The Battle of Pea Ridge (March 7–8, 1862), also known as the Battle of Elkhorn Tavern, took place during the American Civil War near Leetown, northeast of Fayetteville, Arkansas. Federal forces, led by Brigadier General Samuel R. Curtis, moved south from central Missouri, driving Confederate forces into northwestern Arkansas. Major General Earl Van Dorn had launched a Confederate counteroffensive, hoping to recapture northern Arkansas and Missouri. Confederate forces met at Bentonville and became the most substantial Rebel force, by way of guns and men, to assemble in the Trans-Mississippi. Against the odds, Curtis held off the Confederate attack on the first day and drove Van Dorn's force off the battlefield on the second. By defeating the Confederates, the Union forces established Federal control of most of Missouri and northern Arkansas.
Background
Union forces in Missouri during the latter part of 1861 and early 1862 had pushed the Confederate Missouri State Guard under Maj.-Gen. Sterling Price out of the state. By spring 1862, Federal Brig. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis determined to pursue the Confederates into Arkansas with his Army of the Southwest.
Curtis moved his approximately 10,250 soldiers and 50 artillery pieces into Benton County, Arkansas, and along Little Sugar Creek. The Federal forces consisted primarily of soldiers from Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio. Over half of the Union soldiers were German immigrants, grouped into the 1st and 2nd Divisions, which were under the command of Brig. Gen. Franz Sigel, a German immigrant who had expected to command the army forces into Arkansas. Upon learning that General Curtis was appointed in command, Sigel threatened to resign. The predominantly native-born regiments were assigned to the 3rd and 4th Divisions in order to create an ethnic balance among divisions and their commanders.
Price and his troops pulled back into Arkansas along Wire Road at a rapid pace with Curtis not far behind. There were skirmishes between Federal and Confederate troops at Potts Hill and Little Sugar Creek as Confederate reinforcements reached Price to combine forces against Curtis. The combined Rebel force kept continuing farther into Arkansas thinning Curtis's supply line. Due to the length of Curtis's supply lines and a lack of the reinforcements needed for a further advance, Curtis decided to remain in position. He fortified an excellent defensive line on the north side of the creek, placing artillery for an expected Confederate assault from the south. While Curtis kept position along Little Sugar Creek, Confederate generals Sterling Price and Benjamin McCulloch went into Fayetteville evacuating the city and setting up camp in the Boston Mountains.
Confederate Maj.-Gen. Earl Van Dorn had been appointed as the overall commander of the Trans-Mississippi District to quell a simmering conflict between Price of Missouri and McCulloch of Texas. Van Dorn's Army of the West totaled approximately 16,000 men, which included 800 Indian troops, Price's Missouri State Guard contingents and other Missouri units, and McCulloch's contingent of cavalry, infantry, and artillery from Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Missouri.
Van Dorn was aware of the federal movements into Arkansas and was intent on destroying Curtis's Army of the Southwest and reopening the gateway into Missouri. He intended to flank Curtis and attack his rear, forcing Curtis to retreat north or be encircled and destroyed. Van Dorn had ordered his army to travel light so each soldier carried only three days' rations, forty rounds of ammunition, and a blanket. Each division was allowed an ammunition train and an additional day of rations. All other supplies, including tents and cooking utensils, were to be left behind.
Prelude
On March 4, 1862, instead of attacking Curtis's position head on, Van Dorn split his army into two divisions under Price and McCulloch, ordering a march north along the Bentonville Detour to get behind Curtis and cut his lines of communication. For speed, Van Dorn left his supply trains behind, which proved a crucial decision. Amid a freezing storm, the Confederates made a three-day forced march from Fayetteville through Elm Springs and Osage Spring to Bentonville, arriving stretched out along the road, hungry and tired.
Action at Bentonville
Warned by scouts and Arkansas unionists, Curtis rapidly concentrated his outlying units behind Little Sugar Creek, placing William Vandever's 700-man brigade, who marched 42 miles (68 km) in 16 hours from Huntsville to Little Sugar Creek. But Curtis's right flank also suffered from Sigel's having sent a 360-man task force to the west, where they would miss the next three days of fighting. Sigel also withdrew a cavalry patrol from the road on which the Confederate army was advancing; however, Colonel Frederick Schaefer of the 2nd Missouri Infantry, on his own initiative, extended his patrols to cover the gap. When Van Dorn's advance guard blundered into one of these patrols near Elm Springs, the Federals were alerted. Still, Sigel was so slow in evacuating Bentonville that his rear guard was nearly snared by Van Dorn on March 6 as he advanced.
Waiting until the Confederate advance was nearly upon him, Sigel ordered his 600 men and six guns to fall back on a road leading northeast toward Curtis's position. The Confederate 1st Missouri Cavalry led by Elijah Gates attacked from the south to cut off Sigel's retreat. They managed to surprise and capture a company of the 36th Illinois, but many were freed when Sigel's withdrawing men unexpectedly bumped into them. Sigel managed to fight his way through Gates' men, helped by a blunder by Confederate Brig. Gen. James M. McIntosh.
McIntosh had planned to envelop Sigel's force from the northwest while Gates closed the trap on the south. However, McIntosh mistakenly took his 3,000-man cavalry brigade too far up a northerly road. After marching three miles out of his way, he turned his troopers onto the road leading east into the Little Sugar Creek valley. By the time they reached the site where Sigel's northeast road met McIntosh's east-bound road, the Federal general's men had already passed the intersection thus avoiding a disaster. When the 3rd Texas Cavalry charged, they ran smack into Sigel's main line. The Confederates lost 10 men while 20 or more were wounded by Federal artillery and rifle fire and the Union position held.
