Prairie Grove

On December 7, 1862, Union and Confederate forces clashed at Prairie Grove in what became one of the pivotal engagements of the American Civil War in Arkansas. Though the fighting itself produced no clear tactical winner, its aftermath left the Union in firm command of the northwestern part of the state.

Following their success at the Battle of Cane Hill on November 28, James G. Blunt's division, part of the Army of the Frontier, had taken up position in northwestern Arkansas. Sensing an opportunity to strike while Blunt stood alone, Thomas C. Hindman marched his First Corps, Trans-Mississippi Army, toward the isolated Union force. That opportunity vanished when Francis J. Herron arrived with two additional divisions to bolster Blunt's command, prompting Hindman instead to dig in atop the elevated terrain at Prairie Grove.

Herron launched two separate assaults against the entrenched Confederate lines, and both were driven back with steep losses on the Union side. Hindman, in turn, tried twice to capitalize on these repulses by counterattacking, yet neither effort succeeded. As the day wore on, Blunt's own forces reached the field and struck at the Confederate flank. By nightfall the armies had pulled apart without a decisive resolution on the battlefield itself. Still, lacking any hope of additional reinforcement, Hindman had no choice but to withdraw his army, handing the Union a strategic triumph and lasting control over the region.

Casualty figures put Union losses at 1,251, among them 175 killed, while Confederate losses stood at 1,317, with deaths estimated between 164 and 204. Morale within Hindman's ranks collapsed in the wake of the battle, and desertion became rampant among the conscripted soldiers. So many Confederate dead remained on the field that they had to be gathered into piles and enclosed behind hastily built barriers meant to keep wild pigs from disturbing the bodies. The site of this clash survives largely intact in the present day, preserved as Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park.

Background

The clash that set these events in motion occurred in March 1862, when Earl Van Dorn's Confederate forces met Samuel Ryan Curtis and his Union troops at Pea Ridge in the northwestern corner of Arkansas. The engagement ended badly for the Confederates, and Van Dorn's defeat led to him and much of his command being shifted east of the Mississippi River, which brought Confederate authority in the area to an effective close.

With the enemy gone, Curtis pushed deeper into Arkansas, setting his sights on Memphis as a target. Those ambitions were cut short when Henry Halleck directed him to dispatch half his men to Cape Girardeau, from where they would move on to Tennessee. Curtis obeyed and gave up his Memphis plan, turning his attention toward Little Rock instead. A setback in a minor skirmish near Searcy convinced him that his supply lines were exposed, prompting a retreat that ultimately brought his army to Helena.

By September, Curtis found himself at the head of the Department of the Missouri, taking over from John M. Schofield. He went on to organize the Army of the Frontier, placing Schofield in charge of it on October 12. That arrangement did not last long, however, since Schofield's health forced him to step down on November 20, handing the reins to Brigadier General James G. Blunt. At that moment, Blunt's own division sat in Arkansas while the remainder of the army held position near Wilson's Creek, Missouri, site of a battle fought a year earlier.

On the Confederate side, Thomas C. Hindman had once led the Trans-Mississippi Department, though complaints from influential Arkansas residents about his heavy-handed rule reached President Jefferson Davis, who removed him and installed Theophilus Holmes in his place. Come August 21, Holmes gave Hindman a new assignment: assemble a functioning army from the scattered Confederate units in Arkansas and push to reclaim Missouri for the Confederacy.

That October, Blunt led his men into Arkansas territory, prompting Hindman to send Marmaduke with 2,000 troops to cut him off before he could unite with Union forces gathering near Springfield, Missouri. Marmaduke positioned his men at Cane Hill, a rise near the Boston Mountains. Blunt answered by covering 35 miles (56 km) in just two days, closing in on Marmaduke's position near Canehill. What followed was the Battle of Cane Hill on November 28, a nine-hour fight in which Blunt's 5,000 troops overcame Marmaduke's smaller force of 2,000.

Battle

The morning of December 7 found Shoup's and Marmaduke's Confederate divisions stretched out along Prairie Grove's length. Herron's Union division arrived on the scene later that morning and, unaware that a large portion of the Confederate army stood before him, began shelling the position with his artillery. Huston's division soon linked up with Herron's men, though the punishing march to reach the battlefield had left only around 3,500 troops from both divisions fit for duty, roughly half their combined strength. Once Herron and Huston had their soldiers fully in place, the artillery fire resumed after an earlier lull. Confederate gunners tried to answer but their pieces were both weaker and shorter ranged, and ammunition shortages compounded the problem. This left Union crews free to inflict serious damage on the Confederate ranks.

