|
Pea Ridge Campaign 1862
by James W. Durney
On the Missouri Arkansans border,
January 1862 dawns on divided and embittered Confederate supporters.
The summer victories of 1861 are lost when McCullough’s Army of the
West and Price’s Missouri State Guard fail to mount a unified
campaign in the fall. After the victory at Wilson’s Creek, Sterling
Price advances the State Guard into central Missouri but Ben
McCullough stays in the Southwest corner of the state. McCullough’s
refusal to send a supply train north forced Price’s retreat from the
capitol at Lexington back to the southwest corner of Missouri. Here,
Missouri Governor Jackson convenes a “state assembly”, claims to be
the state government and joins the Confederacy. Missouri has two
state governments, one Union and one Confederate.
Price established winter quarters in
reoccupied Springfield, as McCullough withdraws about 100 miles
south to the Ozark Plateau. The infantry winters in the Bentonville
and Fayetteville area. About 60 miles south, the cavalry and
artillery winter in the Arkansans River Valley, where the forage is
better. Winter on the Ozark Plateau is a very hard on the men, the
temperature plunges and the wind never seems to stop.
General Ben McCullough is a product of
the western frontier. He fought in the Texas War of Independence and
enforced the law on the frontier. A hard man, he is fearless and not
given to social niceties. At Wilson’s Creek, his attack destroyed
Franz Sigel’s command and his men love him. He holds a commission
from the Confederate States of America as a Brigadier General.
General Sterling Price is a member of
Missouri’s elite, with service in the state legislature, in
Washington and as governor. He led Missourians into battle in the
War with Mexico. He commanded the Missouri Militia prior to the war,
staying with them when they become the Confederate Missouri State
Guard. He was in command when they stopped Lyon’s attack on “Bloody
Hill” at Wilson’s Creek and the men love him. He holds a commission
from the State of Missouri and is dedicated to driving the “usurping
Lincolnites” from his home state.
These different backgrounds,
responsibilities and viewpoints are the cause of a major command
problem; McCullough and Price hate each other. This started in 1861,
with McCullough’s remarks about Price’s “half starved infantry” and
“huckleberry cavalry”. An incident called “Rain’s Scare” where some
of Price’s units fled a minor skirmish added fuel to the fire.
McCullough’s refusal to support and supply Price’s attempt to retake
Missouri after Wilson’s Creek made things worse.
With his army in winter quarters,
McCullough travels to Richmond trying to get rid of Price. He and
his supporters lobby Jefferson Davis, while Price’s supporters lobby
to get rid of McCullough. Both sides ignore the fact that Jefferson
Davis has little interest in the Trans-Mississippi, does not like
people telling him what to do and distrusts Generals who had not
been to West Point. Very quickly, Davis comes to dislike both
McCullough and Price. He tries to solve this problem by placing a
fully trained West Pointer over both of them. Objections to Davis’
first choice, Henry Heth, are based on of his youth, inexperience
and unfamiliarity with the area. These objections allow Heth to
decline the appointment without risking Davis’ ire. Second choice,
is an unenthusiastic Braxton Bragg, who declines after getting a
negative assessment of the position from Secretary of War Judah P.
Benjamin.
Major General Earl Van Dorn, West
Point class of 1842, twice brevetted for gallantry in Mexico, a
Major in the celebrated second United States Cavalry and a
Mississippi neighbor of Jefferson Davis is the next choice. A
good-looking man, in spite of a short
slight frame, Van Dorn is a romantic warrior thirsting for glory.
While an excellent choice to lead a charge or defend a position to
the last man, he is not a military intellectual interested in the
details of running an army. Most of all, this is not the man to take
what Judah P. Benjamin calls a “mere gathering of brave but
undisciplined troops”, turn them into an army and retake Missouri.
Never one to have doubts, Van Dorn accepts the position on January
10, 1862, assuming command of the Military District of the
Trans-Mississippi on the 29th in Little Rock. To solve the
McCullough/Price problem, Van Dorn put them into one army with him
in command.
The Confederate forces of the
Trans-Mississippi are a varied lot; Ben McCulloch has just under
9,000 men and 18 guns in an oversize infantry brigade, an oversized
cavalry brigade and 4 batteries of artillery. The 3rd Louisiana,
veterans of Wilson’s Creek, is the best regiment in the army and may
have been the best Confederate unit to serve west of the Mississippi
River. The balance of the infantry is five green Arkansas regiments
whose ranks include veterans of Wilson’s Creek that stay with the
army when their enlistments are up. The Cavalry is from Texas and
Arkansas, many of these men saw action at Wilson’s Creek and/or in
the Indian Territory.
Price’s Missouri State Guard, in
Springfield, bears little resemblance to McCullough’s army. Where
McCullough represents the western Confederacy, Price is Missouri.
Where McCullough is organized into regiments and brigades, Price is
a mix of regiments and “temporary battalions”. Gone from this
command is the large unarmed mob of 1861 that consumed supplies and
watched battles. The 8,000 men in the ranks are better than the
armies unmilitary organization suggests. Many of them have fought in
the 1861 Campaign to Control Missouri seeing three battles and many
small actions. They are used to doing without. Campaigning holds few
surprises for them. They knew how to win and they knew what it feels
like to lose. Their 47 guns looked good on paper but many of them
are either cast-iron or obsolete.
