The Pea Ridge Battle

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By CLYDE C. HAMMERS

A Keetsville Skirmish and Blockade Hollow

Published on the Occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of Pea Ridge March 7-8. 1962

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The Pea Ridge Battle By CLYDE C. HAMMERS

A Keetsville Skirmish and Blockade Hollow

Published on the Occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of Pea Ridge March 7-8, 1962

Wesipori Priniing Company Kansas Cuy. Mo.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE "A Keetsville Skirmish" is published here for the first time. The other stories appeared in the Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader as

feature

articles. They

have been revised by the author for this Centennial booklet. The Pea Ridge piece is offered as a sketch and not as a fully developed study of the battle.

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CONTENTS 1 The Pea Ridge Battle 2 A Keetsville Skirmish 3 Blockade Hollow

The Pea Ridge Battle HE Cox and Scott families owned and occupied Elkhorn Tavern 127 years. An account of the battle of Pea Ridge, or Elkhorn Tavern as ;::Outherners call it, can fittingly begin with a reference to these longtime occupants. Mrs. Frances Cox Scott was born in the tavern and lived there throughout her long lifetime. Her Civil War museum attracted thousands of visitors. Shortly before her death in 1960 at the age of 95', she sold the tavern and the 200-acre homestead to the stat e of Arkansas. It will form the nucleus of the Pea Ridge Historical Military Park. Mrs. Scott's grandfather, Jesse C. Cox, came to Arkansas from Tennessee, homesteaded the land and built the first tavern in 1833. For 30 years before the war it was a community center, used as a trading post and post office, as well as a hotel and eating place for stagecoach travelers. The Federal and Confederate ~ommanders used the tavern alternately as headquarters as the fortooe of battle changed. The family found refuge in the large cellar nnder the honse. A few months after the battle the tavern was burned by bushwhackers. The Cox family had moved to Southern Arkansas, but rettrrned at the end of the war. Mrs. Scott's father, Joseph C. Cox, built the present tavern in 1865 on the original foundation.

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N January, 1862, President Jefferson Davis appointed Major General Earl Van Dorn to the command of the Trans-Mississippi department of the Confederacy. Van Dorn, already at Pocahontas, Ar-

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kansas, proceeded to the Boston Mountain region south of Fayetteville, where the Confederate Army was in winter quarters. It was under the command of Maj. Gen. Ben McCulloch, who was in charge of Western Arkansas and Indian Territory. Under McCulloch's command were two Arkansas leaders, Brig. Gen. James McIntosh and Brig. Gen. Albert Pike, the latter in charge of three regiments of Indians. McCulloch's force of about 10,000 men was joined in February by Maj. Gen. Sterling Price and his 6,500 Misgouri Guards, r etreating from Springfield. This was the army t.hat Van Darn led north on the Fayetteville-Bentonville road to meet the Federals at Pea Ridge, its ad"ance guard arriving at Elm Springs on March 5, 1862 (25 miles southwest of Elkhorn Tavern.) The Federal commander, Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Cur-· tis, having pursued Price from Missouri was already at Pea Ridge with an army of 10,000 men in scattered camps. Many of the Federals were Missourians, but the majority were from Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and other northern st.ates.
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hotel for breakfa~t and was surprised and all but captured by the advancing Confederates. Gen. Price's cavalry under Col. Elijah Gates attacked Sigel as he hurried out of Bentonville. It was a day of hard skirmishing. Sigel had to stop every few minutes to fight the rebels off ano keep them from surrounding him. His plight was discovered by Federal scouts. Ashoth and Osterhaus returned with their two divisions by forced march, arriving at dusk just in time to save the exhausted rear guard. There was a small artillery fight, ending with darkness, and Sigel and his men went on to the Federal camp south of Elkhorn Tavern.

