven McCullough's Confederates from the field at Leetown. On the morning of March 8, a furious artillery bombardment brought confusion to the Southern line. Immediately following, Gen Franz Sigel led a Union assault. Davis' division soon followed, attacking the center.
Van Dorn had forced marched his troops into the battle area leaving his supply and ammunition behind. Curtis, suspecting that the Confederates were low on ammunition, attacked the divided Southern army the following morning. Van Dorn realized he was in danger and ordered a retreat, ending the battle.
Lacking ammunition and sufficient artillery support, Van Dorn's Southerners were compelled to withdraw to the Huntsville road, where they were able to escape past Curtis' right flank. Though the Confederate army had been allowed to escape relatively intact, the Union victory at Pea Ridge solidified Federal control over Missouri for the next two years. Historians generally blame the Confederate disaster at Pea Ridge and loss on the death of Gen McCulloch.
The North suffered 1,380 men killed, wounded, or captured out of 10,000 engaged; the South suffered a loss of about 2,000 out of 14,000 engaged. The decisive Union victory helped clear the upper Mississippi Valley region on the way to securing Union control of the Mississippi River by mid-1863.
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