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southward, with a hope that they might strike
Price's flank.
They were too late.
The false movement in departing from the direct westward line of march was now painfully evident.
The delay occasioned by it left
Price a way of escape, and he eagerly accepted it. Instead of twenty-three thousand recruits, which had been promised him, the
Confederate leader had not received over six thousand; and he felt the necessity of getting out of
Missouri, and beyond the grasp of his pursuers, as quickly as possible.
He fled rapidly southward, and passed into
Arkansas, not, however, without receiving some parting blows.
One of these was given by
Pleasanton at the Marais des Cygnes, where, at four o'clock on the morning of the 25th,
he opened his cannon upon the camp of the astonished fugitives.
Price instantly arose and fled, and was followed by
Pleasanton to the
Little Osage River, where he made a stand, with eight guns in position.
The brigades of
Benteen and
Phillips, of
Pleasanton's command, gallantly charged upon the
Confederate lines, captured the eight guns and a thousand men, including
Generals Marmaduke and
Cabell, and five colonels; also many small-arms, wagons, mules, and other materials of war.
Sandborn now came up, and then
Pleasanton took his jaded men and horses to
Fort Scott for rest, while
Smith marched his wearied troops to
Harrisonville, the capital of
Cass County, for the same purpose.
The Kansas troops, with
Benteen's brigade, continued the pursuit, followed by
Sandborn's cavalry.
They drove the fugitives whenever they attempted to make a stand, until they reached
Newtonia, in the southwest corner of
Missouri.
Price was then moving at a panic pace, strewing the line of his march with the wrecks of wagons and other materials of war, broken and burnt.
He turned at
Newtonia and offered battle.
He was gaining decided advantages, when
Sandborn, who had marched one hundred and two miles in thirty-six hours, came up and assisted in defeating him.
Price again fled, and made his way into
Western Arkansas, followed by
Curtis, who found
Colonel La Rue, who was occupying
Fayetteville, with the First Arkansas (Union) Cavalry, closely besieged by an overwhelming force.
Colonel Brooks had surrounded the post with two thousand Confederates, whom
La Rue easily kept at bay until
Fagan's division of
Price's flying army came to his assailant's assistance.
The united forces were carrying on the siege vigorously, when
Curtis came up and drove off the
Confederates, with heavy loss to them of men and materials.
This was the end of the last invasion of
Missouri.
Price went out of the
State much weaker than when he went in, while the total loss of the Nationals, in officers and private soldiers, during his invasion, was only three hundred and forty-six.
And his exit was made under very discouraging circumstances.
The autumnal elections in the Free-labor States had gone heavily against the Opposition, and consequently the last hope of the
Confederates of securing peace and independence by the aid of the
Peace Faction, and such of the Opposition party as were willing to follow them, faded away.
Grant was then closely besieging
Petersburg and
Richmond;
Atlanta had been captured by the Nationals, and Sherman, the conqueror, was on his march toward the sea; and everywhere eastward of the
Mississippi the strength of the Confederate armies and the moral supports of the cause of the Conspirators were rapidly diminishing.
