A Mile of Icy Ground

The battle for a mile of icy ground at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, was a compelling mix of fate, military principle and human folly, set in harsh conditions with a colorful cast of characters. Though not as well known as other key battles of the Civil War, Pea Ridge shaped all that followed in the West.

Aiming to secure Missouri's loyalty to the Union, Brigadier General Samuel R. Curtis rousted a number of rebels led by Maj. General Sterling Price from Missouri, sending them running for Arkansas late in the winter of 1861-62. Price's rebels found refuge in a Confederate camp led by Brigadier General Ben McCulloch. Price, a former Governor of Missouri, thought McCulloch a crude, unrefined frontiersman. McCullouch, a former Texas Ranger, had equally little use for Price, a pompous politician.

Hoping to end their bickering, President Jefferson Davis sent Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn to command Confederate forces west of the Mississippi. An experienced leader of lightly equipped, fast marching cavalry raids, Van Dorn faced something entirely different in the West - command of infantry, artillery, and the accompanying supply train. He moved with confidence, obsessed with the elements of surprise and speed. He wrote to his wife "I must have St. Louis and then huzzah!"

On a cold morning in March, he moved the army forward into driving snow. Each man carried only his blanket, a rifle, and forty rounds of ammunition. The rest was left behind in slow moving wagons. Van Dorn drove the army hard, although he rode in an ambulance wagon due to a fever. "Van Dorn forgot that he was riding and we were walking," commented one soldier.

At the end of the next day, the last of the cold rations were eaten - a few dried biscuits and some parched corn. The army sacrificed fences for firewood. The wagons full of supplies, including tents and ammunition, were far behind. The army was alone in the frigid night air. Meanwhile, Curtis heard of Van Dorn's movement, and tried to anticipate his movements. He was wrong, but moved quickly to mirror Van Dorn.

As the battle commenced, the men questioned Van Dorn's tactics. It had been over twenty-four hours since anyone had anything to eat. Price and McCulloch joined together to ask for rest and food for their troops. Instead, Van Dorn ordered a night march, intending to surprise Curtis. At 8:00 p.m., the march began, leaving a trail of broken, exhausted, freezing men. Even dividing the army, letting McCulloch's slower troops take a shorter route, was to no avail.

Union men were waiting. They attacked the Confederates before they could reunite. McCulloch was killed, and his troops were pushed off the battlefield. About two miles away, Van Dorn and his men gained a mile of frozen ground, their breath visible in the icy winter air. When the fighting ceased for the night, Curtis, intent on driving the rebels out once and for all, distributed food and ammunition to his men. Van Dorn made little effort to prepare his men for another day's fighting.

What occurred the next morning was one of the few battles of the Civil War in which artillery played an important offensive role. Southern infantry fell back into the woods, only to find trees exploding around them, and falling branches adding to the danger of flying iron. One Confederate later said he "… thought the day of judgment had come." Another wrote to his wife that he "… didn't know how any of us got out alive."

Curtis and his men charged across the mile they had lost the previous day. "A charge of infantry like that has never been seen on this continent," Curtis wrote, "It was the most terrible and magnificent thing I ever saw."
Unknown to Curtis, the bulk of the Confederate army had retreated east earlier that morning. In the crowning error of a rebel campaign riddled with administrative failures, Van Dorn failed to order his supply train forward, and so was left with no ammunition.

The Union victory on that icy mile at Pea Ridge crushed the Confederacy's best chance to invade Missouri and draw the state out of the Union. The balance of power in the West shifted. Federal troops could now deploy down the Mississippi River and split the Confederacy in half.

The final battle at
Elkhorn Tavern