A Prairie Grove Hero

About three weeks ago, I went on a day trip to Fayetteville and visited the National Cemetery there. First established in 1867 with internments of Union soldiers from the battlefields at Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove, it is a beautiful and well-maintained cemetery. The Civil War burials are on the top of the hill, but soldiers from later wars are intermingled with their earlier counterparts. While studying the inscriptions, I took a photo of the grave marker of 4^th Sergeant Lindsey E. Teal and later discovered a story of heroism.

Sergeant Teal enlisted in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, in a unit that became Company A of the 20^th Wisconsin Infantry. The regiment’s highest casualties occurred at the battle of Prairie Grove on December 7, 1862. These Wisconsin soldiers entered the battle after an epic march of 120 miles over three and a half days. They were among the regiments that made piecemeal attacks up a ridge toward the Borden House; the specific target of the 20^th Wisconsin were the three guns of Captain William D. Blocher’s Arkansas Battery near the house. William L. Shea describes what happened next in his Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign:

[Major Henry A.] “Starr bellowed ‘Forward!’ and the Twentieth Wisconsin dashed toward the Rebel guns. ‘We rushed over a rail fence and the battery was ours,’ wrote Captain Miller. ‘What a shout of exultation arose!’ Color Sergeant Lindsey E. Teal climbed onto one of the guns and exuberantly waved the Stars and Stripes. The ‘whole command was wild with excitement,’ noted a Wisconsin soldier. ‘We thought we could clear up the whole business at once,’ recalled another. A quick check revealed that not a man in the regiment had been hurt” (page 170). The regiment advanced on and part entered a ravine where they were mauled by Confederate troops. By the end of the battle, the 20^th Wisconsin had suffered a 49% casualty rate. Among the fifty men killed in action was Color Sergeant Lindsey Teal.

A Quick Visit to Prairie Grove

Intense fighting occurred near the small town of Prairie Grove, Arkansas, on 7 December 1862. For those interested in the campaign, William L. Shea’s Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009) is the best modern account.

During spring break, I went on a one day road trip to Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and then on to Fayetteville, Arkansas. On the way, my friends and I stopped briefly at the Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park. I have visited this park a number of times and have enjoyed the walking trail as well as the driving tour. Today, though, there was only time to stop at the Archibald Borden House, the scene of some hot fighting. The original Borden House burned during the conflict but the house you see here was built on the original foundation. Since my last visit, the house has been repainted and new windows have been installed.

The photograph below is taken from the position of Captain William Blocher’s Arkansas Artillery Battery looking toward the Illinois River; the Borden House is not far behind this site. Several Union infantry regiments assaulted the Borden House ridge including the 37^th Illiniois Infantry which advanced right toward this camera position. Earlier, the 20^th Wisconsin Infantry had attacked across this view from the northeast. It is certainly a pretty view; one of my friends said it was peaceful, but it was anything but that on 7 December 1862.

The 37^th Illinois Infantry served mostly in the trans-Mississippi, and its activities were expertly detailed by Michael Mullins in The Fremont Rifles: A History of the 37^th Illinois Veteran Volunteer Infantry (Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot Publishing Co., 1990). The book is out of print and pricey on the used book market but is a good read.