situation was rendered an undesirable one for attack. The slopes and sides of the wagon way were filled with abattis formerly placed there by General McCulloch, and the enemy seemed in no mind to test its defensive merits on the present occasion. Emerging from the gloomy gorge at length, the main body had taken up its march just before sunset, when a Federal regiment of cavalry made a sudden charge through a field, upon a small detachment of Gates' men, and drove them in, following so closely that the blue coats and gray came thundering down the road side by side on Captain Clark's battery, which had no time to unlimber. The young artillerist called to his men to "stand by their guns," and with swords, revolvers, sponge staffs and boulders, they checked the astonished enemy until the glittering bayonets of Rives' regiment proclaimed relief, followed by the rush of Gates and the rest of his men, who sent the daring assailants flying back with several empty saddles and leaving some prisoners.

Near this point the little army crossed the Missouri line. and entered upon Arkansas soil with heavy hearts, vainly hoping that but a short time would elapse when they would once more tread the soil of their loved State. They were cheered up, however, by General Price, who stood upon the summit of a little hill, just in the edge of Missouri, and informed his men, as they passed him, that they would soon effect a junction with General McCulloch's forces, who were coming to meet them, that they were done standing picket for Arkansas, and in a few days, with heavy reinforcements, would face about and drive the invader back in turn.

Late that night they pitched their tents on Sugar creek close to General Hebert in command of several regiments of McCulloch's men. It was midnight before the troops got supper, having marched from Keatsville that day, countermarched and formed battle array three times and eaten nothing since they left Cassville twenty-eight hours before and near twenty-five miles distant.

Early in the morning the half-rested soldiers were aroused and began to move. The army had not yet straightened out when the enemy appeared in force. Little's brigade was

still kept at the post of honor and Gates brought up the rear. A fierce cavalry charge was made upon the latter and nobly repulsed. The First Brigade was quickly posted on one side of the road and General Slack's brigade on the other, with Clark's battery in the center. During the lull before the storm, while General Price is galloping about every where, regardless of danger, hurrying up his reserves and preparing for a battle if the enemy are willing, we will pause to look at young Churchill Clark. Just behind his guns, in company with some of his men, he is standing by a mouldering fire parching an ear of corn, which is poised. on a small stick, as part of an extempore breakfast. His appearance is boyish, hardly eighteen in fact, rather small and delicately formed, features regular and almost effeminate, cheeks fair and rosy—although beginning to show the bronze of war-the general expression of his face bright and attractive. He wears a dark overcoat reaching below the knee; his hat is looped up on the side and surmounted by a black, jaunty plume. The free and easy intercourse between him and his men exhibits a kind and cordial feeling. He is fresh from West Point and ranks as a fine artillery officer.*

The Federal mountain howitzers were soon in position, and commenced playing. As a regiment of their cavalry came dashing up the lane, "Cannoniers, to your posts!" cried Clark, as his sabre flashed in the sunlight, and his "breakfast was thrown aside. In a moment the voice of the youthful Captain is again heard: "Ready-aim-fire!" and the simultaneous discharge of his four guns causes the head of the bold attacking column to reel. The artillery fire soon became incessant, and the continual roll of Gates' small arms sounded to the reserve as if the long looked for battle had really commenced. But the enemy, after about an hour's resistance, retired in confusion and with considerable loss. Our loss was only one man killed in Gates' regiment, and quite a number wounded in both Little's and Slack's brigades.

This decided repulse seemed to have terminated the pur* Anderson's" Memoirs," p. 149.

suit, and the army resumed its march in quietude and without interruption until ten at night on the 17th, when they encamped in line of battle at "Cross Hollows," prepared for attack, suffering exquisitely from the cold, and by some mistake in the commissary arrangements again "supperless until next morning."

At this point they met General McCulloch and remained one day for rest. Upon consultation among the generals, it was found necessary to retreat to Cove creek, among the Boston mountains, some twenty miles beyond Fayetteville, which place was being evacuated, in order to effect a junction with the rest of McCulloch's command. On the nineteenth the army moved to Fayetteville, where they were supplied with clothing and shoes and an abundance of provisions, which would otherwise have necessarily been abandoned for want of transportation. On the night of the twenty-first of February the little army arrived at Cove Creek in the rain and through interminable mud, after a wonderful retreat of more than one hundred and twenty miles, followed by a foe infinitely better equipped and five times their number, and with only three miles' start at the beginning of the race. But very few of the men sank under the fatigue of the march-none of the immense wagon train was lost; and after a few days' rest the men were clamorous for more exercise.

