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The following day, Van Dorn climbed back into his ambulance and set
out for the Confederate camps in the Boston Mountains, about thirty
miles north of Van Buren. During the next two days he conferred with
McCulloch and Price and assumed operational command of their two forces.
McCulloch's army became McCulloch's division; Price's army (both
Confederate and Missouri State Guard components) became Price's
division. Van Dorn made no other significant changes except to give the
combined force a new name: the Army of the West.
At this time McCulloch's scouts brought word that Curtis had halted
his advance and divided his army. Galvanized by the news, Van Dorn
announced that a full-scale counteroffensive would begin the next
morning. He, McCulloch, and Price quickly decided on a course of action.
The Army of the West would leave the Boston Mountains and march north
through Fayetteville and Elm Springs to Bentonville. There the
Confederates would turn west and overwhelm Sigel's two Union divisions
camped along McKissick's Creek. Then the Confederates would turn back to
the east and do the same to Curtis's two Union divisions at Cross
Hollows. With the Yankees out of the way, Van Dorn and the Army of the
West would press on to St. Louis, "then Huzzah!"
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THE CONFEDERATES ADVANCE, MARCH 4-6, 1862
Van Dorn marched north from the Boston Mountains on March 4 and
reached Fayetteville undetected. The next day Curtis learned of the
Confederate advance and his forces began falling back to the north side
of Little Sugar Creek. Van Dorn narrowly failed to cut Sigel off at
Bentonville on March 6. After a running fight, Sigel reached Little
Sugar Creek safely. Having successfully concentrated his army, Curtis
now waited for Van Dorn to make his next move.
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The key to success was the road junction at Bentonville. If Van Dorn
reached that point before Curtis realized what was happening, the
Confederate army would be squarely between the two smaller Union forces.
Speed was required to achieve the essential element of surprise, so Van
Dorn stipulated that each Confederate soldier carry only his weapon,
forty rounds of ammunition, a blanket, and three days' rations. An
ammunition train would follow the troops. Tents, camp equipage, and the
army's stores of food and forage were to be left behind in the Boston
Mountains.
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BRIGAOIER GENERAL SAMUEL R. CURTIS AS HE APPEARED IN 1862. HE GREW THE
BEARD DURING THE CAMPAIGN. CURTIS WAS THE MOST SUCCESSFUL UNION GENERAL
IN THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI. (STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI)
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The central flaw in all of this was Van Dorn's assumption that the
operation would go exactly as planned. After the inevitable victory, he
expected his men and animals to subsist on captured Yankee rations and
forage. He apparently gave no thought to alternate sources of supply or
to the possibility that things might go awry. Van Dorn's overconfidence
was matched by his impulsiveness. The offensive was to begin at once. He
did not allow himself time to get to know his principal subordinates, to
familiarize himself with the unusual geography of the region, to
reorganize the two very different armies awkwardly joined together under
his command, or even to recover from his illness. A few days of careful
preparation might have made all the difference in the success of the
operation, but Van Dorn was a man of action—immediate
action—and that was what he demanded and got.
Determined to use all available manpower in the region, Van Dorn
ordered Brigadier General Albert Pike in the nearby Indian Territory to
mobilize Confederate Indian troops and rendezvous with the Army of the
West at Bentonville. Pike was reluctant to follow Van Dorn's
instructions because the treaties he had recently negotiated between the
Confederacy and the Five Civilized Tribes—Cherokees, Choctaws,
Creeks, Chickasaws, and Seminoles—stipulated that Indian soldiers
were not to be used outside the Indian Territory without their
agreement. He also recognized that the Indian regiments and battalions
were little more than paper organizations. The men were poorly armed,
poorly trained, and, in many instances, poorly motivated. (Half of the
Cherokees were such lukewarm Rebels that they defected to the Union side
soon after Pea Ridge!) Nevertheless, when Pike raised the issue with the
Indians he learned that some were willing to participate in the
operation if paid in advance. Despite deep misgivings, Pike dispensed
tens of thousands of silver dollars at Cantonment (Fort) Davis and
managed to mobilize two Cherokee regiments, a Creek regiment, and a
combined Choctaw-Chickasaw regiment. Only the Cherokee regiments reached
the Army of the West in time to participate in the battle, another
example of the cost of Van Dorn's impulsiveness.
