The Henry Rifle and the Battle of Prairie Grove

The Battle of Prairie Grove was fought 155 years ago today, and one of the participants was Major Albert C. Ellithorpe of the First Indian Home Guards. His regiment consisted primarily of refugee Seminoles and Muscogee Creeks from the Indian Territory and were part of James G. Blunt’s Kansas Division. This division arrived on the battlefield after soldiers from Francis J. Herron’s division had launched several bloody and futile attacks on Confederates from Thomas C. Hindman’s army. Ellithorpe’s regiment gave a “war yell” after positioning itself to the right of Herron’s Twentieth Iowa Infantry, and then the two regiments advanced toward the enemy. Ellithorpe had purchased a Henry rifle earlier in the year. This repeater had a sixteen-shot magazine and fired a .44 caliber bullet. Ellithorpe proudly wrote a month after the battle that, “my ‘Henry’ has done its work well I emptied 32 shots from it at the Battle of ‘Prarie Grove’ at a very short range. I think the gun has done good service.” The Major was so taken with the weapon that he asked for permission “to raise a battalion of sharpshooters” that would be equipped with the Henry rifle. For reasons unknown, his request was never granted. Were any other soldiers equipped with the Henry rifle at Prairie Grove? If any Henry bullets are ever excavated from the ground where the First Indian advanced, then they were probably fired by the redoubtable Major Ellithorpe.

The 20th Iowa Marches to Prairie Grove

So, what was it like to participate in the greatest march of the war? And, how many men actually made it all the way to the battlefield? Colonel Joseph Bloomfield Leake’s report contains some interesting observations about the 20^th Iowa Infantry’s role in the epic march from near Springfield, Missouri, to the Prairie Grove battlefield. Leake noted that “On the morning of December 4, the condition of the regiment was as follows: Present, 30 commissioned officers, 3 of whom were sick; 637 enlisted men, of whom 22 were sick.” After describing the march into Arkansas, Leake continued by writing “We then marched on rapidly until we arrived at the battlefield between 11 and 12 o’clock on the morning of December 7, a distance of nine miles. The regiment thus marched the distance of 100 miles in eighty consecutive hours, the last fifty-three and one-half of which we accomplished in thirty-one hours. Very much of the command marched with shoes so much worn that their feet were upon the ground, and were badly bruised and cut up by the stony road. Many of the boots furnished at Camp Lyon fitted the feet of the men so illy that they became inflamed and blistered by the continuous marching, and a few carried their boots in their hands, and marched to the field in their bare feet, whilst many fell out by the way, unable to march further. Under these circumstances, we went into the engagement with only 270 men enlisted men, and twenty-three commissioned officers.” This means that the regiment suffered a loss of 42.4% of their enlisted men on the march and 7.7% of their commissioned officers [I included the sick in the totals].

Source of quotes: Janet B. Hewett, Noah Andre Trudeau, and Bryce A. Suderow, eds., Supplement To The Official Records Of The Union and Confederate Armies (Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot Publishing Co., 1995), Vol. 4: pp. 43-44.