seventy miles, it was telegraphed to Washing-tance of ten miles, you cut your way through an enemy at ton, by General Halleck, on the 18th of Febru- least five times stronger than yourselves. The activity, self-possession, and courage of the little band of 600 will ary: ever be memorable in the history of this war."

"The flag of the Union is floating in Arkansas. General Curtis has driven Price from Missouri, and is several miles across the Arkansas line, cutting up Price's rear, and hourly capturing prisoners and stores."

The rebels made a brief stand at Sugar Creek, but were speedily routed and driven headlong toward Fayetteville. Again they offered resistance at Cross Hollows and at Fayetteville, and again from each place they were driven wildly, with loss of prisoners and of stores. At Mudtown, one of the encampments of the foe, the rebels, as they retreated, poisoned the wells and the provisions which they left behind. It was reported to General Halleck that forty-two officers and men were thus poisoned. Notwithstanding the exasperation of our soldiers in view of such barbarity, they did not wreak any vengeance upon the rebel prisoners in our hands.

Curtis rapidly concentrated the patriot army upon a commanding swell of land called Pea Ridge, on the banks of Sugar Creek. Van Dorn, exulting in his immense superiority in numbers, marched from Fayetteville to Bentonville, leaving Pea Ridge some miles distant upon his right. Near Bentonville he took a detour to the westward with the main body of his army, and while he made the feint of an attack upon Curtis upon the south, he pressed rapidly northward and gained, about eight miles from Curtis, and in his rear, the only road by which he could retreat to Springfield. He now felt sure of his victims. Less than ten thousand patriots, in a strange country, with their lines of communication and their retreat cut off, were completely surrounded by thirty thousand as desperate men as ever plunged into the horrors of battle.

General Curtis was now in quite a wilderness Curtis, fully aware of the arduous conflict country, many a weary league from the base which was before him, prepared to meet the of his supplies at St. Louis on the Missouri. foe, now rushing upon him from all sides, by He had with him an army of about 10,500 cav- | adopting all the precautions which military alry and infantry, with 49 pieces of cannon. skill and bravery could suggest. Parties were Anticipating that the rebels would concentrate detailed to fell timber to obstruct the approachall their possible force to attack him, he selected a es; earth-works were thrown up and positions strong position about fourteen miles east of Ben- selected for the batteries. All the men worked tonville to make a stand against whatever odds with a will, and as by magic the spacious enmight march against him. The four divisions campment became strongly fortified. By the of his army were stationed at points to guard middle of the afternoon of the 6th the four diall approaches, but from which they could be visions were assembled on the selected field to easily rallied and united in case of an attack. await the crisis of a battle whose result was very uncertain, and the issues of which would inevitably prove most momentous. The line of the army extended three or four miles fronting Sugar Creek on the south, with the broken plateau, called Pea Ridge, extending northward in the rear. It had been supposed that the enemy would attack from the south, as it was not then known that the great mass of the rebel army had swept around to cut off our retreat and to attack us from the north.

The 5th of March was bitterly cold and blustering, and the ground was white with snow. As General Curtis was engaged in writing, scouts came hurrying in with the information that the rebels were approaching in force, evidently prepared to give battle. Van Dorn had concentrated an army of between 25,000 and 30,000 men, composed of troops from Missouri, led by Price, bands from Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, under M'Culloch, and a mass of Indians, whom they had compelled to join their ranks, from the Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw tribes, goaded on by Albert Pike. These troops were gathered in the Boston Mountains, a high range in the extreme northwestern part of the State.