Several regiments of Arkansas recruits came in while at Cove Creek, and were furnished with arms, to some extent from the ordnance stores of the Missouri troops, unfortunately too well supplied with the guns of those who had gone home from Springfield. General Albert Pike, the poet lawyer and Master Mason of the Southwest, came in with a brigade of two thousand aboriginal warriors on diminutive Indian ponies. They trotted gaily into camp, yelling forth a wild war whoop that startled the army out of all its propriety. Their faces were painted, for they were "on the war path," their long black hair queued in clubs hung down their backs, buckskin shirts, leggins and moccasins adorned with little bells and rattles, together with bright colored turkey feathers fastened on their heads,

completed unique uniforms not strictly cut according to army regulations. Many of them were armed only with tomahawk and war club, and presented an appearance somewhat savage, but they were mostly Cherokees, cool and cautious in danger, active and sinewy in person, fine specimens of the "noble red man," and withal deft in the use of the rifle, although awkward and unmanageable on the drill ground. They made good soldiers, "barrin " their mortal fear of the "big kettles," which the Yankees shot at them, and the huge iron balls that had an unaccountable way of shooting twice, first in the enemy's ranks and then in ours.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BATTLE OF ELKHORN, MARch 6th, 7th, 8th, 1862.

G

ENERAL D. H. MUARY, who was afterwards for a

time in command of the First Brigade, was chief of staff of the Trans-Mississippi District during the Elkhorn campaign. To him I am indebted for some interesting incidents connected with the battle. He says:

"In January, 1862, General Earl Van Dorn was appointed commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, then a part of the great territorial command of General Sydney Johnson. I was ordered from the Potomac to go with Van Dorn as chief of the staff of his Trans-Mississippi district. In February we reached Jacksonport, Arkansas, on the White river, and soon after moved up to Pocahontas, in the northwestern part of Arkansas, and began to organize an expedition against St. Louis.

"Van Dorn's plan was to carry St. Louis by a coup de main, and then to throw his forces into Illinois and transfer the war into the enemy's country.

"We had been busily occupied in preparing for this operation, when, late in February, Colonel Clay Taylor arrived at headquarters with dispatches from General Price, then in

Boston mountains in northwest Arkansas. General Price related that after his victory at Springfield he had been forced by the reinforced enemy to retreat through Missouri down into Arkansas; that General McCulloch, commanding the Texans, was near him in Boston mountains; that the enemy, under Generals Curtis and Sigel, were lying only two marches distant, not over eighteen thousand strong, and might be overcome by a vigorous, combined attack of all the forces of McCulloch and Price, but that points of difference of opinion and precedence of rank had arisen between them, in consequence of which no co-operation could be efficiently conducted, and he prayed that Van Dorn, as their common superior, would come at once to Boston mountains, combine the forces of the discordant generals, and lead them to attack the enemy's army.

"As our designed operations upon St. Louis depended mainly upon these commands of Price and McCulloch for success, Van Dorn at once set out for Boston mountains, where he knew he would find a battle ready for him, and should victory crown him, the success of his St. Louis expedition would be assured.

"We took a steamer for Jacksonport, whence, on February 23d, we mounted our horses and started upon our ride across the State to Van Buren. We rode into that place on the evening of February 28th, and next morning, March Ist, left Van Buren for Price's camp in Boston mountains, distant about thirty miles. The weather was bitter cold, and all day we traveled over an ascending mountain road until dark, when we came to the little farm-house in which the leader of the Missourians had made his headquarters. I was much impressed by the grand proportions and the stately air of the man who up to that time had been the foremost figure of the war beyond the Mississippi. General Price was one of the handsomest men I have ever seen. He was over six feet two inches in stature, of massive proportions, but easy and graceful in his carriage and gestures; his hands and feet were remarkably small and well shaped; his hair and whiskers, which he wore in the old English fashion, were silver white; his face was ruddy and very benignant, yet firm in its expression; his profile was finely chiseled, and bespoke manhood of the highest type; his voice was clear and ringing, and his accentuation singularly distinct. A braver or a kinder heart beat in no man's bosom; he was wise in counsel, bold in action, and never