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HE Confederate Army swung northeast on the

Bentonville-Keetsville road, in effect marching around Curtis ano approaching from the north and in Curtis's rear. The Federals had blockaded the Wire Road and much of the wooded area by cutting trees. Van Dorn divided his army, placing the right and larger wing just north of Leetown (two miles southwest of Elkhorn Tavern). These were the Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana troops, plus Gen. Pike's Indian regiment-all under Gen. McCulloch, with Gen. McIntosh commanding the cavalry. The other half of the army, including all of Price's Missouri Guards, continued to struggle for position throughout the night of March 6. Their flank movement was a slow and tort.uous operation because of the fallen timber. Price's official report tells the story: "Toward evening we bivouacked as if for the night within 5 to 6 miles of the enemy, but resumed the line of march at 8 p.m., and, in spite of the impediments with which the enemy had sought to obstruct our way, r eached a position on the Telegraph road to the north and in the rear of the enemy's position. A march of about 2 miles (south) along the deep valley through which the road leads, brought us within view of the -7_

plateau upon which the enemy were posted, and which lay to the north of the Elkhorn Tavern." It was 10 A.M. when Van Dorn and Price reached their position to begin the battle. Outmaneuvered and his frontal preparations made useless, Gen. Curtis faced his army to the rear, with his left on Sugar Creek and his right on the tavern. The Union Army. though Rmaller, was well-fed and r~.qted, having been in the vicinity several days; the Confederates were weary and hungry. This was the setting on the morning of March 7th. In the next two d'lvsgome of the bitterest fighting of the Civil War swirled around Elkhorn Tavern and on the two-mile prairie field to Leetown. The wonder is that the old inn was not destroyed, and that the refugee family in the cellar beneath it was unharmed. The fight began at midmorning, both sides t hrowing in their full power. Until late afternoon the Confederates seemed to sweep everything before them. With Van Dorn and Price on one side and McCulloch and his well-trained veterans on the other, there seemed no escape for Curtis. Late in the day Van Dorn was writing a dispatch to McCulloch urging him to throw all his force at the enemy, Price would close in at the rear and the fight would be over before dark. The dispatch was not sent. A courier arrived and announced that McCulloch and McIntosh had been killed, and Col. Louis Hebert, who led Louisiana and Arkansas infantry, had been captured. McCulloch had fallen in a bloody cavalry charge. McIntosh took command and was killed in the same manner an hour later. The pressure against Curtis to the west gave way. Thus the deaths of two Confederate generals created a panic and destroyed the power of half the Southern forces. Gen Pike took command and attempted to withdraw in order, but the movement became a rout. Late that night McCulloch's demoralized command ar·9-

rived at Price's camp; they were without ammunition, their wagons having gone by some mistake to Bentonville. A disorganized regiment of Indians had fled toward Indian Territory. ESPITE the Confederate debacle at Leetown, Gen. Curtis aml his division commanders were gloomy as they met at midnight in the general's tent. They had been pushed back at every point on the Elkhorn Tavern sector. Van Dorn and Price had taken Pea Ridge and the area below it and had extended their lines a mile east of the Wire Road. They occupied the tavern where dead men were stacked on the porch. Not one of Curtis's subordinates was hopeful of victory. Sigel, whose forte was retreats, declared an orderly withdrawal was the only way out. Curtis agreed that the advantage was with the enemy, but retreat without a fight would not be considered. The threat on the left was gone; he would unite both wings of the army and make one mighty thrust. Fatigued from his hard skirmishing on the Sugar Creek road, Sigel had taken little part in the battle on the 7th. Curtis's impatience with Sigel had mounted all day. Now at the midnight COUJ1cil he ordered the little German to make the artillery charge at dawn. There was equal uncertainty at Van Dorn's headquarters. The day's sucess at the tavern was overshadowed by McCulloch's tragedy . . . The reinforcement of a greatly weakened foe could now spell defeat for the Southerners. Price's MissouriaL'ls, however, ~nticipated an easy victory; they had not been told of the loss of McCulloch and Mdntosh. On the night of March 7th both armies rested among their dear:!. Early the next morning Gen. Price led a vigorous attack on the Union lines, his initiative enabling Sigel to learn the artillery range perfectly. Forty Federal cannon, merging Curtis's artillery for the first time, began to belch fire. When the first line of

