John R. Kelso’s Civil Wars:
A Graphic History - Episode 10

More on the text

Teacher, Preacher, Soldier, Spy, 120-31.  The best study of this campaign is William L. Shea and Earl J. Hess, Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1992).

Kelso’s wife Susie, who evacuated to Collinsville, Illinois would have been able to follow the news of Kelso’s regiment in the St. Louis newspapers from across the river.  Throughout January 1862, Rolla correspondents to the Missouri Republican and the Missouri Democrat reported the buildup of General Curtis’s forces.  The newspapers also printed frustratingly contradictory reports and rumors about what General Price and the State Guard were up to in Springfield. Had Price’s army dwindled to a despairing mob of 8,000 men, harnessed up and ready to flee further south at the first sign of a Federal attack?  Or had Price been reinforced with men, artillery, and provisions from Arkansas, and was now, with 15,000 or 20,000 troops, confidently picking out a battlefield or ready to make a stand?

Commentary in the Republican put the campaign in the larger context of the war.  A writer in early January explained that secessionists regarded the subjugation of Missouri as crucial to the Confederacy: it would help pressure Kentucky; make Kansas, New Mexico, and Indian Territory “easy prey”; and enable control of the Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio rivers.  Missouri’s rebels, too weak to conquer the state on their own, needed men and provisions from the Confederacy.  The corridor for that aid would be the southwest corner.  The under-manned Lyon had known this, but had been defeated; the disorganized Frémont had known this, but had been withdrawn.  In February, though, with the Army of the Southwest on the move, Republican editorials saw Curtis’s campaign as part of a larger “continental” strategy that was finally emerging after months of Federal foot-dragging and fecklessness.   With a line stretching from General Burnside’s maneuvers in North Carolina, to Buell at Nashville, to Grant on the Tennessee River, and to Curtis on the western flank, the aim seemed to be to cut the Confederacy in half.  The “principal theater of conflict” would be the “southwestern States,” not Virginia.  The paper rejoiced with Grant’s great victories at Ft. Henry (February 6) and Ft. Donnelson (Februry 16).  If Curtis could destroy Price, the victory might not only save Missouri for the Union but also free up 30,000 to 50,000 men for service farther east and perhaps change the course of the war.

Then, on March 11, the headlines: “Great Battle at Sugar Creek.  Three Days Hard Fighting.  General Curtis Victorious.”  The victorious Federals “lost 1,384 men at Pea Ridge: 203 killed, 980 wounded (of whom perhaps 150 later died), and 201 missing and presumed captured.”  Confederate losses are harder to ascertain.  Of the 16,500 that started the march, “fewer than 14,000 reached Pea Ridge, and fewer than 13,000 were engaged,” and they suffered at least 2,000 casualties. Although these details were not in the newspapers, Kelso’s 24th Missouri had 3 killed, 16 wounded, and 7 missing.

MAP CAPTION: Teacher, Preacher, Soldier, Spy Figure 7.1: The March to Pea Ridge, Arkansas, February 1862.  Drawn by Rebecca Wren.  Map source: William Shea and Earl J. Hess, Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 31, map 2.1.