Buoyed by the effects of the bombardment, Herron pushed two brigades forward, one under Colonel William W. Orme and the other under Lieutenant Colonel Henry Bertram, aiming them at the Confederate position near Archibald Borden's farm. When Herron's soldiers struck the main Confederate line, men from the 20th Wisconsin Infantry and 19th Iowa Infantry seized a Confederate artillery battery. Confederate troops from James F. Fagan's and Dandridge McRae's brigades, part of Shoup's division, countered swiftly, pushing back the Wisconsin regiment and wounding Bertram himself. Some of Orme's soldiers joined the struggle after Bertram's men fell back, but they too were forced to withdraw. A Confederate attempt to press the advantage failed under fire from Herron's guns. Both the 20th Wisconsin and the 19th Iowa, the regiments bearing the brunt of this fighting, lost close to half their strength.

With Herron's division checked, Huston committed part of his own force to the battle. His 26th Indiana charged Marmaduke's cavalry but was thrown back by a Confederate force that included Shelby's brigade alongside Quantrill's Raiders. Huston then sent the 37th Illinois toward the Borden house, where the regiment initially gained ground before a Confederate counterattack pushed it back to the Union line. Fagan and Shelby pressed onward against Herron's position, now reinforced by a third brigade under Emmett MacDonald, but this assault collapsed as well under combined fire from Herron's cannon and what remained of Orme's brigade.

Around 1,600 Union horsemen under Wickersham reached the field, and at 3:15 in the afternoon Blunt arrived with his staff and escort. Word reached Herron through one of Blunt's messengers that reinforcements were on the way, and cheers spread through his ranks at the news. Blunt turned thirty cannons on the Confederate position. In response, Hindman ordered Frost to commit his division against Blunt, and Frost dispatched a brigade under Mosby M. Parsons to extend Shoup's left flank. Dismounted Texas cavalry from Roane's command took up position beside Parsons. Blunt then readied an assault on this reinforced Confederate flank, adding the 20th Iowa from Huston's division to the effort. Together with the First Indian Home Guard, the Iowa troops attacked but were beaten back, prompting a Confederate counterstrike led by elements of McRae's brigade.

Elsewhere along the line, Weer's Union brigade moved against Parsons' position, and Parsons advanced to meet it, producing a chaotic clash between the two forces. Recognizing that his line outstretched Weer's on both sides, Parsons pressed the flanks hard, forcing a Union retreat before launching a counterattack of his own. This final push was broken up by the concentrated fire of Blunt's artillery. As night approached, the armies pulled apart from each other. Hindman remained in control of the ground but lacked fresh troops and was nearly out of ammunition, while Union strength grew as the rest of Herron's command arrived. Facing these conditions, and losing men steadily to desertion, the Confederate army had no choice but to abandon the field. Though the battle itself settled nothing outright, the Confederate retreat handed the Union a victory in strategic terms.

Aftermath

The tallies of the dead and wounded varied depending on whose count one trusts. Union figures put losses at 1,251 men, with 175 killed, 813 wounded, and 263 unaccounted for. On the Confederate side, the total came to 1,317, broken down as 164 dead, 817 injured, and 336 missing. Yet the Encyclopedia of Arkansas offers a somewhat different picture, listing 175 Union dead, 808 wounded, and 250 missing, while placing Confederate losses at 204 killed, 872 wounded, and 407 missing. Even these numbers likely understate the true cost, since men with minor wounds often went uncounted.

Beyond the raw figures, Hindman's army was gripped by collapsing morale, and desertion thinned the ranks of conscripted soldiers both during the fighting and in its aftermath. So many Confederate dead lay abandoned on the field that their comrades resorted to stacking the bodies in mounds, ringing them with hastily built barriers meant to keep wild hogs from devouring the remains. Once Hindman's men withdrew, Union forces found themselves in command of the northwestern corner of Arkansas.

By December 23, word reached Blunt that Schofield was returning to resume overall command of the army. Wary of losing the initiative, Blunt and Herron resolved to launch one more assault on Hindman's forces before Schofield's arrival, since Schofield himself worried that Holmes might send reinforcements to bolster the Confederates. Hindman had by then established his camp near Van Buren, and by December 29 Blunt and Herron had marched their men to that town. What followed became known as the Battle of Van Buren, where Blunt's troops scattered Hindman's Confederates into disorganized retreat, leaving only the shattered remnants of that army to abandon the region altogether.