A Thousand Words a Battle: Pea Ridge

Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas
March 7-8, 1862

In the early spring of 1862, Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn of the Confederate Army of the West was determined to strike at Brig. Gen. Samuel Ryan Curtis’s Federal Army of the Southwest, which had just entered northern Arkansas. Van Dorn hoped to achieve a decisive victory by forcing Curtis’s Federals out of Arkansas and Missouri, capturing St. Louis, and reestablishing Confederate control of the region.

In the morning of March 7, 1862, Van Dorn’s army struck the Federal position near the Elkhorn Tavern. With superior numbers, the Confederates pushed south along the Wire Road in hopes of catching Curtis’s Federals by surprise. Though outnumbered and initially facing the wrong direction, the Federals quickly reorganized to meet the threat. Private Ephraim Anderson of the Missouri State Guard recalled the initial attack on the Federal position on that March morning:

A line extending from the road some distance to the right of our regiment now advanced. The woods up here were rather dense, with dry leaves clinging to many of the trees, and we could hear them some time before they came in sight; when about a hundred yards distant, the opposing forces fired about the same time; the action soon became obstinate and bloody. Find the top of the ridge too much exposed, we fell back about fifteen steps behind it, sheltering ourselves by the crest in front, while the combat still raged with unabated fury. The enemy, finding they could not move us from the front, and being superior in numbers, began to close in upon our flanks, when a loud cheer was heard in the rear, and Rives and Bevier, coming up at double-quick, with a well-directed fire, drove back the flanking forces. Like magic the word “charge!” ran along the line, and with a wild shout it sprang forward, driving the hostile ranks before it; rushing on, we quickly came in sight of the little field by the house, in the edge of which a battery of six guns was in position, supported by a strong force of infantry.

The battery opened upon us with a sweeping fire, tearing through our lines, crashing among the limbs of the trees and scattering the rocks in the air, now filled with the contents of bursting shells. The line recoiled for an instant under the iron hail of grape and canister, when “on to the battery” was the cry, and with a yell that rose above the roar of battle, we closed upon the opposing ranks. The clash of arms and the din and fury of the deadly strife were now fierce and wild; the thunder of the artillery and the opening roll of the muskets of the long, fresh line of infantry, were deafening. Like a withering, scorching blast, the torrent of lead and iron poured through the surrounding smoke. Above all, “forward, Missourians,” could be distinctly heard, and, in response to the ringing battle-cry, the men defiantly pressed on, delivering a deadly fire as they advanced. Then came the desperate grapple for victory: the indomitable courage of our men finally prevailed, hurling back the Federal lines, and driving them from the field, capturing three pieces of the battery and a considerable number of prisoners.[1]

Though Van Dorn’s Army of the West had been victorious in the first day’s fight at the battle of Pea Ridge, Federals badly beat them the next day. Curtis consolidated his army, launched a massive artillery bombardment on the Confederate line, and ordered an assault against the Southerner’s right flank and center. Van Dorn was forced to withdraw.

Nearly four thousand Federal and Confederate soldiers were either killed, wounded, missing, or captured at Pea Ridge. Two Confederate generals and countless other commanders on both sides lost their lives in this fight. This Federal victory secured Missouri for the next two years and hindered the Confederate efforts to retake control of Arkansas.

— Kristen Trout

[1] Ephraim Anderson, Memoirs: Historical and Personal; Including the Campaigns of the First Missouri Confederate Brigade (St. Louis: Times Printing Co., 1868), 171-172.

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