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Confederates on low ground evacuated their positions, Sigel moved closer and blasted the enemy's batteries on the ridge, Van Dorn's replacements were destroyed as fast as they appeared. Early in the day Van Dorn and Priee realized defeat was inevitable and their operation became a cover for withdrawa:! . They started their wagon trains on the roads to Huntsville and Van Buren. Nevertheless, the fight was the fiercest of the battle, In the next century old men who were boys in 1862 would recall the furioUIS cannonading heard 40 miles away. Superior fire power in both artillery and small arms won the day for the Federals. By midmorning Curtis observed t.he enemy gradually retiring. Fighting as they withdrew, they moved over Pea Ridge and into the hollows north of Elkhorn Tavern. By 11 o'clock the battle was over and most of the vanquished army retreated on the roads south and east. Some of the Missouri cavalry under Captain Jo Shelby went north on the Wire Rood to Keetsville.

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RAGEDY stalked the Confederate high command

to the end. Brig. Gen. William Y. Slack of Chillicathie, Mo., fell mortally wounded just before the battle ended, Young Captain Churchill Clark of St. Louis, later rated as one of the top artillerists of the Confederacy, was killed in the last minutes of the contest. Gen. Price was wounded. Another Missourian, J 0 Shelby, a captain on Price's staff, survived to become a famous general in the Confederate Cavalry. There were heroes aplenty on both sides. On the first day Col. Eugene A. Carr of the Union Army commanded a division facing Price. For seven hours without relief or reinforcements becaMe they could not be spared, he bore the brunt of the Confederate attack, Half of all the Union casualties were from Carr's division. Carr and Gen. Asboth were wounded. Gen, Jeff. C. Davis was outstanding in command of Union reserves. -1 1_

Both commanders were criticized for their strategy; Curtis because he failed to pursue and destroy the retreating army, Van Dorn for dividing his superior force into two parts. A friendly critic suggested that Van Dorn's greatest mistake was in choosing to remain with Price instead of McCulloch. McCulloch was an able and experienced general. He was the chief commander in the victory at Wilson's Creek. As a young man he had won distinction in the Mexican war, and his long training in the Texas Rangers had made him an expert marksman. When his body was found there was a rifle in his hands; apparently he had given way to an impulse to join his men in a cavalry charge. Even the weather report for these tragic days is interesting. On March 5th there was snow; next day the snow ceased but there was bitter cold. March 7th was chilly and that night there was great suffering from cold as the young soldiers on both sides lay down to rest without fires. The night after the battle warm air moved in and next day it was raining. A newsman with the Union side wrote sentimentally of it as "the forgiveness of NatU!l'e - the rain washing the blood away."

The Union losses were 1384 killed and wounded. The Confederate loss was never officially announced, but was estimated at 800 to 1000 killed and wounded, and 300 missing. Most of the dead were eventually removed to Fayetteville, Ark., and Springfield, Mo. Gen. McIntosh rests with many other Confederate dead at Ft. Smith. Gen. McCulloch's body was sent at once on a 33-day journey by ambulance to his home at Austin, Texas. Missouri's ill-fated leader, Gen. William Slack is buried in the Confederate cemetery at Fayetteville. There are no graves at Pea Ridge, but the field is marked by two marble shafts. One of the tall monuments honors both the blue and the gray; the other commemorates the Confederate dead and bears the -12-

names of the three generals who fell. For many years after the war the battlefield and tavern attracted public interest to an extent hardly to he imagined by the present generation. Joseph Cox, owner of Elkhorn Tavern, estimated that in three years after the Frisco railroad was built in 1880, five tons of shot, shells and bullets had been carried away as souverurs.