The Confederate counteroffensive to liberate Missouri began on March
4 when Van Dorn led his command out of the Boston Mountains. The 16,000
men and 65 cannons of the Army of the West constituted the largest and
best-equipped Confederate military force ever assembled west of the
Mississippi River. The Confederates had a three-to-two advantage in
manpower and a four-to-three advantage in artillery over Curtis's Army
of the Southwest. It was a historic moment: no other Confederate army
ever marched off to battle with a greater numerical superiority.
Unfortunately for the cause of Confederate independence, the Pea Ridge
campaign was a demonstration of the axiom that numbers alone do not
guarantee victory.
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BRIGADIER GENERAL ALBERT PIKE (UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK
ARCHIVES)
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COLONEL STAND WATIE, 2ND CHEROKEE MOUNTED RIFLES (BL)
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The march to Bentonville was a disaster. Van Dorn was feverish and
distracted. Bouncing along Telegraph Road in an enclosed ambulance at
the head of the column, he set an unrealistically rapid pace.
McCulloch's troops had been in winter quarters for months and were
unprepared for such a strenuous effort. Soon the roadside was littered
with hundreds of winded soldiers hobbled by blistered feet. Even Price's
Missourians initially overjoyed at the thought of returning home, became
disgruntled and remarked that Van Dorn "had forgotten he was riding and
we were walking." Then the weather, that most capricious of all military
factors, changed dramatically. After several chilly but pleasant days, a
late winter storm swept across the Ozark Plateau. Temperatures dropped
all day and the road became covered with sleet and snow. Progress slowed
to a crawl and the column finally halted amid the charred ruins of
Fayetteville. Without tents or cooking equipment, the men passed a
singularly dismal night.
The next day, March 5, the situation deteriorated. The Confederates
left Fayetteville and plodded north across a wintry landscape. Progress
was excruciatingly slow. As darkness fell and the temperature plummeted,
the weary men of the Army of the West stumbled into camp at Elm Springs,
halfway between Fayetteville and Bentonville. "I will never forget that
night," wrote a Missouri soldier. "It had turned bitter cold. . . . We
had no tents and only one blanket to each man. We built log heaps and
set them afire to warm the ground to have a place on which to lie, and I
remember well the next day there were several holes burned in my uniform
by sparks left on the ground." The following morning the shivering
Confederates ate the last of their rations and set out for Bentonville,
twelve miles to the north. Despite the slow pace, Van Dorn remained
confident that his plan to take Curtis by surprise was working.
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THE TRAIL OF TEARS
The Indian Removal Act of 1831 led to the migration of thousands of
people from the southeastern states of North Carolina, Georgia, Florida,
Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. Most or all of the Cherokees,
Creeks, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Seminoles, often referred to as the
Five Civilized Tribes, were compelled to sell their traditional lands to
the federal government, which in turn made the lands available to
non-Indians for settlement. They then relocated to the Indian Territory,
a vast expanse of land that initially encompassed all of modern-day
Oklahoma and parts of modern-day Arkansas and Kansas as well.
The Cherokees were the most numerous of the Five Civilized Tribes.
After much internal dissension over the wisdom of giving up their lands,
the Cherokees signed the Treaty of New Echota in 1835. They received
$5,000,000 in cash and other material benefits in exchange for their
agreement to relocate. The other Indian tribes made similar agreements
and received similar compensation. The movement west began in the late
1830s and continued for several years. The Indians organized themselves
into groups of several hundred people and set out at irregular
intervals. Contrary to legend, there was no single route. Some groups
trekked overland most of the way. Others traveled on flat-boats and
steamboats down the Ohio and the Mississippi, then up the Red and the
Arkansas. Because of initial confusion over boundaries, hundreds of
Cherokees and other Indians settled briefly in Arkansas before moving a
short distance west to Oklahoma.