Generals Sigel and Asboth were southwest of Bentonville. The first dash of the foe was toward their little band. Sigel immediately retreated upon Bentonville, and then, while pressed by an overpowering force-often surrounding him, in one of the most brilliant exploits of this or any other war, slowly retired, beating back the assaults of the foe on both flanks and his rear for five-and-a-half hours, until safely, and with all his baggage train preserved, he reached the reinforcements which Curtis sent to his aid. Truly does Sigel say, in his address to his soldiers:

"On the retreat from Bentonville to Sugar Creek, a dis

As soon as this movement of the enemy was ascertained on the 6th a change of front became necessary. While effecting this change intelligence was brought that the rebels were advancing in force, having already commenced their attack directly in our rear. It was then about half past ten o'clock in the morning. It was clear and cold, and not a breath of air swept the ground, which was slightly whitened with snow. The battle commenced on the right of our column, and raged all day most furiously through ravines and over ridges and into forests, with charges and counter-charges, repulses, and victories in a blending of terror, confusion, uproar, wounds, and death which it is in vain for any pen to describe. The Third and Fourth Divisions, severally under the command of Colonels Carr and Davis, bore the

brunt of this battle.

The loss on both sides was severe. Van

it was necessary to carry on conversation in whispers. The braying of the mules through the long hours of the night was painful to hear. Many of them had been without water for fortyeight hours, and without food for twenty-four. The patriot commanders passed a sleepless night. Though Curtis kept up good courage and was sanguine of ultimate success, the superiority of the foe in numbers was so great that most of the officers, though prepared for a desperate fight, silently and anxiously awaited the dawn. The long-looked-for light at length appeared in the east; and the sun, like a fiery ball, shone portentously through the murky clouds. The enemy held the only road by which we could retreat. The woods and hills swarmed with their troops. They outnumbered the patriots three to one, and a thousand of our men had already fallen dead or wounded. Soon after the dawn there was some skirmish firing, and at eight o'clock, as the cannoniers stood to their guns along the entire line, the fire was opened. Sigel arranged his batteries in a way which elicited the highest admiration from the most scientific observers. He soon had thirty pieces of artillery opening upon the enemy a fire which no human courage could endure. Canister and grape tore through the crowded ranks of the foe with awful destruction. An officer in the regular army, who was a witness of this scene, writes:

whether the scalp was peeled from the brow of friend or foe. All would alike count as trophies of their prowess around their camp-fires. The rebels complained that they rendered but little efficient service; that they were bewildered by the deafening roar of battle. They had been accustomed to the rifle. They had heard the war-whoop. But when they saw 12-pounders running around on wheels, causing the forest to tremble with their thunderings, while shells shrieked through the air, prostrated large trees, and exploded with carnage which swept away whole platoons, their amazement passed all bounds. No power could hold them to the discipline essential in modern warfare.

The Texan Rangers were more fierce and savage even than the Indians. Probably a more desperate set of men never existed. The Richmond Whig speaks, with much complacency, of the Texans, "with their large, heavy knives, driving skulls in twain, mingling blood and brains and hair." This spectacle, the Whig amiably declares, "was not devoid of satisfaction."

The patriot loss in killed, wounded, and missing, as given by General Curtis, was 1351. The rebel loss has not been ascertained; but it must have been far more severe, from their crowded masses and the terrible accuracy and destructiveness of our fire. The rebels retired south of the Boston Mountains, to repair damGeneral Curages and to recruit their forces. tis established himself at Keitsville, and received reinforcements from Kansas and Mis

"For two hours and ten minutes did Sigel's iron hail fall thick as autumn leaves, furious as the avalanche, deadly as the simoom. One by one the rebel pieces ceased to play. Onward crept our infantry. Onward crept Sigelsouri. and his terrible guns. Shorter and shorter became the range. No charge of theirs could face that iron hail, or dare to venture on that compact line of bayonets. Again Sigel advanced his line, making another partial change of front. Then came the order to charge the enemy in the woods; and those brave boys, who had lain for hours with the hail and shot of the enemy falling upon them and the cannon of Sigel playing over them, rose up and dressed their ranks as if it were but an evening parade. And as

the 'Forward' was given the Twenty-fifth Illinois moved

in compact line, supported on the left with the Twelfth Missouri acting as skirmishers, and on the right by the Twenty-second Indiana. As they passed into the dense brush they were met by a terrible volley. This was answered by one as terrible and far more deadly. Volley followed volley; yet on and on went that line of determ

ined men. Steadily they pushed the rebel force until they gained more open ground. Here the Confederate forces broke in confusion and fled. The day was ours. And the battle of Pea Ridge was added to the already long list of triumphs clustering around the old starry flag."