The last part of Van Dorn’s army is
Brigadier General Albert Pike’s Indians. The Five Civilized Tribes
in Indian Territory are caught in the middle of the White Man’s
Civil War. Isolated from the United States when Arkansas joins the
Confederacy, they are bound by treaties to the United States. If
they join the Confederacy, could the United States refuse to honor
the treaties? If yes, that would mean a loss of five million dollars
in treaty payments for land vacated in the East. On the other hand,
many Indians own slaves and many more have no real love for the
United States. Chief John Ross, head of the Five Civilized Tribes,
tries to stop the war from intruding into their way of life. That is
not to be, Stand Watie, working with Pike recruits about 2,500
Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Creek Indians to fight for the
Confederacy. Pike describes his force as “entirely undisciplined,
mounted chiefly on ponies and armed very indifferently with common
rifles and shotguns.”
The Union forces in Missouri have not
been idle while the Confederacy is organizing. First, John C.
Fremont is gone from command. A combination of Price’s 1861
campaign, the opposition of the Blair family and his emancipation
proclamation cause Lincoln transfer him East. General David Hunter’s
inability to control some of the Arkansas Jayhawkers forces Lincoln
to quickly replace him with Henry M. Halleck. Jarred awake by Price
retaking Springfield, Halleck realized that if something is not done
soon, he will be replaced too. “Something” is General Samuel Ryan
Curtis, commander of the 2nd
Ohio Volunteers in the Mexican War and a three term Republican
Congressman from Iowa, who resigned his seat to accept a commission.
Curtis’ Army of the Southwest
consisted of eighteen regiments of infantry, four regiments of
cavalry and thirty guns. About fourteen thousand men, organized into
four under size divisions and support units. The principle
commanders are Franz Sigel, Peter Osterhaus, Alexander Asboth,
Jefferson Davis and Eugene Carr. Curtis, Sigel and Osterhaus are
Brigadier Generals the others Colonels. The Army of the Southwest
has two largely German divisions from Missouri and two divisions of
westerners from Indiana, Illinois and Iowa.
Sigel, a major factor in rallying
German immigrates to the Union cause, having a German military
education, with experience at the battles of Carthage and Wilson’s
Creek, expected to command this army. His resignation when Curtis
took command causes an uproar. Halleck is able to talk Sigel into
revoking his resignation and serving as second in command. Sigel’s
Germans and Curtis’ Westerners break into two camps starting a
dialog that will to continue long after the war. Neither man seems
to have tried to reconcile the two groups. Sigel actively encouraged
the idea that he has been passed over by nativist prejudice. Curtis,
while always very courteous to Sigel, builds a headquarters’ staff
that is largely fellow Iowans with no Germans.
From St. Louis, the railroad runs
southwest to Rolla. From Rolla, the Telegraph or Wire Road continues
southwest to Lebanon on to Springfield down the through the valley
of Wilson’s Creek to McDowell. Crosses the Arkansas state line east
of Elkhorn Tavern and continues south to Fayetteville, Prairie
Grove, Crane Hill and ends at Van Buren on the Arkansas River not
far from Indian Territory. Using the Telegraph Road, the trip from
Rolla to Van Buren is almost 300 miles. Today, the term road assumes
a paved highway of two or more lanes in 1862 nothing of the kind is
true. The Telegraph Road varied from a good surfaced road to little
more than ruts in the dirt connecting fords. Missouri weather in
February and March is unstable, the temperature can quickly drop to
well below freezing or climb into the high forties. An unexpected
blizzard or wind driven rain could produce a landscape of ice or mud
within hours, either of which would stop an army in its tracks for
days.
Halleck is not the type to issue
detailed orders and take responsibility; his instructions to Curtis
reflect his character. Campaign season is when spring comes, the
roads dry, the grass grows and armies can march. Halleck understands
this but feels a winter campaign is required. Curtis understands
what Halleck wants but is not told how to accomplish this. One of
Curtis’ first orders makes Captain Philip Sheridan responsible for
supplies.
By late January, the Union army has
assembled in Rolla and is moving down the Telegraph Road to Lebanon,
only fifty miles from Springfield. Price is caught off guard by this
unexpected advance. His messages to Van Dorn and McIntosh, filling
in until McCullough returns from Richmond, take on an urgent and
then desperate tone.
Curtis refuses to give Van Dorn and
company time to make up their minds and take action. The St. Louis
staff officer, this reserved and formal gentleman, this political
general who will not publicly or privately promote himself is a
fighter! On February 10, Curtis starts down a dry Telegraph Road for
Springfield. Two days later, his army is camping at Pierson’s Creek
about eight miles from Springfield. Price gives up; expecting no
help from Arkansas and convinced the Union force is much larger than
his own the Missouri State Guard abandoned Springfield.
GO TO PAGE 2
|
