A Civilian Eyewitness

Have you ever read a civilian account of the Civil War? Scholars have lavished much attention on military personnel and their campaigns, but, by contrast, have overlooked civilians. The civilians that were probably impacted the most by the war resided in the border region of the trans-Mississippi. Last Saturday, I visited the Pea Ridge National Battlefield and gave a tour to a friend and some family members. While in the bookstore, I purchased a copy of Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove: Or, Scenes and Incidents Of The War in Arkansas. Originally published in 1864, William Baxter, the president of Arkansas College, authored this slender volume. Baxter recounts the difficulties of living as a Unionist in a town with a secessionist majority. Baxter’s community, Fayetteville, changed hands six times in the first year and a half of the war and each successive occupation brought its share of destruction, shortages, and other difficulties. With vividness, Baxter writes of injustices, social isolation, and the poignancy of caring for wounded soldiers from the battles of Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove. No, he was not an impartial observer, but his tale is anything but boring.

The original edition and the 1957 reprint edition are now highly desirable, but the book is readily available today thanks to a 2000 reprint by the University of Arkansas Press. William L. Shea provides biographical information about William Baxter and sets the context for the book in the introduction. The book has no index, but since the book is so short (126 pages) the lack of an index is not as significant. 

The Greatest March of the War?

One hundred and fifty years ago today, Union troops were on the march on unimproved roadways from near Springfield, Missouri, to what became the Prairie Grove battlefield near Fayetteville, Arkansas. Although the mileages differed from regiment to regiment, the 2^nd Division of the Army of the Frontier logged about 105 miles in three and a half days; the 3^rd Division marched about 120 miles in a similar time frame. An incredible feature to this is that at the end of the march, the men went almost directly into heavy combat at Prairie Grove. Another amazing aspect of the march is the weather: on the mornings of December 4^th and 5th, the temperature was about 20 degrees. And, if you’re in need of one more detail, the roads traversed terrain that was fairly rugged in places. Bill Shea, the author of the best book on the campaign, labels this march “an epic of human endurance,” and I agree with his assessment.

Source of quote: William L. Shea, Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), p. 128.

A Cold and Difficult March

Regular readers know that on occasion I highlight notable marches made by soldiers in the trans-Mississippi. While perusing Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West by William L. Shea and Earl J. Hess recently, I came across another example of a long march in a relatively short time.

In February 1862, Major General Sterling Price, well aware of a Union advance on Springfield, Missouri, decided to retreat from that area. He and his Missouri soldiers marched south on Telegraph Road and retreated toward Arkansas. At first, Union forces under Brigadier General Franz Sigel made only modest efforts to speed Price’s force on their way, but on 16 February Sigel started pressing the enemy.

Here is a brief passage from Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West that describes the ensuing march:

“The rebels hurried over the fifty miles from Crane Creek in Missouri to Little Sugar Creek in Arkansas in less than thirty-six hours. Weather, fatigue, hunger, and demoralization took a severe toll. Everyone became ‘foot sore and tired from marching over the hard and frozen ground.’ Exhaustion was a critical problem because the Missourians had not had a full night of sleep since February 11 in Springfield. Whenever the column halted for a few moments, men in the ranks dozed while leaning against one another. Soldiers even fell asleep while marching” (p. 34). Union troops also marched quickly, but they “had rested well in Springfield on February 13 and had the psychological advantage of knowing that the enemy was on the run” (p. 34-35).

Hard Times near Fort Smith, Arkansas

Today the “tour” of dangerous, disease ridden places in the trans-Mississippi continues. I can’t help but notice that the topic of disease is not often discussed in blogs, and yet many Civil War soldiers had more days of sickness than days spent in combat.

I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m picking on Arkansas in this series, but a place in Arkansas is again the topic. While Confederate soldiers suffered at Camp Nelson in the latter part of 1862, southerners also experienced a biological disaster in encampments near Fort Smith. Dr. William L. Shea in his award-winning, Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign (2009) details conditions in an area where soldiers from Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas camped. Shea quotes a Texan named John C. Williams who wrote that his encampment near Fort Smith “was the ‘unhealthiest camp we were placed in during the war’” (p. 83). Men died of typhoid, dysentery, and various camp illnesses in the Arkansas River Valley. Shea estimates that as a result of disease at these encampments “the loss of manpower could not have been less than a brigade” (p. 84).