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A ROMANTICIZED MODERN DEPICTION OF THE CHEROKEE MIGRATION. (TRAIL OF
TEARS PAINTING BY ROBERT LINDNEUX, COURTESY OF WOOLAROC)
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The movement of so many people, including the very young and very
old, was a much more difficult undertaking than anyone anticipated.
Roads were primitive, boats were overcrowded, and government-issued
rations and other supplies often were inadequate. Harsh weather and
other hardships caused thousands of deaths during the migration and the
initial period of resettlement in the Indian Territory. The Cherokees
collectively referred to the various land and water routes they
followed, and their westward migration in general, as "the trail where they
cried" or "the trail of tears."
One of the routes used by the Indians passed through the northwest
corner of Arkansas. About eight hundred Cherokees returned to the area
in 1862 and played a minor role in the battle of Pea Ridge. They were
formed into two small Confederate regiments, Colonel John Drew's 1st
Cherokee Mounted Rifles and Colonel Stand Watie's 2nd Cherokee Mounted
Rifles. The two regiments reflected the continuing division within the
tribe over the issue of relocation. Drew's men represented the
anti-treaty faction; Watie's the pro-treaty group. Unwilling to be on
the same side with people they considered traitors, many of Drew's
soldiers joined the Union army after Pea Ridge. Watie's men generally
continued in Confederate service for the same reason. The result was a
bitter but little-known internecine conflict among the Cherokees that
probably caused more death and destruction than the westward
movement.
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Unknown to Van Dorn, a Unionist resident of Fayetteville and a Union
spy planted in the Rebel ranks reached Curtis at Cross Hollows on March
5 and informed him of the Confederate advance. It was fortunate for the
Union cause that they did so, for up to that point the Yankees were
unaware of the enemy column toiling north toward Bentonville. Few
patrols were out and about on March 4 and 5, and those that were
reported nothing amiss. The general consensus among Union soldiers
seemed to be that no one in their right mind would be moving around in
such conditions, and that they might as well stay snug in their tents
until the weather cleared.
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MAJOR GENERAL EARL VAN DORN (BL)
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Curtis received the news of a Confederate advance calmly. He had
expected as much for some time, though he was surprised that the Rebels
were on the move in such bad weather. Curtis ordered an immediate
concentration of his outposts and the two wings of his army at Little
Sugar Creek as planned. "They are coming sure," he informed Sigel.
"It was now our turn to run" observed Corporal Sam Black of the 1st
Iowa Battery. The troops at Cross Hollows and McKissick's Creek struck
their tents and hurried to the rendezvous point. struggling through the
same miserable wintry conditions as the Confederates. "It was snowing
and most intensely cold," wrote Captain Henry Cummings to his wife in
Iowa. "I never suffered so much in my life." The Union columns trudged
along all through the day and night of March 5. Deserted buildings along
the roads were set afire to light the way and provide a flicker of
warmth.
By the morning of March 6 the regiments and batteries of the Army of
the Southwest were filing into place on the high ground north of Little
Sugar Creek. Among the last to arrive were the footsore soldiers of
Colonel William Vandever's brigade, who covered the forty-two miles from
Huntsville in only sixteen hours. Curtis was an engineer, and he
personally laid out a line of earthworks atop the limestone bluffs. All
that day the Union soldiers prepared rifle pits and redoubts and cleared
fields of fire as they awaited the arrival of the enemy. It was hard
work, but few grumbled, for the labor kept them warm and the
fortifications promised a measure of safety in the fight to come.
Late in the afternoon, Colonel Grenville M. Dodge approached Curtis
with a suggestion. Dodge had learned of a road called Bentonville Detour
that led around the Union army's right flank and into its rear. He urged
Curtis to block the road in order to make any enemy movement in that
direction as difficult as possible. Curtis instructed Dodge to see to
it. As darkness fell, Dodge and six companies of infantry armed with
axes hurried off to the northwest. Shortly after midnight the weary
soldiers trudged back to Little Sugar Creek. They left behind two
enormous tangles of felled trees on Bentonville Detour between Twelve
Corner Church and Telegraph Road. Without firing a shot, they had
unknowingly struck the Confederates a serious blow.
