mail: Bill Thayer	Help	Up	Home
previous: Chapter 4 This webpage reproduces a chapter of General Stand Watie's Confederate Indians by Frank Cunningham published by The Naylor Company San Antonio, Texas 1959 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: Chapter 6

 p57  Chapter 5

Jefferson Davis in order to circumvent the disagreement between Price and McCulloch over command, appointed Major General Earl VanDorn, a Mississippian and a nephew of Andrew Jackson, as the overall commander of Trans-Mississippi Department No. 2. Besides the contending Price and McCulloch, this Department included Pike's Indian regiments and M. Jeff Thompson's "swamp foxes." When Fremont, in an effort to stop the Southern enlistments for Price, had issued his own Missouri Emancipation in August 1861, and declared martial law in the state — men bearing arms without authority were to be shot — a few days later from the Missouri swamps came Thompson's proclamation that for every man executed because of Fremont's order he would "Hang, draw and quarter a minion of said Abraham Lincoln."

 p58  With 45,000 men under his command, VanDorn set to work to accomplish his directive from Jefferson Davis to defeat General Samuel R. Curtis, who, in turn, had determined to make up for General Fremont's failures in Missouri. Price, offering mostly a token of resistance, fell back until his army could join other Confederate commands.

The Confederates began to gather in the area near Pea Ridge. Here would start the Rebel campaign to sweep on to St. Louis where the society, openly favorable to the South, was planning gay receptions.

Brigadier General Albert Pike, instructed to bring his Indians to the aid of VanDorn, grumbled openly as he thought his army best operating in Indian Territory. He knew the shortcomings of his warriors and he did not think them adaptable to the conditions of major battles. But Pike felt it wise not to conflict with VanDorn's plans. And so the Indian column moved toward Pea Ridge. The most color­ful description of this is, perhaps, in Civil War on the Western Border by Jay Monaghan, noted writer of Americana and former State Historian of Illinois:

General VanDorn sat in an ambulance, his mare hitched to its side. "Old Pap" Price rode beside the ambulance as the Confederates advanced slowly through the scrub oak to the open country. VanDorn planned to push back Curtis' whole right wing held by Carr's divisions, its artillery firing from behind embankments of dirt and logs. Not long after the Confederate attack began shortly before 10:30 the morning of March 7, Carr, in a bad spot, was sending for reinforcements.

But VanDorn had planned an assault on the left, too. Peter J. Osterhaus with his Germans, under Sigel and who had ridden in with Jo Shelby's pursuing cavalry on his tail, sent scouts out beyond Leetown — a blacksmith shop, a grocery and a handful of homes — only to probe into serious Indian trouble. Here on the left were a multitude of Confederate troops springing into action. As Osterhaus' scouts tumbled backward, the Southern horde caught the Germans without even time to retreat and soon the Union troops were breaking for their lives.

Bearing down on them, some units already into the Yankee ranks, were charging Texans, followed up by Stand Watie's Indians, advancing on foot, and behind them, the mounted Indians under Colonel Drew. The charging Confederates were fighting with guns, cutlasses and bows and arrows. Their German Infantry already having fled, Osterhaus' cavalry were soon streaking back through the ranks of the advancing Fifty-ninth Illinois shouting the warning, "Turn back!"

Colonel Watie's men, aided by some Texans, captured a Yankee battery and held it. Other Indians rushed up to see the "shooting wagon" as the Indians called the artillery.

 p60  One veteran of Watie's capture of the Yankee battery related this exploit to Mabel Washbourne Anderson, saying, "I don't know how we did it, but Watie gave the order, which he always led, and his men could follow him into the very jaws of death. The Indian Rebel Yell was given and we fought them like tigers three to one. It must have been that mysterious power of Stand Watie that led us on to make the capture against such odds."

Watie's exploit in capturing the Federal artillery lived long after the war's end and Judge James M. Keyes, of Pryor, Oklahoma, a Watie veteran, said:

General Pike's Indians did more than charge a battery. Some fought in the woods and from treetops. And some indulged in such war whoops that one Northern newspaperman at the battle said the roar of the Indians "was hideous."

