AR -- Pea Ridge Natl Military Park:
- Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.
- Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.
- Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
- Accessing as Spider: The system has identified your IP as being a spider.
IP Address: 3.138.200.66 -- Domain: Amazon Technologies
I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.
- Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]
|
[1]
PEA_971107_06.JPG
|
[2] PEA_971107_08.JPG
|
[3] PEA_971107_09.JPG
|
[4]
PEA_971107_10.JPG
|
[5]
PEA_971107_11.JPG
|
[6]
PEA_971107_12.JPG
|
[7] PEA_971107_14.JPG
|
[8] PEA_971107_15.JPG
|
[9] PEA_971107_16.JPG
|
[10]
PEA_971107_17.JPG
|
[11] PEA_971107_20.JPG
|
[12] PEA_971107_22.JPG
|
[13] PEA_971107_24.JPG
|
[14] PEA_971107_26.JPG
|
[15] PEA_971107_28.JPG
|
[16] PEA_971107_30.JPG
|
[17] PEA_971107_32.JPG
|
[18] PEA_971107_34.JPG
|
[19] PEA_971107_36.JPG
|
[20] PEA_971107_38.JPG
|
[21] PEA_971107_40.JPG
|
[22] PEA_971107_42.JPG
|
[23] PEA_971107_44.JPG
|
[24] PEA_971107_46.JPG
|
[25] PEA_971107_48.JPG
|
[26] PEA_971107_50.JPG
|
[27] PEA_971107_52.JPG
|
[28] PEA_971107_54.JPG
|
[29] PEA_971107_56.JPG
|
[30] PEA_971107_58.JPG
|
- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- PEA_971107_06.JPG: Pea Ridge; Memorial
- PEA_971107_10.JPG: Pea Ridge; Elkhorn Tavern
- PEA_971107_11.JPG: Pea Ridge; Elkhorn Tavern
- PEA_971107_12.JPG: Pea Ridge; Federal artillery
- PEA_971107_17.JPG: Pea Ridge; Federal artillery
- Wikipedia Description: Battle of Pea Ridge
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Battle of Pea Ridge (also known as Elkhorn Tavern) was a land battle of the American Civil War, fought on March 7 and March 8, 1862, at Pea Ridge in northwest Arkansas, near Bentonville. In the battle, Union Army forces led by General Samuel R. Curtis defeated Confederate troops under General Earl Van Dorn. The outcome of the battle essentially cemented Union control of Missouri. One notable fact of this battle is that it was one of the few in which a Confederate Army outnumbered a Union Army.
Background:
Union:
Union forces in Missouri during the latter part of 1861 and early 1862 had effectively pushed Confederate forces out of the state. By the spring of 1862, Union Brigadier General Samuel R. Curtis determined to pursue the Confederates back into Arkansas with his Army of the Southwest.
Curtis moved his approximately 10,500 Union soldiers and 50 artillery pieces into Benton County, Arkansas, along a small stream called Sugar Creek. Union forces consisted primarily of soldiers from Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio. Over half of the Federal soldiers were German immigrants.
Curtis found an excellent defensive position on the north side of the creek and proceeded to fortify it and place artillery for an expected Confederate assault from the south.
Confederacy:
Confederate Major General Earl Van Dorn had been appointed overall commander of the Trans-Mississippi District to quell a simmering conflict between competing generals Sterling Price of Missouri and Benjamin McCulloch of Texas. Van Dorn's Army of the West totaled approximately 16,000 men, including 800 Cherokee Indian troops, contingents from the Missouri State Guard, Confederate cavalry, infantry and artillery from Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri.
Van Dorn was aware of the Union movements into Arkansas and was intent on destroying Curtis's Army of the Southwest and reopening the gateway into Missouri.
Prelude:
General Van Dorn did not wish to attack Curtis's entrenched position head on. On March 4, 1862, he split his army into two divisions under Price and McCulloch and ordered them to march north along the Bentonville Detour with the hopes of getting behind Curtis and cutting off his lines of communication. Van Dorn left his supply trains behind in order to make better speed, a decision that later proved to be a crucial one.
The Confederates made an arduous three day forced march down the Bentonville Cutoff from Fayetteville in the midst of a freezing storm. Many of the Confederate soldiers were ill-equipped and barefoot, and it was said that one could find the army by following the bloody footprints in the snow. The Confederates arrived at their destination strung out along the road, hungry and tired.
Compounding the Confederate problems was the late arrival of McCulloch, which led Van Dorn to split his forces in two. Van Dorn ordered McCulloch to circle around the western end of Pea Ridge, turn east along the south face and meet Price's division at Elkhorn Tavern. Van Dorn and Price would travel east along the north face of the ridge, secure Elkhorn Tavern, and wait for McCulloch.
These delays allowed Curtis to begin repositioning his army to meet the unexpected attack from his rear and get his forces between the two wings of Van Dorn's forces.
Battle:
Left wing:
McCulloch's force consisted of a division of cavalry under General James McIntosh, a division of infantry under Col. Louis Hébert, and a brigade of Cherokee under Brigadier General Albert Pike. McCulloch's troops swung westward around Pea Ridge and plowed into elements of the Federal Army at a small village named Leetown, where a fierce firefight erupted.
McCulloch and McIntosh were killed in action soon after the clash began, and Colonel Hébert was captured. These events effectively shattered the Confederate command structure, and they were unable to organize an effective attack in the resulting chaos.
Right wing:
On the other side of Pea Ridge, Van Dorn and Price encountered the Federals near Elkhorn Tavern. Van Dorn ordered an attack, and by nightfall the Confederates succeeded in pushing the Union forces back. They seized the Telegraph and Huntsville Roads and succeeded in cutting Curtis's lines of communication at Elkhorn Tavern. The survivors from McCulloch's command joined Van Dorn at the tavern during the night.
Colonel Stand Watie led his Mounted Rifles regiments against Union Artillery positions set up in the battlefield. Watie also covered the Confederate retreat at the battle and later was sent west to fight.
Federal counterattack:
On the morning of March 8, Curtis massed his artillery near the tavern and launched a counterattack in an attempt to recover his supply lines. Leading the attack was Curtis's second-in-command, Franz Sigel. The massed artillery combined with cavalry and infantry attacks began to crumple the Confederate lines. By noon Van Dorn realized that he was low on ammunition and that his supply trains were miles away with no hope of arriving in time to resupply his men. Despite outnumbering his opponent, Van Dorn withdrew down the Huntsville Road.
Aftermath:
Approximately 2,000 Confederates fell in the Battle at Pea Ridge, including a large number of officers. Federal forces suffered approximately 1,400 casualties.
With the defeat at Pea Ridge, the Confederates never again seriously threatened the state of Missouri. Within weeks Van Dorn's army was transferred across the Mississippi River to bolster the Army of Tennessee, leaving Arkansas virtually defenseless.
With his victory, Curtis proceeded to move farther into undefended Arkansas with the hope of capturing Little Rock.
The battlefield at Pea Ridge is now Pea Ridge National Military Park. The park is known as one of the best preserved Civil War battlefields. A reconstruction of Elkhorn Tavern, scene of the heaviest fighting, is present at its original location. The park also includes a 2.5 mile (4 km) section of the Trail of Tears.
- Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
- Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
- Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].