The Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas - A Lull in the Battle

Confederate Position on night of March 7, 1862

This is part three of a series of posts on the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas. To read the previous parts first, please see: The Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas - Day One, Part One and The Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas - Day One, Part Two.

The night of March 7, 1862, brought an end to the bloody first day of the Battle of Pea Ridge. The moans and cries of the wounded echoed off the rocks of the ridge and the bodies of the dead carpeted the ground. On the Federal side of the battlefield, General Curtis positioned his line of battle in the edge of trees, with a wide and open field in front of them and there they slept on their arms for the night:

Union Military Map of the Pea Ridge Battlefield

...I directed a detail from each company to bring water and provisions, and thus without a murmur these weary soldiers lay and many of them slept within a few yards of the foe, with their dead and wounded comrades scattered around them. Darkness, silence, and fatigue soon secured to the weary broken slumbers and gloomy repose. The day had closed in some reverses on the right, but the left had been unassailed and the center had driven the foe from the field. - Gen. Samuel Curtis, USA, April 1, 1862.

Realizing that the fight would reopen the next morning along what had been his right flank, General Curtis completed the 180 degree pivot of his army by concentrating the entire Federal force along his final line of the day. The plan was for him to be able to resume the battle on the morning of the 8th with his entire army ready to fight on the front opened by the Confederates along the Telegraph road.

Elkhorn Tavern
Inside Confederate Lines on the night of March 7, 1862

On the Confederate side of the field, General Van Dorn assessed the situation that night to find that he was far from ready to resume another full day of battle:

...In the course of the night I ascertained that the ammunition was almost exhausted, and that the officer in charge of the ordnance supplies could not find his wagons, which, with the subsistence train, had been sent to Bentonville. Most of the troops had been without any food since the morning of the 6th and the artillery horses were beaten out. It was therefore with no little anxiety that I awated the dawn of day.- Gen. Earl Van Dorn, CSA, March 27, 1862.

Gen. William Y. Slack, CSA

The speed with which Van Dorn had marched his army into battle now turned on him. He had entered the engagement at Pea Ridge with a larger army than his Federal opponents, but he had not given proper care to his logistics or the condition of his men. Now, with one entire division of his army disorganized and confused, he found that his men had no food and very little ammunition.

In addition, he had lost a large number of his senior officers in the first day's fighting. In McCulloch's Division, Generals Ben McCulloch and James McIntosh had been killed and Colonel Louis Hebert, who had then assumed command, was missing and feared dead. In Price's Division, General William Y. Slack had been mortally wounded during the early phases of the attack down the Telegraph road. He would die two weeks later.

Col Stand Watie, CSA

To make matters worse, most of the troops of McCulloch's Division did not move to Van Dorn's position during the night. When he came up after another night of marching, General Pike (who had assumed command of McCulloch's battered force) was able to bring up only a portion of the infantry, Welch's cavalry squadron from Texas, a single battery and Colonel Stand Watie's First Cherokee Rifles. He reached Telegraph road to find all in confusion and spent hours trying to find General Van Dorn and receive orders as to where he should place his men.

As Van Dorn and Price tried to prepare for a resumption of the action the next day, their men lay exhausted and hungry on the cold ground. They had not eaten in 36 hours and were dangerousloy low on ammunition. From the Federal side of the field they could hear with their own ears evidence that the enemy was preparing to resume the fight:

Pea Ridge National Military Park
View from the Union lines on the night of March 7, 1862

...During the night great commotion was audible in the camp of the enemy. Their artillery and baggage wagons seemed to be continually moving. The officers of my command preserved their lines unbroken, in readiness for any emergency. - Col. Henry Little, First Brigade Missouri Volunteers (CSA), March 18, 1862.

About the only good news received by any of the Confederate troops that night came in the middle of the night when Colonel Henry Little's First Missouri Brigade received an unexpected gift from the Union army:

...About midnight the sound of wheels approached. We opened our lines and admitted a caisson with ammunition, which, through mistake of the driver, came to seek one of the divisions of the Federal army in the ranks of his adversaries. - Col. Henry Little, First Brigade Missouri Volunteers (CSA), March 18, 1862.

So passed the night of March 7, 1862, and predawn hours of March 8, 1862, 150 years ago tonight. I will post on the second day of the battle tomorrow, so be sure to check back! Until then, you can read more at www.exploresouthernhistory.com/pearidgeindex.

Telegraph Road at Pea Ridge

Today marks the 147th anniversary of the first day of the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas. I'll continue to post about the battle through the weekend.

This photograph shows the Telegraph Road as it leads south from Elkhorn Tavern in the direction of the final Union lines. The road was the center of intense fighting on March 7, 1862, as Gen. Sterling Price's Confederates finally forced back Col. Eugene Carr's Second Brigade from near the tavern and drove south down the road.

At a critical moment of the fighting, Union Gen. Alexander Asboth planted artillery directly in the center of the road and, supported by a couple of infantry companies, fired in the face of the oncoming Confederates. The heroic act shattered oncoming Confederate ranks. Holding his position, Asboth continued to fire until, his men falling around him and his ammunition exhausted, he fell back on the main Union line that was forming to his rear. The general was severely wounded during the stand, but would continue to fight until the end of the battle.

Asboth was one of the more remarkable Union generals of the war. A Hungarian refugee, he had served during the Revolt of 1848 in his native country but had been evacuated to the United States with Kossuth aboard the U.S.S. Mississippi. Settling in New York, he was an inventor who also did survey work before the work. He conducted the surveys of New York City's famed Central Park. General William T. Sherman wrote that Asboth was a man of great personal courage who was beloved by his troops. He was prone, according to Sherman, to underestimate his own abilities as a leader.

After Pea Ridge, he served in Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky before assuming command of the Union District of West Florida. Severely wounded again at the Battle of Marianna, Florida, in 1864, he later became the U.S. Minister to Argentina.

The hard fighting by the outnumbered Union troops halted Price's assaults and gave Gen. Curtis time to evacuate his main line and rush men to the scene of the fighting. By the end of the first day's fighting, he had achieved a remarkable 180 degree turn of front. The tactical accomplishment is still studied by military officers today.

The first day ended with the Confederates occupying the edge of a wooded area just south of Elkhorn Tavern and the Union troops forming on a slight elevation beyond.

To read more before the next post, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/pearidgeindex.