And, in the heart of battle, the old customs came to the fore and a few luckless Yankees were tomahawked and scalped. After the battle, Curtis protested bitterly to VanDorn about the Confederate Indian "atrocities" and Northern newspapers painted the battle as if it were a reacting of the French and Indian War. But even the most prejudiced writer laid nothing at the door of Colonel Watie. It was Colonel Drew's Indians — actually pro‑Union though fighting on the Confederate side — who did the small amount of scalping in the battle.

Once the Texans and Indians had smashed the left, General McCulloch, dressed in a dove colored coat, blue pantaloons and Wellington boots, and with a Maynard rifle slung over his shoulders rode in front of the Sixteenth Arkansas Infantry and just in back of his line of advancing skirmishers.

Peter Pelican of Company B, Thirty-sixth Illinois Infantry, had advanced across a field, taken a position with other Federal skirmishers behind a fence when the Confederate skirmish line approached. Infantryman Pelican took aim at a Confederate officer,  p61 fired and the Rebel tumbled from his horse. Soon the Secesh fell back and the Federals advanced, but the Southerners rallied. Peter Pelican saw the Sixteenth Arkansas break into a charge and he turned and fled along with other skirmishers.

The charging Arkansas came within fifty or sixty yards of the fence, some of the men halted under orders from Lieutenant Joseph M. Bailey of Company D. At their feet was a Confederate officer in a dove colored coat and blue pantaloons, but the dove colored coat was redding over the heart. His Maynard rifle and side arms were gone and so was his gold watch.

Peter Pelican had aimed well and his bullet had struck the officer directly in the heart, killing him immediately. The brave Texas Ranger General Benjamin McCulloch, the color­ful commander from the borders of the Indian Territory was dead.

With McCulloch dead, the command of the Confederate right fell to James McIntosh, the hero of the defeat of Opothleyoholo and the Creek rout. Fiery, bold McIntosh took his place at the head of his attacking troops. Soon he fell, mortally wounded, dying almost instantly. And, earlier, commanding on the extreme right of Price's army, General William Y. Slack, badly wounded at Oak Hill, led his brigade on an attack upon the enemy under Colonel William Vandever. General Slack fell fatally stricken by Union fire.

An officer of General Price's army wrote an article on the battle which appeared in the Richmond Whig. His description of the first day's action — its setting, sounds of life and sounds of death and feeling of movement in the Confederate charge — was a graphic personal reaction to the conflict and said, in part:

Despite the deaths of Slack, McCulloch and McIntosh and the capture of Louisiana commander Louis Hébert,º the Confederates slept that night content of victory. True, Colonel Drew's Indian regiment had absconded and was already on its way back to Indian Territory. Later, when the final treachery of Drew's men occurred after the battle of Locust Grove, the Federals, to whom the Ross faction Indians had deserted, were told that "the killing of the white rebels by the Indians" in the Pea Ridge fight "was determined before they went into battle." In the excitement of the initial Indian charge and the capture of the Federal battery, the Drew Indians temporarily shunted their plans to turn against the Confederates.

Stand Watie and Chilly McIntosh preserved their commands  p63 in good shape and they were ordered by VanDorn to take their post along the top of Pea Ridge. Tired, but comprehending a vital battle trend, Watie knew that all along the front the Federals had been pushed back. Not one Union commander could report an advance of his unit! Sigel was actually so despondent that he despairingly reported the only hope for Curtis was to order the baffled Federals to cut their way out to an escape!

On the following morning, Curtis, rather than test the possibility of retreat, threw a strong offensive against the weary Confederates. His cannons — under the command of Sigel — shelled Watie and McIntosh and, for a time, scattered the Indian forces. Fields and woods were set on fire by hot shot and wounded men burned to death unable to move beyond the inferno's grasp.

The Federal forces, regardless of their beating of the previous day, consolidated and moved forward with new confidence, now realizing that many of the Rebel arms were shotguns! Against the rifles of the Union troops, the Confederates short range shotguns were practically worthless. The Federal charge mounted in fury as the blue-coated soldiers sent a mighty column up the side of Pea Ridge. Over beyond Elk Horn Tavern, other Federal troops under Eugene Carr and Jefferson C. Davis, inspired by the advance on Pea Ridge, went forward and soon the out-gunned Confederates were breaking up.

