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Cross Hollows and
Osage Springs, near
Pea Ridge.
1 There he learned that between three and four thousand Confederate cavalry were encamped on
White River, eight miles from
Fayetteville.
He immediately ordered
General Francis J. Herron to march with about a thousand cavalry to attack their rear, and
General Totten to advance from
Fayetteville and fall on their front.
Herron first at the dawn of the 28th.
His attack was so vigorous that the
Confederates fled to the mountains, leaving their camp equipage behind.
Missouri was now comparatively secure from danger, and the importance of the services of
Schofield was
gratefully acknowledged by the loyalists of. that State.
Late in November he was compelled by sickness to resign his command, and leave it in charge of
General Blunt.
General Hindman now prepared to strike a decisive blow for the recovery of his State.
By a merciless conscription, and the concentration of scattered forces, he had collected in the western part of
Arkansas over twenty thousand men at the close of November.
Blunt, with the First division, was then at Lindsay's Prairie, fifteen miles south of
Maysville, and on the 26th
was informed the consisting of a strong body of cavalry under
Marmaduke, was at Cane till, about thirty miles south of him. On the following morning
Blunt went forward with five thousand men, provisioned for four days, and thirty pieces of artillery, to attack
Marmaduke.
They marched twenty-seven miles that day, bivouacked at night, and at dawn the next morning his advance, composed of only two hundred of the Second Kansas cavalry, and his own staff and body-guard, with two mountain howitzers and
Rabb's battery, were within half a mile of
Marmaduke's camp before they met with resistance.
The main body had been detained, and an artillery duel was kept up until their approach, when
Marmaduke retreated to his reserves on the
Boston Mountains, and took a good position on a height.
Blunt, with his entire force, assailed him vigorously,, and, by a charge of the Second Kansas cavalry, Third
Cherokee Indians, and Eleventh Kansas infantry, he was driven away and compelled to retreat in the direction of
Van Buren.
Blunt then took position at
Cane Hill.
His loss in the battle of
Boston Mountains was four killed and thirty-six wounded.
Marmaduke had seventy-five killed. The number of his wounded is not known.
Hindman now determined to crush
Blunt, and on the 1st of December he crossed the
Arkansas River at
Van Buren with about eleven thousand men, including two thousand cavalry, and joined
Marmaduke at a point fifteen miles northward.
Informed of this,
Blunt sent to
Herron, then in
Missouri,