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FOOTNOTES T.J7:HAT was the result of the battle? For a cer;ainty , it kept Missouri in the Union. If Van Dorn " had conquered the Federal Army and marched up through Missouri to occupy St. Louis and control the two great rivers, the story would be quite different. To be sure, Missouri had plenty of war the next three years. Guerrillas and bushwhackers took over, and the exiled Missouri Cavalry made sporadic incursions into the state. But not until the fall of 1864 when Price made his futile campaign through the state was there a serious Confederate threat .

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The "ifs" on Pea Ridge are interesting ... If there had been no feud between Ben McCulloch and Sterling Price .•. if they had been able to cooperate .• • If the Confederate Army had hurled itself in one solid phalanx at the enemy •.. The difference between Price and McCulloch developed at Wilson's Creek where McCulloch was in over-all command. After their victory, Price urged pursuit of t.he Federal Army as it retreated from Springfield toward Rolla. Gen. McCulloch opposed this move. He had brought his army reluctantly to Springfield, arguing that Missouri had not seceded and was not a part of the Confederacy, and that Texas and Arkansas troops should not be in t he state. There was also friction over rank. Immediately after Wilson's Creek McCulloch withdrew to Arkansas. Their quarrel was the -13-

real reason President Jefferson Davis put Van Dorn in command at Pea Ridge. And Van Dorn chose to divide the army in baUle fonnation, possibly because of discord between two brilliant leaders•

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There ig evidence that Gen. Curtis was annoyed when Sigel failed to arrive from Bentonville on time. His pique changed to exultation when Sigel's inspired command of artillery finally changed the course of battle ... Private Peter Pelican, a sharpshooter in the Illinois infantry, discovered he had killed Gen. McCulloch when he examined the general's gold watch and pistols . . . Arkansas's lamented hero, Gen. McIntosh, had never been in the state until a few months before the battle. He was a brother of the famous Gen. John B. McIntosh of the Union Army .

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With the exception of two well-disciplined regiments of Cherokees and Creeks, the Indians proved unmanageable. In the excitement of battle, a few resorted to their savage instinct of scalping. Curtis's protest was countered by Van Dorn's charge of "hired Hessians" in Sigel's battalions. Sigel, a German refugee who settled in St. Louis, attracted hundreds of his countrymen to the Union service. Van Dorn asserted these foreign professional soldiers used an unorthodox battle knife in close combat fighting and in mutilating Confederate prisoners.

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Wild Bill Hickok, 25 years old, served as a scout for Gen. Curtis and had a horse killed under him. A biographer says Wild Bill was one of Curtis's corps ot couriers "who kept on the run for two days behind the battle line, jumping rail fences, jerking their horses to a halt before various regimental headquarters." Hickok was already a notorious killer, but he never used his guns at Pea Ridjfe. _14-

A Keetsville Skirmish I I

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FIGHT at Keetsville (now Washburn) merited the official attention of a Union general, and his report, titled "A Skirmish at KeetsviIIe, Barry County, Missouri," makes lively reading. The fight occurred on February 25, 1862, ten days before the battle of Pea Ridge. Five hundred Confederate cavalrymen, mostly Texas Rangers led by Major L.S. Ross, rode from their camp in the Boston Mountains in Arkansas and made a midnight raid on the Union force that held Keetsville. Their objective was to destroy a Federal supply train enroute to Pea Ridge. Just how 500 riders got through or around the extended Federal lines in the busy Pea Ridge area is not e.xplained. One report says the Rangers came up "east of the Wire Road"-which could mean they rode by way of Berryville and what is now Gateway and Seligman, and through Blockane Hollow to KeetsviIIe. The Confederate report in the official records throws no light on this point. It is stated briefly and in glowing terms by Major Ross's commanding officer, Col. B. Warren Stone of the Sixth Texas Cavalry: "Major L. S. Roso of my command was called to take a scouting party in rear of the enemy and cut off his train and annoy his rear. This duty was most gallantly performed by att.acking a portion of the enemy's army at Keetsville, killing 25 of his number, capturing 9, and destroying much of his train and commissary supplies. The major returned with wearied, conquering heroes from the field without the loss of a man, although