Hard Marching

“Though other corps made marches during the campaign which may have been equally grueling, the circumstances attending that of the Sixth Corps made it famous. The word came that they were needed, and needed in a hurry, so they marched from ten at night until five the next afternoon with only a few breaks for coffee or now and then a short rest. On and on they trudged, endlessly it seemed, at first through darkness and then in the glare of the July sun, thirty-four long miles to Gettysburg” (p. 357). So wrote Edwin F. Coddington in his classic book, The Gettysburg Campaign, published in 1968. Fortunately for the men of the Sixth Corps, they saw only light combat during the battle itself.

And yet, the soldiers in the trans-Mississippi were involved in many marching feats that were more impressive than those performed by their eastern counterparts, even including the marching of Jackson’s famed “foot cavalry” during the 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign.

William L. Shea documents the most famous trans-Mississippi example in Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign: “Between the afternoon of 3 December and the morning of 7 December, a period of three and a half days, the Second and Third Divisions of the Army of the Frontier marched 105 and 120 miles respectively and went directly into battle at Prairie Grove. The actual distance varied from regiment to regiment, but the entire command averaged over thirty miles per day on primitive frontier roads in bitterly cold weather with only brief halts for food and rest” (p. 128).

There was also the impressive, well-organized trek of the California column in 1862 from Camp Latham (Los Angeles, California) to Tucson. The soldiers averaged “about twenty miles a day” during this march of “nearly six hundred miles” (p. 43) across the desert, according to Andrew E. Masich in The Civil War In Arizona: The Story Of The California Volunteers, 1861-1865.

The Confederates could also point to an extraordinary feat of marching by Walker’s Texas Division (Walker’s Greyhounds) and fighting at the battles of Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, and Jenkins’ Ferry during the Red River campaign. Richard Lowe in Walker’s Texas Division C.S.A.: Greyhounds Of The Trans-Mississippi states “In seventy days they had marched, often without food or tents, about 930 miles and fought three pitched battles. This was the equivalent, roughly speaking, of a Federal army marching from Washington, D.C., to Memphis, Tennessee, and fighting along the way, all in ten weeks. It was one of the more amazing physical feats of the American Civil War” (p. 232).

Interview with Dr. William L. Shea

An excellent Q&A with Dr. William L. Shea has been posted on Drew Wagenhoffer's blog. Drew has asked Dr. Shea a different set of questions than I did in my earlier interview, so they complement each other nicely. The Q&A contains some great information including news about Dr. Shea's current research project.

Prairie Grove book available

This is a particularly difficult part of the fall semester--lots of papers to grade, meetings to attend, and other professorial duties. My morale was boosted yesterday when I received my copy of Dr. William Shea's new book, Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign, a recent selection of the History Book Club. The book looks just as great as I had anticipated, and I was able to start reading it yesterday. If you haven't done so yet, scroll down and read the interview with Professor Shea.

Interview with Dr. William L. Shea, Part One

Soon after it was published in 1992, I read Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West, an excellent campaign history co-authored by William L. Shea and Earl J. Hess. Two years ago, I heard that Dr. Shea, a professor at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, was writing a study of the Prairie Grove campaign, and I have been eagerly awaiting its publication ever since. Later this month, the University of North Carolina Press will be releasing Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign as part of the Civil War America series. Several weeks ago, I contacted Professor Shea and asked him if he would preview his book for this blog. He graciously agreed and what follows is part one of a question and answer session with Professor Shea. His book may be ordered through the Amazon.com website or directly from the University of North Carolina Press. Please see my October 21st posting for the conclusion of the interview. In the conclusion, Dr. Shea has some thought provoking comments about Major General Thomas Hindman's leadership as well as additional remarks about the campaign.

How did you become interested in researching and writing about the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi?

Professor Shea: While in college and graduate school I had the good fortune to enroll in Civil War courses taught by Harry Williams and Frank Vandiver, both of whom were excellent storytellers. But because of the anti-military sentiment poisoning higher education after the Vietnam War, I thought it best to focus on something other than military history proper. So I cranked out a dissertation on warfare in early Virginia cleverly disguised as a study of paramilitary institutions. A short version was published a few years later as The Virginia Militia in the Seventeenth Century (LSU Press, 1983). This little gem has been out of print for a decade but several copies are still available for discerning collectors.

Shortly after arriving at UAM, where I taught (and still teach) the course on colonial America, I was asked to pick up the course on the Civil War and Reconstruction. I agreed but soon discovered that there was nothing on Arkansas for the students (and the instructor) to read. So one day I decided to write such a book myself. After many adventures and the acquisition of a talented and diligent co-author, the book was done. Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West (UNC Press, 1992) came out in the immediate afterglow of Ken Burns' PBS documentary and drew more attention to the Trans-Mississippi than any previous publication. It was not the book I had intended to write but somewhere along the way I realized that I really enjoyed campaigning in the Trans-Mississippi. The rest, as they say, is history.

