Col. John M. Harrell, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 10.2, Arkansas
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

General Van Dorn was at Pocahontas when, February 23d, he received dispatches informing him of the retreat of Price, followed by Curtis and Sigel, and the battle of Sugar Creek. Van Dorn immediately sent McCulloch orders to form a junction with Price without loss of time, to which McCulloch sent reply, March 1st, that he had ordered the command to march, as soon as the commanding general should arrive, with six days cooked rations, and awaited his arrival anxiously. He appended to this note a memorandum of his actual effective strength: Hebert's brigade, 4,637; Greer's brigade, 3,747; total, 8,384. Artillery, 18 guns.

McCulloch's command marched the next day across Boston mountains to Elm Springs, Ark., where it would be joined by General Van Dorn and the Indian forces of Gen. Albert Pike, who had been given command of the department of the Indian Territory, November 22d. The main body of Price's Missouri State Guard was camped near Elm Springs. The march of the division over the Boston mountains was toilsome and slow. It reached the place of rendezvous on the 3d, where the commanding general had arrived,

On the 4th of March, without waiting for General Pike, Van Dorn moved out for Bentonville, where Sigel, with his Germans, had arrived and taken possession. Two bodies of cavalry, one under McIntosh and one under Gates, were pushed forward, the former to go around the town on the west, the latter on the east, in an effort to cut off Sigel from the main body of the enemy at Sugar creek. But McIntosh found the country north of Bentonville so rough with rocks, ravines and mountains, guarded by a natural cheval-de-frise of small oaks and black-jacks, that he could not hope to form a junction with Gates. Coming upon the Federals in force on these heights, and being fired upon from an ambuscade, he made an effort to charge the enemy in position, but the ground was impracticable for cavalry, and he drew back