Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 2.

1 The Confederates gave it the general title of Battle of Elkhorn.

2 General Curtis reported his loss at 1,851 killed, wounded, and missing, of whom more than one-half (701) were of Colonel Carr's division. Among the slain was Colonel Hendricks. The loss of the Confederates was never reported. It could not have been less than that of the Nationals. Pollard (i. 277) says Van Dorn estimated his entire loss at “about 600.”

3 Van Dorn wrote to his superiors at Richmond, saying, “During the whole of this engagement I was with the Missourians under Price, and I have never seen better fighters than these Missouri troops, or more gallant leaders than General Price and his officers. From the first to the last shot, they continually rushed on, and never yielded an inch they had won; and when at last they had orders to fall back, they retired steadily and with cheers.”

In a stirring address to his troops from “Camp Pea Ridge,” a week after the battle, Sigel said:

You may look with pride on the few days just passed, during which you have so gloriously defended the flag of the Union. From two o'clock on the morning of the sixth, when you left McKissick's farm, until four o'clock in the afternoon of the ninth, when you arrived from Keitsville in the common encampment, you marched fifty miles, fought three battles, took not only a battery and a flag from the enemy, but more than one hundred and fifty prisoners. . . . You have done your duty, and you can justly claim your share in the common glory of this victory. But let us not be partial, unjust, or haughty. Let us not forget that alone we were too weak to perform the great work before us. Let us acknowledge the great services done by all the brave soldiers of the Third and Fourth divisions, and always keep in mind that “united we stand, divided we fall.” Let us hold out and push the work through — not by mere words and great clamor-but by good marches, by hardships and fatigues, by strict discipline and effective battles.

Columbus has fallen, Memphis will follow, and if you do in future as you have done in these days of trial, the time will soon come when you will pitch your tents on the beautiful shores of the Arkansas River, and there meet our own iron-clad propellers at Little Rock and Fort Smith. Therefore keep alert, my friends, and look forward with confidence.

4 According to the statement of eye-witnesses, and a correspondence between Generals Curtis and Van Dorn, commenced when the latter asked (March 9th) the privilege of burying his dead, the Indians, under Pike and Ross, tomahawked, scalped, and shamefully mangled the bodies of National soldiers. These Indians, many of whom claimed to be civilized, were maddened with liquor, it is said, before the battle of the 7th, that they might allow the savage nature of their race to have unchecked development. In their fury they respected none of the usages of war, but scalped the helpless wounded, and committed atrocities too horrible to mention. When Curtis made the charge against these allies of the insurgents, Van Dorn did not deny it, but sought to break its force by accusing the Germans in Curtis's army of murdering prisoners of war.

We have already observed (pages 474 to 477, inclusive, volume I.) how the conspirators had tampered with the civilized and half-civilized Indians in the regions bordering on Kansas and Texas, and how in August, 1861, the Cherokees tendered their support to the Confederate cause. That was after the battle of Wilson's Creek, which the emissaries of the Confederates made the Indians believe was an overwhelming defeat to the Unionists, and utter destruction of the National power in Missouri. The battle of Bull's Run was represented as a complete discomfiture of the Government; and the flight of the Union army from that field, and the death of Lyon, and the falling back of the Union troops in Missouri after the battle of Wilson's Creek, fixed the impression on the minds of the Indians that henceforth the Confederate Government would be the only legitimate and powerful one on which they could rely.

While Chief Ross and his associates were perplexed by indecision, Ben. McCulloch and his Texans, who, as we have seen, abandoned Price in Missouri, marched to the Indian border, and required the Creeks and Cherokees to decide immediately to which cause they would adhere, on penalty of having their country ravaged by 20,000 Texas and Arkansas troops. This produced the council at Tahlequah on the 20th of August, and the message of Chief Ross, printed on page 476, volume I. A large minority of both nations, led by the Creek Chief Opothleyolo; resisted the Confederates and their Indian adherents. Between these and the Indian insurgents a battle was fought on the 9th of December, 1861, on Bushy Creek, 180 miles west of Fort Smith, when Opothleyolo and his followers, as we have observed, were driven into Kansas. The Indian Territory was then left in the undisputed possession of the Confederates; and there it was that Pike collected about 4,000 warriors, who appeared in the Battle of Pea Ridge. This was the only battle in the war in which any considerable number of Indians were engaged; and it was agreed by the Confederate officers that they damaged their cause more than they aided it. Pike and his Indians soon afterward disappeared from the stage, and were not again summoned to action. In his official report, General Van Dorn does not mention that any assistance was derived from the plumed Pike and his dusky followers. That degenerate Bostonian (see note 1, page 475, volume I.) soon took off his Indian costume and was hidden in the shadows of obscurity until the close of the war, when he re-appeared for a moment as a suppliant for mercy, and was granted a full pardon by President Johnson.