CHAPTER XXV. A RAPID RETREAT--AN EXPEDITION AND A FORCED MARCH.
|For two weeks after the army reached Cross Hollows it remainedapparently inactive, though really far from idle. Foraging expeditionswere constantly in motion, scouting parties were sent out in everydirection, and small forces of infantry and cavalry went to visit thevarious villages and towns within a radius of fifty miles to the eastand west. Several times detachments of cavalry visited Fayetteville, andmade sure that the rebels had not reoccupied the place.
As already intimated the negro servants of the officers were activein search of chickens and other articles of food. General Vandeverand Colonel Herron had as manager of their mess a negro named William,generally abbreviated to Bill, who could scent a chicken at least a mileaway, and a concealed ham even though a load of hay had been piled ontop of it. In the same brigade was the Twenty-fifth Missouri, commandedby Colonel John S. Phelps. The latter officer rejoiced in a negronamed Jake, and he and Bill went together almost daily in a hunt forprovisions. Not infrequently they ventured beyond the lines, and on twoor three occasions had narrow escapes from capture.
One evening Bill gave the following account of the day’s performance:
“Me and Jake went out for to find suthin’, and I says to Jake thatchickens was gettin’ mighty sca’ce round yere. We went out on a sideroad off from de Fayetteville road, and while we wras at a house dereand trying to find out if dere was any chickens in de chicken-house, andif de man what owned de place was to home or not, we heern a noise.
“I looks out o’ de chicken-house, and down de road I sees some dust, andin dat dust I sees two or free dozen rebs. I jest says ‘Rebs’ to Jake,and him and me lit out o’ dat dere chicken-house and over behind derbarn and den we got out inter de road.
“De rebs dey comes up and stops at der house, and den me and Jake litout for camp. And yer jest ort to a-seen Jake run; dere nebber was anigger run like Jake did; he jest streaked it along ez if a tiger wasarter him, and mighty near cotchin’ him, too.”
Here Bill doubled himself up with laughing at the picture presented bythe swift-footed Jake. After laughing awhile he paused, and repeated hisbelief that Jake was, “de runnin’est nigger dat eber was know’d.”
“Well, what did you do, Bill?” said the general, when the negro stoppedlaughing long enough to permit the question to be edged in.
“Wot did I do? Wot do yer s’pose I did, Gineral? I jest retreated, fellback, alongside o’ Jake, and got inter camp’bout five minutes ahead ofhim.”
“And that’s the way of war,” the general remarked to the rest of theparty. “We retreat or fall back, but others run.”
Jack and Harry had a retreat of this sort one day when out in searchof a quantity of bacon that was said to be concealed in a barn severalmiles away. They did n’t get the bacon, but they did get a brush witha similar but larger party of the enemy, probably on the same baconianintent. Being in the minority, the union squadron retired in good thoughsomewhat rapid order, which was doubtless described afterward by therebels who witnessed it as a dead run. Harry admitted as much to afriend, but insisted that it was a retreat, and not a run for safety.
Rumors reached the army that the rebels had formed a camp abouttwenty-five miles south of Fayetteville, and were receivingreinforcements. The position at Cross Hollows was a strong one, andin view of the reports from the front General Curtis did not care toadvance, and thus abandon his very desirable camp. With an abundantsupply of water, and with the natural advantages of the ridges thatbounded the hollows, and on which his artillery was planted, he thoughtit best to wait there for the advance of the enemy rather than advanceto Fayetteville.
The front of the army was extended so that it covered a distance ofabout five miles, the camps being pushed out to the south of CrossHollows and the wings extended both ways from the line of the main road.General Sigel’s division was moved to Bentonville, several miles tothe west of Cross Hollows, in order to increase the opportunities offoraging for supplies and also to guard the roads in that direction.It was supposed that the advance of the main body of the enemy would bealong the main road, and only a small force would be sufficient to holdthe roads on the flanks. The rear of the union army was at Sugar Creek,and the quartermaster’s train, heavily laden with supplies, was alongthis creek and at Elkhorn Tavern, a country hotel, which derived itsname from a pair of antlers or elkhorns over the front entrance.
On the second and third of March several expeditions were sent out forthe purpose of collecting supplies and also of breaking up small campswhere the rebels were said to be recruiting. One of these expeditionswent in the direction of Pineville, Missouri, and arrived within half amile of the object of its search, when it received orders to return.It got back to camp without meeting the enemy, but it was afterwardascertained that it crossed the intersection of two roads only half anhour before a rebel division reached that spot in sufficient force tohave completely overwhelmed the little detachment.