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he met the very blaze of their guns only a few feet distant." Colonel Stone's report is dated April 14, 1862, at Des Are, Arkansas. General Samuel R. Curtis, who would soon be the· victorious Union leader at Pea Ridge, and Colonel Clark Wright of the Sixth Missouri Cavalry, tell the story of Keetsville in greater detail in their official report published in "War of the Rebellion." The routine account takes unusual tone and color in that Col. Wright, ·a lmost in desperation, lashes out at the people of Keetsville. In conclusion he puts it up to the general: "r desire to know hy return messenger what to do with .the town and the people of Keetsville. It is the worst hole in all this country." Reporting to his adjutant, Gen. Curtis states that "a cavalry force of Texas Rangers turned my flank and surprised Captain Montgomery at Keetsville, killing two men, taking 60 or 70 horses, and burning some five sutler wagons." Then foIlows the detailed eomment of Col. Wright from headquarters at CassviIle, dated February 27, 1862. Wright, coming by forced marches from Camp HaIleck in Arkansas, found that Oaptain Montgomery, in charge at KeetsviIle, had faIlen back to CassviIle. Montgomery reported that at 11 o'clock On the night of the attack, 500 mounted men, believed to be Texas Rangers, rode in upon the Keetsville camp from both sides, capturing the picket and guards and firing upon the men asleep in camp. The captain rallied his men on foot and put up a fight. "A portion of our men were cut off," says Wright's. report, "but the remainder stood their ground and three times repulsed the enemy. After about twenty minutes, however, the enemy's superior force being about to surround our force, the captain fell back under cover of the brush and maintained his position and held the town, the enemy retiring." Captain Montgomery and a part of his men with·1 a.

drew to Cassville for assistance, leaving a lieutenant in charge at Keetsville. The next morning all answered at roll call but three... "one private, a sentinel, shot dead, another mortally wounded (since dead), and one supposed to be taken prisoner. Our horses were all cut loose and stampeded, but all have been recovered bu~ about 40." The enemy loss, according to the Federal report, was three killed and one prisoner. The prisoner stated that the Confederates had ten wounded "that he knows of." Col. Wright learned from the prisoner that the Rangers were commanded by Major Ross of Sherman, Texas. There were eight fujI companies, all Texans except three Missouri companies from General McBride's division. The Missouri troops were under Captains Bird, Smith and Davis. After the attack the raiders went south on the Wire Road, and at Harbin's (a mile south of Keetsville) they captured ten prisoners, a sutler and a teamster, "burning three wagons before the door." They cooked breakfast six miles southeast of Harbin's and let it be known that they were headed for their camp in the Boston Mountains. The fact that they breakfasted six miles southeast of Harbin's, which would have been in Missouri and near present-day Seligman, indicates they left the Wire Road and flanked the enemy on the east, probably getting back to the Berryville road or taking little-used roads and trails. OL. WRIGHT'S interesting report concliudes with special attention to the rebel town of Keetsville. "I also learn," he says, "that the citizens of Keetsville all knew of the attack being made, and communicated intelligence to the enemy, and purposely kept all knowledge of it from Captain Montgomery, and in the afternoon before the fight the ladies all left the town, one at a time, and that at the time of the attack all were out; and many other circumstances