Why does the Prairie Grove campaign deserve a full-length book?

Professor Shea: Would anyone ask that question about a campaign in Virginia or Georgia? Probably not. So let me ask a couple of questions of my own. Why is the Civil War west of the Mississippi River still accorded so little respect? And why are historians expected to justify their interest in that subject? We have been conditioned for so long to think of the Trans-Mississippi as a sideshow that we now have a hard time recognizing it for what it was: an integral part of the larger struggle, sometimes marginal, often significant, and always fascinating. What really surprises me, however, is how some historians dismiss the human dimension of the Civil War in the west. It seems obvious to me that dedication, courage, fear, and suffering knew no regional boundaries.

It is true that the Prairie Grove campaign (like the Wilson's Creek and Pea Ridge campaigns before it) involved relatively smallish numbers of troops, but the stakes were enormous. Control of Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, and the Indian Territory depended on the outcome. That makes it bookworthy in my estimation.

What time period does your book cover? Why did you choose that time period?

Professor Shea: The battle took place on Sunday, December 7, 1862, an easy date to remember, at least for people of a certain age. But in order to make certain that readers understood what was going on, I had to keep "backing up" and adding more and more background information. I finally decided to start the story in the summer of 1862 when Thomas Hindman arrived in Arkansas, and end it when he left nine months later. Fully half of the book is taken up with setting the stage, introducing major characters, and describing the complex maneuvers both armies carried out before and after the clash at Prairie Grove.

Geography turned out to be as troublesome as chronology. Few Civil War enthusiasts are familiar with the vast distances and complicated terrain of the Trans-Mississippi. (And even fewer know the difference between a "hollow" and a "bottom.") So in the book I spend a good deal of time explaining where Points A and B are located and how difficult it was to get from one to the other, especially in the dead of winter. Campaigning atop the Ozark Plateau in 1862 was no walk in the park, and readers have to be reminded of that in this age of interstate highways.

Were there any Union or Confederate officers that performed particularly well during the campaign? What was so striking about their actions?

Professor Shea: I would have to say that Union officers outperformed their Confederate counterparts at all levels. The only notable exception was Francis Herron. He had never commanded anything larger than a regiment in battle before Prairie Grove, and his lack of experience was evident in his mismanagement of the opening stages of the fight.

Were there any Union or Confederate officers that performed particularly poorly during the campaign? What was so poor about their performance?

Professor Shea: Hindman lacked a military background so he did the smart thing (or so it seemed at the time) and allowed his three division commanders to handle tactical matters at Prairie Grove. John Marmaduke, Francis Shoup, and Daniel Frost were West Pointers with years of experience in the regular army. Much was expected of them but they fumbled away every Confederate advantage. I suspect Hindman would have done far better had he run the show himself.

Outstanding book about the battle of Pea Ridge

Shea, William L. and Earl J. Hess. Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1992.

If you haven’t read this yet, then you are in for a reading treat! Over the years I have read many, many campaign histories and this is a top-tier book. In many ways, this is the best campaign history that I have ever read. Every time I visit the Pea Ridge National Military Park, I take this book with me with all the maps marked with post-it notes. Did I mention maps? So often you read a campaign history and wish for more maps. This is one of the few campaign histories that I have read that helpfully includes all of the maps that you will need.

Dr. Shea and Dr. Hess walked the battlefield many times; this familiarity with the battlefield’s terrain adds much to their analysis. They focus on Earl Van Dorn, a flamboyant soldier with few organizational skills; he led his Confederate army to disaster. By sharp contrast, his opponent was Samuel Ryan Curtis, a reserved, older gentleman who had all the organizational skills that Van Dorn lacked. Although the book’s treatment of the events leading up to the battle and the battle itself are extremely well done, my attention was most caught by the section that details what happened after the battle. Curtis’s army battled the elements and the terrain to march 500 miles to Helena, Arkansas, in a little more than three months. Much of Van Dorn’s army crossed the Mississippi and went on to fight in campaigns in the western theater.

The Pea Ridge campaign is quite a story, and this book does full justice to its importance. Check it out.

NOTE: William L. Shea’s book Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign will be published by the University of North Carolina Press this fall. The release date, according to the University of North Carolina Press’ website, is November 2009. I am counting down the days to publication!