Another detachment which went to Maysville, near the western boundaryof Arkansas, was completely cut off and compelled to march northward toavoid capture. A third expedition went to Huntsville, in Madison county,to break up a rebel camp; but it failed of its mission, as the rebelshad left two days before it arrived there.
Harry and Jack accompanied this expedition, and therefore we have aspecial interest in knowing how it turned out. We will let Harry tellthe story of their adventures.
“We were not a large party,” wrote Harry afterward; “only a thousandmen in all. There was a part of the Ninth Iowa and the Twenty-fifthMissouri, two companies of cavalry and two pieces of light artilleryfrom the Dubuque battery. General Vandever commanded the expedition, andwe expected to be away four or five days.
“We were two days getting to Huntsville, where we found the rebels thatwe were after had gone. Huntsville is an Arkansas county-seat of two orthree hundred inhabitants, and hardly an able-bodied man could be foundin the whole place; all were away fighting in the rebel ranks. Theprincipal store in the place was a whisky-shop, and the proprietorclaimed to be a union man. One of the officers, a captain, bought acanteen of whisky of him, and offered a United States treasury note inpayment.
“The man took the note and looked at it carefully. Then he returned it,saying he must have either gold or Confederate paper money.
“‘Isn’t this good enough?’ the captain asked.
“‘Good enough as long as you ‘uns are here,’ said the man; ‘but when youturn your backs the other fellows would hang me if I had that kind ofmoney.’
“Nobody had any Confederate paper, and the captain didn’t know what todo. He wanted the man’s whisky, as the weather was cold, but he knew thefellow was right about getting into trouble for having our money.
“Another of the officers had been in the first expedition toFayetteville, and happened to have in his pocket a whole sheet ofprivate ‘shinplasters,’ or promises to pay, that he picked up in aprinting-office in that town. He took the sheet from his pocket andasked if that was the kind of money the man wanted.
“‘Just the thing,’ said the whisky-dealer. ‘Give me one of them slipsand you can have a canteen of whisky for it.’
“The slip was cut from the sheet and handed over. The man’s attentionwas called to the fact that it had not been signed, but he declared itwas just as good, and nobody would know the difference.
“Another and another and another were cut off, and finally the wholesheet had been disposed of for canteens of bad whisky. Thensomebody fished out another sheet of the same sort of stuff, and thewhisky-dealer did a lively stroke of business as long as the paperlasted. Probably he worked it off on his neighbors and suffered no lossowing to the notes having been without signature.
“Well, we did n’t make many prisoners at Huntsville, but the few we didmake set us thinking pretty lively.
“We picked up four or five men of no particular consequence, and theywere examined apart from each other to make sure that they h
ad notpatched up lies to tell us. Next we picked up two men who had left therebel army only twenty-four hours before, for the reason that they hadno weapons and were simply useless mouths to feed.
“They gave us the startling intelligence that the rebels were alreadyadvancing to attack our army. They had left the camp about twenty-fivemiles south of Fayetteville, but not until they actually saw the troopsmarching out on the road to the north. They said there were thirtythousand of the rebels, and they were commanded by General Van Dorn.
“General Vandever immediately sent off a courier with this informationto General Curtis, and very soon afterward he gave the order to returnto camp. We went about six miles and then camped, but before we hadbeen in camp an hour we had a courier from General Curtis with the sameinformation and ordering our immediate return.
“General Vandever,” continued Harry, “gave orders for us to start out ofcamp at two o’clock and make a forced march to rejoin the main column.Do you know what a forced march is?
“Well, it’s something pretty tough when you have to make it, as it meansa march without any rest until it is ended. We had forty-one miles to gothat day, and it took us from two in the morning until ten at night, butwe did it. It was n’t so bad for the cavalry and artillery, as theyhad their horses, but it was terrible for the infantry. The word passedalong the lines that the enemy was on the road to attack us. GeneralVandever had great fears that the rebels knew of our expedition andwould try to cut us off at the crossing of the White river, and so hehurried on till he got the stream behind us. There was about three feetof water at the ford, and to save the infantrymen from getting theirfeet wet, and consequently sore, he crossed them over with the cavalry.An infantry soldier jumped up behind a cavalryman and was soon on theother side. Others climbea on the caissons of the artillery, and so bytwo trips of the cavalry the whole force was crossed over with dry feet.