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prove conclusively that the citizens are to all intents and purposes a part of the attacking party, there being no exception ." These Southern sympathizers soon paid heavily. Confederate power in Southwest Missouri was never restored after the defeat at Pea Ridge. Many families went to Texas, and practically all Confederate homes in the Keetsville-CassviIIe valley were burned. This destruction also extended along the Wire Road into Aransas. A glimpse of Keetsville nine months later is in an unknown Union soldier's diary, published in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Spring 1959. The diarist writes: "Camp near Cassville, Mo., Nov. 5, 1862. Left camp at 7 o'clock A.M. 9 :30 A.M. passed the Ark. line into Mo. We are following the road we passed over in Oct. on our outward march. I found Keetsville pretty much de.s troyed. . . if revenge was what our troops wished and this the kind they sought, it certainly has been complete. . . Distance today 23 miles." The diary, believed to have been written by a member of the 19th Iowa Infantry, was found on the Prairie Grove battlefield in December, 1862. Today, what was KeetsvlIle in the 1860s consists of a number of well-kept homes and a few filling stations on either side of Highway 37 (the Old Wire Road). The town moved a half mile west when the Frisco railroad was built, leaving Keetsville to be called "old town." After the war the name was changed to Washburn, honoring the community's earliest pioneer. Keetsville was named for J. T. Keet, one of the first merchants to locate there.

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"A SKIRMISH AT KEETSVILLE" AND "BLOCKADE HOLLOW" N

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KEETSVILLE (WASHBURN)

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Blockade Hollow WHO BLOCKADED THE ROAD?

LOCKADE Hollow is in Missouri 12 miles north of the Pea Ridge battle site and has a direct connection with the battle. The historical aspect of this subject is well established in fact and has come down as a legend for a century. One of the armies felled trees across the road in this deep hollow to block the advance of the other army. At this point there is disagreement. There are those who stick to the legend that General Sterling Price's Confederates cut the trees as they retreated from Springfield to Arkansas in February 1862. Others believe it was the Federals under General Samuel R. Curtis who blockaded the road. Both sides of the question will be discussed here. Locally, there is a haze of uncertainty on this interesting bit of history. Blockade Hollow and five miles of road from Washburn to Seligman remain the same after a century. The road is a part of the "Bentonville to Keetsville" road, so designated in all the accounts to distinguish it from the Wire Road. Branching from the Wire Road at Keetsville (Washburn), this road ran in a southeasterly direction two miles through the deep canyon or hollow. Then, trending south, it continued paralle to the Wire Road, just a few miles apart. Where Seligman is today, the road turned southwest and intercepted the Wire Road in Sugar Creek V·alley four miles north of Elkhorn Tavern.

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But who cut the trees? A careful examination of the records, obscure though they are, indicates that the Federal Army felled the trees across Blockade Hollow Road. It was done in the first days of March, 1862, after Price had gone south, and as Curtis and his strong Federal force dug in for battle around Pea Ridge. In "War of the Rebellion" (Series 1, volume 8), the official records give an account of the movements of both armies. General Curtis reported to General Halleck in St. Louis (m February 22 that he had "forced without great trouble Cross Timber Hollow, a defile of ahout ten miles in length across the MissouriArkansas State Line." There was no mention of trees felled an~'Where by the Confederates. To be sure, Blockade Hollow is several miles north of this area. But Curtis continues " ... the road from Fayetteville by Bentonville to Keetsville also comes up Sugar Creek Valley; a branch, however, takes off and runs nearly parallel to the main or Telegraph Road, some three miles from it" (Blockade Hollow Road). General Curtis then states that the Third and Fourth divisions had "before noon on the 6th (of March) deployed their Jines and cut down a large number of trees which thoroughly blockaded the roads on the left (of the Wire Road). Later in the day I directed some of the same work to be done on the right (Keetsville or Blockade Hollow Road). This work was in charge of Colonel Dl)d[l"e, who felled trees on the road which runs parallel to the main road to which I have before referred." When Price was driven from Springfield he retreated to the Hoston Mountains where he joined a larger Confederate Army under General Earl Van Dorn. Van Dorn's objective was to retake Missouri and march to St. Louis. Curtis expected the Confederates to use all the roads in their drive northward. Hence the cutting of trees by the Federals across the roads, which -21_