Geography
Curtis placed his four small divisions astride the Telegraph or Wire Road in a fortified position atop the bluffs north of Little Sugar Creek. From the creek, the Telegraph Road went northeast to Elkhorn Tavern where it intersected the Huntsville Road leading east, and Ford Road leading west. From Elkhorn, the Wire Road continued north and down into Cross Timber Hollow before crossing the border into Missouri. From there, the Federal supply line followed the Telegraph Road northeast to St. Louis. The hamlet of Leetown lay north-west of the Telegraph Road, about halfway between Curtis's position on the bluffs and Ford Road. Curtis made his headquarters at Pratt's Store, located on the Wire Road between Elkhorn and Little Sugar Creek.
Van Dorn sought the Federal rear via the Bentonville Detour. This ran from Camp Stephens, west of Curtis's position, northeast onto the Pea Ridge plateau. At Twelve Corner Church, which still stands today, Ford Road branched east to Elkhorn; the Detour continued northeast, meeting the Wire Road just north of Cross Timber Hollow. South of the Bentonville Detour, west of Cross Timber Hollow, and north of Ford Road lay the militarily impassable Big Mountain.
On the night of March 6, Col. Grenville Dodge, with Curtis's approval, led several parties to obstruct the Bentonville Detour, felling trees on the road between Twelve Corner Church and Cross Timber Hollow. That same evening, Van Dorn's army, Price's Division leading, began the long march to Cross Timber Hollow. The night march was slowed by clearing Dodge's obstructions, Van Dorn's lack of an engineer corps, poor staff work, and the soldiers' exhaustion.
Battle, March 7
Van Dorn had planned for both his divisions to reach Cross Timber Hollow, but by dawn, only the head of Price's division had made it that far. Because of the delay, Van Dorn instructed McCulloch's division to take the Ford Road from Twelve Corner Church and meet Price at Elkhorn.
That morning, Federal patrols detected both threats. Not knowing where the Confederate main body was located, Curtis sent Dodge's brigade of Col. Eugene A. Carr's 4th Division northeast up the Wire Road to join the 24th Missouri Infantry at Elkhorn Tavern. But Dodge, still worried about the threat to the Federal rear, had disobeyed orders and pulled his brigade back to Pratt's Store, available to immediately reinforce Elkhorn. Curtis also sent a task force under Col. Peter J. Osterhaus north to reconnoiter along Ford Road. Osterhaus' force consisted of Col. Nicholas Greusel's brigade of his own 1st Division, several cavalry units led by Col. Cyrus Bussey, and twelve cannons.
Leetown
McCulloch's force consisted of a cavalry brigade under Brigadier General James McIntosh, an infantry brigade under Col. Louis Hébert, and a combined force of Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole cavalry under Brig. Gen. Albert Pike. McCulloch's troops swung west on the Ford Road and plowed into elements of the Federal army at a small village named Leetown, where a fierce firefight erupted.
At 11:30 a.m. Osterhaus rode north through a belt of timber onto Foster Farm and witnessed an astonishing sight. McCulloch's entire division was marching east on Ford Road only a few hundred yards away. Despite the odds, Osterhaus ordered Bussey's small force to attack to buy time for his infantry brigade to deploy. Three Federal cannon began shelling the Southerners, killing at least ten. McCulloch wheeled McIntosh's 3,000 horsemen to the south to attack. The massed Confederate charge overwhelmed Bussey's force, stampeding them and capturing the cannons. A little further west, two companies of the 3rd Iowa ran into Pike's Cherokee and were similarly routed. The Iowa unit's unusual killed-to-wounded ratio, 24 killed and 17 wounded, suggests that the Native American warriors killed a number of wounded Northerners. This incident tarnished Pike's image and reputation for the duration of his life giving evidence that the Native Americans laid finishing blows on the wounded as well as scalped and mutilated some in the surprised Union troop.
South of the belt of timber lay Oberson's Field, where Greusel had time to form his brigade and nine cannon on the forest edge on the south side. Sul Ross alertly led the 6th Texas Cavalry in pursuit of Bussey's force. But when Ross rode into the field, his men were fired on and quickly fell back. Greusel shook out two companies of skirmishers from the 36th Illinois and posted them along the southern edge of the belt of timber between Oberson's and Foster's fields. The Federal gunners began lobbing shells over the belt of timber. Though the howitzers were fired blindly, their first shell bursts panicked the Cherokee, who rapidly retreated and could not be rallied. Meanwhile, McCulloch had formed Louis Hébert's 4,000-man infantry brigade across a wide front and sent them south. Hébert took control of the four regiments east of the north-south Leetown Road, while McCulloch took charge of the four regiments west of the road.
The Texan general McCulloch rode forward into the belt of timber to personally reconnoiter the Federal positions, and coming into range of the Illinois skirmishers was shot through the heart. McIntosh was notified after a delay that he was in command, but his staff, fearing that the death of their popular leader would dishearten his soldiers, made the unwise decision not to share the bad news with many of the subordinate officers. Without consulting Hébert, or anyone else, McIntosh impulsively led his former regiment, the dismounted 2nd Arkansas Mounted Rifles Regiment into the attack. As the unit reached the southern edge of the belt of timber, it was met with a massed volley from Greusel's brigade and McIntosh dropped dead with a bullet in him. In the meantime, unaware that he was now in command of the division, Hébert led the left wing of the attack south into the woods. Meanwhile, the colonels of the right wing regiments withdrew to await orders from Hébert. It was about 2:00 p.m. The blind Federal bombardment of Foster's Farm and the breakdown in the Confederate command structure began to destroy the morale of McCulloch's division.