ECW Podcast: “Bleeding Kansas” and the Trans-Mississippi (with Zack Fry)
Podcast host Chris Mackowski went to “Bleeding Kansas,” Wilson’s Creek, and Pea Ridge over the summer. To find out more about the places he visited, he called up Dr. Zachary Fry, another “Eastern Theater” historian who’s now based in Kansas, to talk about the border war and the Trans-Mississippi.
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The views Zack expresses in this interview are his personal views and his alone.
I would argue that it didn’t really become a conservation of force mission for the Union until after Pea Ridge. After Pea Ridge, Curtis marched his army across Arkansas to Helena, when they became part of the Mississippi River war, and Van Dorn for the Confederates stripped Arkansas clean and sent everything east of the Mississippi. Frémont had a decent-sized (by 1861 standards) force available to him for the stretch after Lexington. It was after Pea Ridge that the importance of Missouri and Arkansas faded.