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[34] by their White officers in trying to keep them in line at the front, probably overbalanced tile total value of their services; so that, if they chose to depart for their homes soon after the close of the battle, it is not probable that any strenuous efforts were made to detain them.1

Gen. Curtis, after resting and refitting his army, finding no enemy in its vicinity, again put his column in motion, proceeding S. S. E. through north-western Arkansas to Batesville,2 on White river, near which point he had expected to meet gunboats with supplies from below. He found the river, however, at an unusually low stage for the season — barely four feet; while the gunboats required six or seven; beside which, the Mound City, which attempted the ascent, had been resisted and blown up in a fight with the Rebel battery at St. Charles some days before. Being compelled, therefore, to depend for all his supplies on wagontrains from Rolla, Mo., now several hundred miles distant, lie did not feel strong enough to advance on Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas, nearly 100 miles S. S. W. from his present position. Having halted seven weeks, wholly unmolested, at Batesville, he again set forth,3 crossing the Big Black by a pontoon-bridge, and pursuing a southerly course through a generally swampy, wooded, and thinly settled country, where none but negroes made any professions of Unionism, and, being joined at Jacksonport4 by Gen. C. C. Washburne, with the 3d Wisconsin cavalry, which had come through from Springfield alone and unassailed, proceeded to Augusta, where he took leave5 of the White, and, assuming a generally S. W. direction, took his way across the cypress swamps and canebrakes of the cache, where his advance (the 33d Illinois, Col. Hovey), which had been struggling over roads heavily obstructed by fallen trees, was attacked6 by some 1,500 Rebel cavalry, mainly Texas, led by Gen. Albert Rust, who held him in check for an hour, until he was joined by the 1st Indiana cavalry, Lt.-Col. Wood, with two howitzers, when an impetuous charge was made by the Indianians, whereby the enemy were routed and put to flight. The bodies of 110 dead Rebels were buried by our soldiers, whose loss was but 8 killed and 45 wounded, including Maj. Glendennin, who led the charge, receiving a shot in the breast, which proved mortal. The Rebels were satisfied with this experiment, and gave no further trouble.

Gen. Curtis again struck7 White river at Clarendon, just below the mouth of the Cache, only to learn, with intense chagrin, that Col. Fitch,

1 Pollard says:

The Indian regiments, under Gen. Pike, had not come up in time to take any important part in the battle. Some of the red men behaved well, and a portion of them assisted in taking a battery; but they were difficult to manage in the deafening roar of artillery, to which they were unaccustomed, and were naturally amazed at the sight of guns that ran on wheels. They knew what to do with the rifle; they were accustomed to the sounds of battle as loud as their own war-whoop; and the amazement of these simple children of the forest may be imagined at the sight of such roaring, deafening, crashing monsters as 12-pounders running around on wheels. Gen. Van Dorn, in his official report of the battle, does not mention that any assistance was derived from the Indians--an ally that had, perhaps, cost us much more trouble, expense, and annoyance than their services in modern warfare could, under any circumstances, be worth.

2 Arriving there May 6.

3 June 24.

4 June 25.

5 July 4.

6 July 7.

7 July 9.

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