Watie's men held their position on Pea Ridge as long as possible without being overwhelmed. Some of the half-breed Indians had been captured. In all, eleven of the Indians were taken prisoner and, after the battle, they were ordered to Rolla preceding a "tour" in which they would be exhibited before the taunting Northerners. But none went on the "tour" for none reached Rolla. Each Indian "made a break" for freedom — some writers say the Indians feared they would be tortured by the Yankees — and one by one each Indian was shot dead by his guards.

The Confederate Army was routed and in full retreat in three directions. Pike and his staff were cut off from the main body of Indian troops and were wandering in the hills, but Stand Watie, his command in good order, helped cover the Rebel withdrawal as did Jo Shelby. Sigel, who was following deceptive Shelby,  p64 became so confused about Confederate strength he warned victorious Curtis that VanDorn might yet rally and surround the Federals!

Watie's Cherokee Rifles reached Camp Stephens near which the baggage train had been left. To their dismay they learned that Drew's deserting Indians had looted the Confederate wagon train. Soon Watie and Pike were reunited at the little town of Cincinnati. Certainly the mixed-bloods at Pea Ridge had shown the highest valor possible.

Pike was delighted to be reunited with Brutus, his slave and body guard, who came into camp after the battle. Before the struggle had commenced, Pike entrusted into Brutus' safe keeping $63,000 in gold which his son, Walter Pike, brought from the Confederate treasury in Richmond to pay the Indian troops. Pike's orders to Brutus were that if the Confederates were defeated, Brutus was to go up the creek and hide until he could escape. To reward Brutus for his honesty, Pike freed him, but the Negro elected to stay on with his master.

The combined Confederate Indians had participated in their last — as well as their first — big scale battle. VanDorn ordered Pike to take his Indians back to their country "to cut off wagon trains, annoy the enemy in marches and prevent him as far as possible from supplying his troops in Missouri and Kansas." Later on Indian orders were "to maintain themselves independent . . . you will not give battle to a large force, but . . . fell trees, burn bridges, destroy supplies, attack enemy trains, stampede his animals, cut off his detachments . . ."

From his headquarters at Van Buren, Arkansas, on March 16, General VanDorn issued his report on the battle, saying:

To carry out the avenging mentioned in his orders, VanDorn — tear-stained from his first defeat in eleven battles — was soon moving his army across the Mississippi for an impending conflict near Shiloh. Price — his arm bound from a severe wound — retreated with his Missourians eastward; the methodical engineer, Curtis, following him. Pike set up his headquarters some some 250 miles from Pea Ridge at Fort McCulloch on the Little Blue River.

And a new Confederate commander to take over McCulloch's troops arrived in eastern Arkansas, five foot one Thomas C. Hindman, former novelist and congressman, with rose gloves and a rattan cane, who vowed that Curtis' soldiers would never reach the Mississippi.

On the open prairies at Fort McCulloch, Pike erected fortifications and set up a sawmill. From his headquarters in the Choctaw Nation, Pike could direct the commands of Douglas Cooper, Stand Watie and Colonel Drew, the latter still maintaining his loyalty to the Confederate cause despite the serious defections of his men. Pike in a report of May 4, 1862, states that "Stand Watie and his Cherokees scout along the whole northern border of the Cherokee country from Grand Saline to Marysville and send me information continually of every movement of the enemy in Kansas and Southwestern Missouri."

General Albert Pike's detractors said, in derision, that he "devoted himself to gastronomy and poetic meditation."

---

Thayer's Note:

a William J. Hardee's Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics (an adapted translation of a French military manual) was issued by the United States Army as its standard instructional manual in 1855.

◂ previous						next ▸
Images with borders lead to more information. The thicker the border, the more information. (Details here.)
UP TO:		General Stand Watie's Confederate Indians	Native American History	American & Military History	History of the Americas	Home
A page or image on this site is in the public domain ONLY if its URL has a total of one *asterisk. If the URL has two **asterisks, the item is copyright someone else, and used by permission or fair use. If the URL has none the item is © Bill Thayer. See my copyright page for details and contact information.

Accessibility