“We only halted for about fifteen minutes at a time, and three times inall during that long day’s march. The infantrymen were completely tiredout when they got into camp, but they were ready for the battle the nextday, and they did good work, too, you may be sure.
“While we were on the march we met couriers that had been sent out byGeneral Curtis to tell us that fighting had already begun away on theright of our line where General Sigel was. They also told us that weshould find the center or main position at Sugar Creek, where the shapeof the ground was such as to give us a better defensive position thanthe one at Cross Hollows. General Curtis had decided to concentrate hisforces there as soon as he heard of the rebel advance, and the movementsof the various parts of the army had such a concentration in view.”
Not the least weary of these who took part in General Vandever’sexpedition on its return to camp were Harry and Jack. The noble-heartedyouths had done all they could to help along their comrades, and fornearly half the way they had loaned their horses to footsore infantrymenwho were unable to keep up with the column. Harry declared that a littleexercise would do him good. Jack shared his kindly feeling, and walkedbriskly along as though it was the greatest fun in the world. GeneralVandever said they were a pair of Mark Tapleys, who could be jolly underthe most adverse circumstances.
When they were yet four or five miles from camp the general sent Harryto give notice of the coming of the expedition and order a supperprepared for the weary men. Harry took his horse from the man who hadbeen riding it, and darted away as fast as he could go. The men in campset to work with a will, and when the expedition arrived a supper asgood as the army rations could supply was ready and waiting. Harrysatisfied his own hunger and secured a good meal for Jack, who was notlong in swallowing it; the horses were fed and watered, and then thepair of young veterans stretched themselves on the ground to get whatsleep they could before the breaking of day should be the signal forbattle.
While they are sleeping we will look at the organization of the twoarmies, and the plans on which the battle of Pea Ridge was fought.
As before stated, the army of General Curtis was about sixteen thousandstrong when it started from Rolla, but the number had been reduced byleaving a garrison at Springfield and by the other causes that alwaysreduce the strength of an army in the field, so that the aggregate ofeffective men ready for battle was little if any above ten thousand. Itwas in four divisions--the first being commanded by General Osterhaus,the second by General Asboth, the third by General Jeff C. Davis, andthe fourth by General Carr. Some of these officers had not then receivedtheir commissions as generals and were still known as colonels; but asthey all rose to the rank shortly afterward, it will be convenient andnot unjust for us to designate them by the higher titles, whose dutiesthey were performing.
Each division consisted of two brigades, but some of the brigades werevery small, and did not contain enough men for a full regiment. GeneralSigel was in command of the first and second divisions, and thus heldthe position of a field marshal, under the superior command of GeneralCurtis, the commander-in-chief. The infantry regiments thatwere in the battle of Pea Ridge on the union side were theTwenty-fifth, Thirty-fifth, Thirty-sixth, Thirty-seventh and Forty-fourthIllinois, the Eighth, Eighteenth, and Twenty-second Indiana, the Fourthand Ninth Iowa, and the Second, Ninth, Fifteenth, Twelfth, Seventeenth,Twenty-fifth and a part of the Third Missouri; of cavalry regimentsthere were the Third Iowa, the Third and Thirty-ninth Illinois, and theFirst, Fourth and Sixth Missouri together with two battalions of Bentonhussars, and Major Brown’s battalion of cavalry, which served as abody-guard to the general-in-chief. The artillery comprised about fiftyfield-guns of various sizes, in four and six-gun batteries, from thesame states as were represented by the infantry.
The rebel army was commanded by General Earl Van Dorn, and its aggregatewas said to be not far from thirty thousand men. Van Dorn’s army wascomposed as follows: Missouri troops, under Major-General SterlingPrice, about nine thousand; Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas troops, underBrigadier-General Ben McCulloch, about thirteen thousand; Choctaw,Cherokee, Chickasaw and other Indian troops, with two white regiments,under Brigadier-General Albert Pike, about seven thousand. No exactstatement of the number of rebel troops in the battle has ever beenpublished, but the above-named figures are not far from the correctones. An officer of Price’s army wrote an account of the battle, whichwas published in the Richmond _Whiff_. In this account he said therebels estimated their strength at thirty-five thousand, and makingall deductions for stragglers and the usual falling off on the line ofmarch, they had from twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand men to gointo action.
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