The rebels retreated precipitately through the gullies and ravines, pelted by round shot and shell from such batteries as could be brought to bear upon their rapidly-vanishing lines. Sigel pursued them some miles toward Keitsville, firing on them as they ran away. M'Culloch, a rebel of reckless daring and much military skill, fell in this engagement. His loss was greatly deplored by his comrades.

The Indians, goaded on by Albert Pike, were roused, like wolves having once lapped blood, to demoniac ferocity. They gratified their savage propensities by scalping the wounded; and it is said that it made no difference to them

Then ensued for many weeks a series of marchings and countermarchings to baffle the designs of the rebels. The story of these arduous campaignings through darkness and storms, traversing with weary footsteps wide and miry prairies, and fording swollen streams, can probably never be told.*

These movements, though all-important, though accomplishing great results, though accompanied with the heroic endurance of fatigue, exhaustion, and death, were uneventful in those incidents which give so dreadful an interest to the carnage of the field of battle. By the middle of April General Curtis was marching through the State with the strides of a conqueror. In that sunny clime the chilling winds of winter had passed away, and every where verdure and summer's bloom cheered the eye. Foraging and scouting parties were moving in all directions, sweeping vehemently before them every form of opposition. Curtis now set out for Little Rock, the capital of the State, on the Arkansas River. Leaving the Boston Mountains on his right he marched by the way of Salem and Batesville. At Bates

For this narrative of the great victory at Pea Ridge I am indebted to the official reports of Generals Curtis and Sigel, and of the subordinate officers, Colonels Jeff. C. Davis, Pattison, Washburn, White, and others; also to an army, and a very minute detail from the correspondent of admirable description given by an officer in the regular the New York Herald. I have also examined the rebel narrative given in the Richmond Whig.

ville he expected to meet a gun-boat expedition, which was fitted out at Memphis under Colonel Fitch, to descend the Missouri, and steam up the White River with supplies and reinforcements. But this expedition, consisting of three gun-boats and a transport, having on board the Forty-sixth Indiana Regiment, met with disaster, and failed to accomplish its object.

through the State, and in great danger of being surrounded, cut off from his base of supplies at Springfield, and starved into surrender. He therefore decided to move his army across the State to Helena, on the Mississippi. That river, then traversed above Vicksburg by our gun-boats, could be his line of communication with the North.

But such a march as this, through an almost pathless wilderness, where there were scarcely any opportunities for forage, and all necessary supplies were to be transported with the army; where forests were to be penetrated, vast plains traversed in the blaze of a July sun, and rivers forded or bridged; while guerrillas were hovering on his flanks, and a vigilant and daring foe, familiar with the country, was throwing every possible impediment in his way, and often gathering in strength to give him fierce battle,

The boats successfully entered the White River, and had ascended the stream some fifteen miles, to a point near Saint Charles, when they encountered a concealed battery. Though the troops landed and captured the battery, it was not until a shot had pierced the steamdrum of the Mound City, filling the boat with scalding vapor, which drove the men into the river. Nearly every one was scalded. Out of a crew numbering 175 but 23 escaped uninjured. After the explosion took place the reb-involved difficulties which required the highest els fired upon the scalded men who were struggling helplessly and drowning in the stream.

The loss of the Mound City, and the necessity of sending two other steamers back to Memphis to convey the wounded there arrested the immediate progress of the expedition, though it subsequently reached its place of destination. The scene of suffering witnessed as these scalded men were collected is too painful to record. Awful has been the price of misery and of death through which our country has been redeemed from the assaults of rebellion. Thirty-seven of these unhappy men died on their passage to Memphis. This disaster and victory-for the batteries were taken, and White River thrown open-occurred on Tuesday, June 17, 1862. Among the many incidents of the disaster may be mentioned that a sailor by the name of Jones leaped, badly scalded, through one of the port-holes into the river. As he was swimming around to get to some one of the boats he received three gun-shot wounds-one in the leg, one in the shoulder, and one in the back. Still he kept afloat, and not being able to reach any of the small boats was swept down the rapid stream nearly half a mile, where he was taken on board the Lexington, and is probably still living.

qualities of genius and heroism to surmount. Even before the army commenced its march it was exposed at times to severe deprivation for want of food.