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COLONEL GRENVILLE M. DODGE (STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF IOWA)
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THE EAGLE HOTEL IN BENTONVILLE WHERE SIGEL ENJOYED A LEISURELY
BREAKFAST. (UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS FAYETTEVILLE, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS)
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The only Federal detachment that failed to reach Little Sugar Creek
without incident on March 6 was the rear guard of Sigel's two divisions.
Curtis probably was not surprised to learn that Sigel was in personal
command of the rear guard. During the early morning hours Sigel had
pushed his two divisions through the road junction at Bentonville with
hours to spare, but then he unaccountably tarried behind to eat a hearty
breakfast in a Bentonville hotel. The six hundred men of the rear guard
waited in the nearby town square and tried to keep warm while their
commander sawed through a plate of ham and eggs.
Sigel must have been on his second cup of coffee when scouts rushed
into town shouting that the rear guard was about to be cut off by the
van of the approaching Confederate army. Sigel emerged from the hotel
and wasted no time leading the rear guard out of town. After a four-mile
running fight across snow-covered fields and through narrow valleys east
of Bentonville, Sigel finally shook off the pursuing Confederate horsemen
and joined the rest of the Army of the Southwest at Little Sugar
Creek. What Curtis thought of Sigel's dilatory behavior and brush with
disaster is unknown.
When Van Dorn reached Bentonville a short time after Sigel's abrupt
departure, he realized that his plan to defeat the Union army in detail
had failed. The Army of the Southwest was reunited in an impregnable
blufftop location behind Little Sugar Creek, while the Confederate army
was in desperate straits. After three extremely difficult days, men and
animals were hungry and exhausted. Straggling had become an epidemic.
"Such a worn-out set of men I never saw," remembered Sergeant William
Kinney of the 3rd Louisiana. "They had not one single mouthfull of food
to eat."
Van Dorn refused to consider falling back to the Boston Mountains
despite the failure of his plan and the desperate state of affairs in
his army. He was determined to strike the Yankees a blow, seize their
supplies, and push into Missouri. As darkness fell on the dispirited
Rebel army, Pike arrived from the Indian Territory with about eight
hundred Cherokees. The Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws were still a
day's travel away. The Indians brought no additional food or forage.
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COLONEL FRANK ARMSTRONG OF MCCULLOCH'S STAFF (GENERAL SWEENY'S MUSEUM,
REPUBLIC, MO)
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That evening Van Dorn conferred with his generals. McCulloch was
familiar with the country and told Van Dorn about the Bentonville
Detour. The road left Little Sugar Creek valley at a place the
Confederates called Camp Stephens, rambled in a northeasterly direction
across Pea Ridge, and intersected Telegraph Road just south of the
Arkansas Missouri line. More to the point, the road passed around the
right flank of the Union army and led directly to the Union rear.
McCulloch pointed out that if the Confederates marched along Bentonville
Detour and reached Telegraph Road, the Yankees would be cut off from
Missouri and might be compelled to surrender. Van Dorn was elated by
McCulloch's suggestion, for it offered an almost miraculous opportunity
to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. He declared his intention to
march at once.
For the first time in months McCulloch and Price agreed on something:
both men were aghast at the thought of a night march with the men and
animals in such pitiful condition. McCulloch appealed to Van Dorn "for
God sake to let the poor, worn-out and hungry soldiers rest and sleep
that night . . . and then attack the next morning." Price strongly
echoed his appeal. But Van Dorn had made up his mind. He insisted that
the army move at once. Undeterred by the misgivings of his generals and
unaware that Dodge's ax-wielding Iowans were blocking Bentonville Detour
at that very hour, Van Dorn set his maneuver in motion.
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