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could have included the densely-wooded hollow near Washburn. MORt of these defenses were never used, excepting those immediately north of the battlefield. The Confederates retreated, for the most part, on roads south and east of Pea Ridge. The National Archives and Records Service in Washington suggested the hook, "War of the Rebellion," as the best authority On this subject. General Price's reports are in the same volume, and nowhere does he mention blockading the road as he went south. Lewis Atherton, professor of history and director of Historical M'a nuscripts at Missouri University, also examined these sources, and concluded: "We believe the answer to your inquiry is that Federal forces blockaded the road in 'Blockade Hollow' on the eve of the battle of Pea Ridge." However, this article is not meant to be conclusive, but is written to point up the official records. And to repeat, the recorrls "indicate" that the Federals cut the trees . . . The historian's quotation is not dogmatic"We believe the Federals blockaded the road." In the absence of pORitive knowledge, there is room for other opinions than the one expressed here. Confederate descendants cherish a century-old tradition that Price's soldiers blockaded the road. The best evidence this writer has found is a letter (in "War of the Rebellion") from General Price to Governor Claiborne F. Jackson, who himself had been driven from Jefferson City. The letter was dated February 25, 1862, at Camp on Cove Creek, Ark., in the Boston Mountains. After recounting the necessity for retreat, Price continues: "I reached Cassville with loss unworthy of mention in any respect. Here the enemy in my rear commenced a series of attacks running through four days. Retreating and fighting all the way to the Cross Hollow, in this state, I am rejoiced to say my command, under the most exhausting fatigue all ,the time, with ·22.

but little rest for either man or horse and no sleep, sustained themselves and came through, repulsing the enemy upon every occasion with great determination and gallantry. My loss does not exceed four or six killed, and some 15 to 18 wounded ... " (Price adds that the enemy's loss was considered "to be ten times as great.") Cross Hollow is just across the Arkansas State Line, 20 miles from Cassville. Price's men fought a rear guard retreat, "running through four days," over this area. This could have been when the trees were cut, but there is no mention of it in Price's letter, nor in the numerous reports of his supordinate officers. (The following is a rebuttal, written and published t,wo months later.) HE discussion concerning Blockade Hollow produced a statement that a group of Confederates retreated north from Pea Ridge on the Wire Road. At Keetsville they turned southeast on the Blockade Road to get back into Arkansas, and are "generally credited with having placedthe obstruction at Blockade." This is interesting and could well be the way the hollow was blockaded. But where is the exact authority for this claim? The contention that the Confederates cut the trees seems to be steeped in legend and folklore. "They are generally credited, etc." Nothing definite and exact is offered to support it. Here there is a total lack of tangible record and nobody so far has produced the actual facts. selected the level area south General Curtis and west of Elkhorn Tavern as a suitable place for battle, and, as he waited for the Confederate Army to move up from south of Fayetteville, he had time to prepare. We have Curtis's statement that in these few days he blockaded the roads "thoroughly" on the left of the Wire Road (toward Bentonville). He was so well

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could have included the densely-wooded hollow near Washburn. Most of these defenses were never used, excepting those immediately north of the battlefield. The Confederates retreated , for the most part, on roads south and east of Pea Ridge. The National Archives and Records Service in Washington suggested the book, "War of the Rebellion," as the best authority on this subject. General Price's reports are in the same volume, and nowhere does he mention blockading the road as he went south. Lewis Atherton, professor of history and director of Historical Manuscripts at Missouri University, also examined these sources, and concluded: "We believe the answer to your inquiry is that Federal forces blockaded the road in 'Blockade Hollow' on the eve of the battle of Pea Ridge." However, this article is not meant to be conclusive, but is written to point up the official records. And to repeat, the recorrls "indicate" that the Federals cut the trees ... The historian's quotation is not dogmatic"We believe the Federals blockaded the road." In the absence of positive knowledge, there is room for other opinions than the one expressed here. Confederate descendants cherish a century-old tradition that Price's soldiers blockaded the road. The best evidence this writer has found is a letter (in "War of the Rebellion") from General Price to Governor Claiborne F. Jackson, who himself had been driven from Jefferson City. The letter was dated February 25, 1862, at Camp on Cove Creek, Ark., in the Boston Mountains. After recounting the necessity for retreat, Price continues: "I reached Cassville with loss unworthy of mention in any respect. Here the enemy in my rear commenced a series of attacks running through four days. Retreating and fighting all the way to the Cross Hollow, in this state, I am rejoiced to say my command, under the most exhausting fatigue all ,the time, with ·22-

