Inaction of the Army of the Potomac: Arkansas and Price

Pope had not only prevented organized troops from joining Price, but had compelled the latter to withdraw to the borders of Arkansas for supplies and safety. Feeling strengthened by Pope's success, Halleck prepared to put forth more vigorous efforts to suppress the insurrection. On the 3d of December he declared martial-law in St. Louis; and, by a subsequent proclamation, he extended that system of rule to all railroads and their vicinities. Meanwhile, Price, relieved from immediate danger, and being promised reinforcements from Arkansas, moved back to Springfield, and there concentrated about twelve thousand men, halted his army, and prepared to spend the winter there. Halleck sent troops in that direction under General S. R. Curtis, assisted by Generals Davis, Sigel, Asboth, and Prentiss. They moved in three columns early in February (1862), when Price fled southward, and did not halt until he reached a good position in northern Arkansas. Curtis pursued him, and drove him further south; and Halleck was enabled to write to his Government, late in February, that he had "purged Missouri," and that the flag of the Union was "waving in triumph over the soil of Arkansas." The campaign in Missouri, for a few months, had been very active, beginning with Lyon's pursuit of the fugitive governor and his followers. From June, 1861, until late in February, 1862, there had been fought on Missouri soil sixty battles and skirmishes, with an aggregate loss on both sides, in killed, wounded and prisoners, of about twelve thousand men.

Curtis crossed the Arkansas line on the 18th of February in pursuit of Price, and had driven him and his followers over a range of hills known as the Boston Mountains. He then fell back and encamped in a strong position in the vicinity of Pea Ridge, a spur of the Ozark Mountains. In the meantime Price had been joined by General Earl Van Dorn, a dashing young officer, who was his senior in rank and now took the chief command. Forty heavy guns thundered a welcome. "Soldiers!" cried Van Dorn, in response, "behold your leader! He comes to show you the way to glory and immortal renown. He comes to hurl back the minions of the despots at Washington, whose ignorance, licentiousness, and brutality are equalled only by their craven natures. They come to free your slaves, lay waste your plantations, burn your villages, and abuse your loving wives and beautiful daughters."

Van Dorn came from western Arkansas with Generals McCulloch, McIntosh, and Pike. The latter was a New Englander and poet, who had joined the Confederate army on the borders of the Indian country with a body of savages whom he had lured into the service. The whole insurgent force now numbered twenty-five thousand; the National troops, soon to measure strength with them, did not exceed eleven thousand men in number with fifty pieces of artillery.

When, on the 5th of March (1862), Curtis's scouts told him of the swift approach of the Confederates in overwhelming force, he concentrated his little army in the Sugar Creek Valley. He perceived his perils, but there was only the alternative to fight or make a disastrous retreat. Choosing the former, he prepared to meet the foe from whatever quarter he might approach. Meanwhile Van Dorn, by a quick and stealthy movement, flanked Curtis and gained his rear; and on the morning of the 7th he advanced to attack the Nationals, not doubting his ability to vanquish them and seize their train of two hundred wagons. He found Curtis in battle order, his first and second division being on his left and commanded by Generals Asboth and Sigel; the third, under General Davis, composing his centre, and the fourth, commanded by Colonel Carr, formed his right. His line of battle extended about four miles, and was confronted by the heavy Confederate force with only a broad and deep ravine covered with fallen trees separating the two armies. The battle was opened toward noon by a simultaneous attack by the Nationals and Confederates. A very severe conflict ensued, which continued a greater part of the day with varying fortunes to each party, the lines of strife swaying like a pendulum. Generals McCulloch and McIntosh of the Confederates were killed, and the slaughter on both sides was dreadful. At night the Confederates fired the last shot, but the Nationals held the field, slept on their arms, and anxiously awaited the dawn to renew the battle.

Both armies lay among the dead and dying that night. At dawn (March 8, 1862) the conflict was renewed, when the Nationals hurled such a destructive tempest of shot and shell upon the Confederates, that the latter soon broke and fled in almost every direction in wildest confusion. The Confederate army, so strong, and confident of victory twenty-four hours before, was broken into fragments. The losses of each were about the same. Curtis's was thirteen hundred and eighty men. Pike's Indians, who had been maddened with liquor before the battle, tomahawked and scalped a number of the Nationals, and were the first to fly from the field, in terror.