The distance to be traversed was nearly two hundred miles, and the march occupied about eighteen days. On the 24th of June Curtis abandoned his communications with Springfield, Missouri, which had been for some time his base of supplies, called in his guards, and commenced his adventurous march. At Jacksonport, twenty-five miles from Batesville, where the Big Black River enters into the White, a delay of five days occurred to make still more efficient preparations. He then again put his columns in motion, to push forward with the utmost possible rapidity.

There was a band of about twelve hundred rebels in front of him, to destroy the bridges, barricade the roads with trees felled by the forced labor of the negroes, to fire upon his trains from the cane-brakes as they could get opportunity, and to place every possible obstacle in the way of his advance. There were frequent skirmishes as our troops fought their way along, until, on the 7th of July, they encountered a force of six Texan regiments upon the banks of the Cache River, who were pre

ade of fallen timber. But few have heard of the battle of Bayou Cache; and yet there was exhibited there military discipline and bravery which could not have been surpassed on the world-renowned arenas of Austerlitz and Waterloo.

The situation of Curtis was now very alarm-pared to dispute our advance behind a blocking. He was nearly destitute of provisions, far distant from his sources of supply, and surrounded by envenomed foes. To add to the embarrassments of this heroic leader it became necessary just at this time to concentrate all our forces for the siege of Corinth. Curtis received dispatches calling for ten regiments to Colonel Hovey, of the Thirty-third Illinois be sent immediately, by forced marches, to Cape regiment, was ordered to open the road. Parts Girardeau. Without a murmur, though it of four companies of the Eleventh Wisconsin, must have been with deep pangs of regret, he under Colonel Harris, were in the advance. yielded to a necessity which frustrated all his Cautiously they moved forward with one small plans. But for this in a few days the flag of rifle piece, belonging to the First Indiana cavthe Union would have floated over Little Rock, alry, under Captain Potter. As this little band and Arkansas would have stood forth redeemed. reached a turn in the road they came suddenly Curtis thus found himself with a very feeble upon two Texan regiments of cavalry, with a band, altogether too weak to prosecute a vigor- regiment of infantry. Their first greeting was ous war against twenty thousand rebels dispersed a volley of bullets, which killed five of our men

1

dles, and caused the whole column to real and stagger; and as volley followed volley from their concealed assailants the rebels broke and fled, utterly panic-stricken.

and wounded both Colonel Harris and Captain | tumbled twenty-five of the foe from their sadPotter. The fire was promptly returned from both musketry and the rifle-gun. But now, with loud yells, the rebels came rushing on in an impetuous charge. Our men fell back, but still pouring volley after volley into the ranks of the foe.

It was now about half past ten o'clock in the morning. Just then Colonel Wood, who had been sent fifteen miles from the camp to save a bridge from being destroyed at Bayou de Vieu, and which enterprise he gloriously ae

Hovey, who was at some distance in the rear, hearing the firing, and seeing the clouds of dust which rose above the trees and filled the air, pressed forward with the Thirty-third Il-complished, came up at full speed with the linois, and very sagaciously placed his men in ambush by the side of the road. Our overpowered troops, still firing as they retreated, were pursued by the rebels, who uttered loud yells as they rushed furiously forward. Suddenly there was poured in upon them a crash of musketry from the patriots in ambush which

Colonel Hovey rode up to Wood, exclaiming, "You will find the rebels down there, Colonel, thick enough. Pitch into them!" No second word was needed. With cheers the eavalry plunged forward, the horses leaping a