but little rest for either man or horse and no sleep, sustained themselves and came through, repulsing the enemy upon every occasion with great determination and gallantry. My loss does not exceed four or six killed, and some 15 to 18 wounded ... " (Price adds that the enemy's loss was considered "to be ten times as great.") Cross Hollow is just across the Arkansas State Line, 20 miles from Cassville. Price's men fought a rear guard retreat, "running through four days," over this area. This could have been when the trees were cut, but there is no mention of it in Price's letter, nor in the numerous reports of his supordinate officers. (The following is a rebuttal, written and published t,wo months later.) HE discussion concerning Blockade Hollow produced a statement that a group of Confederates retreated north from Pea Ridge on the Wire Road. At Keetsville they turned southeast on the Blockade Road to get back into Arkansas, and are "generally credited with having placedthe obstruction at Blockade." This is interesting and could well be the way the hollow was blockaded. But where is the exact authority for this claim? The contention that the Confederates cut the trees seems to be steeped in legend and folklore. "They are generally credited, etc." Nothing definite and exact is offered to support it. Here there is a total lack of tangible record and nobody so far has produced the actual facts. General Curtis selected the level area south and west of Elkhorn Tavern as a suitable place for battle, and, as he waited for the Confederate Army to move up from south of Fayetteville, he had time to prepare. We have Curtis's statement that in these few days he blockaded the roads "thoroughly" on the left of the Wire Road (toward Bentonville). He was so well

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pleased with the work that on the day before the battle he ordered the Keetsville road on the right blockaded in the same way. This could have extended to Blockade Hollow. In case his army was defeated and overrun, as the Federals had been at Wilson's Creek six months earlier, he wanted to make sure the enemy would be halted on the roads leading into Missouri. A study of the Curtis report leads to this conclusion. The Northwest Arkansas Times, in its centennial issue in June, 1960, carried a detailed story of the battle of Pea Ridge. Emphasis was placed on the elaborate defenses Curtis made by felling trees on the roads to the north-defenses that were largely wasted because most of the Confederates retreated in the opposite direction. Nevertheless, a comparatively small segment, separated on the north from the main Confederate command, ·did retreat north. General Curtis reported after the battle: "The foe is scattered in all directions, but I think Ius main force has returned to the Boston Mountains. General Sigel followed toward Keetsville, while my cavalry is pursu.ing him (the enemy) toward the mountains." And from Sigel's report: "Arrived at Keetsville with the greatest portion of my command. I found that one part of the enemy turned the Roaring Ri ver and Berryville road while others had turned to the left." Here is an interesting point. Sigel says he gave up the chage at Keetsville and returned to Pea Ridge. Had he followed the fleeing "rebels" toward Roaring River and Berryville he would have gone through Blockade Hollow, and if the retreating soldiers blockaded the road at tlus time, we would have it in Sigel's report. As it is, we have obscure legend and historical records that are unclear and baffling. This discussion in the press attracted the attention of the State Historical Society of Missouri at Columbia. -24.

r The Society's survey committee, interested in examining the merits of historical spots in the state, is studying the data on Blockade Hollow and may, in time, answer the question posed at the beginning of this story.