Battle of Elkhorn Tavern, The, or The Pea Ridge Battle [Laws A12]

DESCRIPTION: A Union/Confederate soldier (Dan Martin) tells of how he fled from the rebels/federals at Elkhorn Tavern. The song exists in both Union and Confederate versions, which give very different details of what happened.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1928 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: Civilwar war
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Mar 7-8, 1862 - Battle of Pea Ridge (Elkhorn Tavern), Ark. Federal forces under Samuel Curtis had advanced into Arkansas, and were met by the larger Confederate forces of Earl Van Dorn. Van Dorn's envelopment strategy was too complex for his raw troops, and Curtis was able to beat them off and eventually counterattack
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Laws A12a, "The Battle of Elkhorn Tavern"/Laws A12b, "The Pea Ridge Battle"
Belden-BalladsSongsCollectedByMissourFolkloreSociety, pp. 368-369, "The Battle of Elkhorn Tavern" (1 text)
Randolph 209, "The Pea Ridge Battle" (1 text plus a fragment, 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen-OzarkFolksongs-Abridged, pp. 200-203, "The Pea Ridge Battle" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 209A)
High-OldOldFolkSongs, pp. 4-5, "The Battle of Elk-Horn" (1 text)
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia1, pp. 358-359, "The Battle of Elkhorn Tavern" (1 text)
Darling-NewAmericanSongster, pp. 162-163, "The Battle of Pea Ridge" (1 text)
DT 685, ELKHORNT
ADDITIONAL: Fred W. Allsopp, Folklore of Romantic Arkansas, Volume II (1931), p. 227, "(It was at the battle of Elkhorn)" (1 fragment)
James J. Johnston, "Will the Real Daniel Martin Please Stand Up?" in _Mid-America Folklore_, Vol. XXI, No. 1 (Spring 1993 (available online by HathiTrust.org)), pp. 28-41 "(no collective title)" (4 texts, from Randolph, Belden, and High, plus one from the family of a Daniel Maritn)
Roud #2201
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Pea Ridge Battle" (subject)
NOTES [12477 words]: The Battle of Pea Ridge was fought near Elkhorn Tavern and Leetown, just south of the Missouri/Arkansas border, a few dozen miles north and slightly east of Fayetteville, Arkansas. It was, in a sense, a much-delayed sequel to the Battle of Wilson's Creek in 1861 (for which see "The War in Missouri in '61"). At Wilson's Creek, Confederate forces under Sterling Price (Missouri militia) and Benjamin McCulloch (troops from Arkansas and points south and west) had defeated Nathaniel Lyon's Union force in southwestern Missouri, but the two generals quarreled and McCulloch retreated to Arkansas, with Price and his troops remaining in Missouri.
Union forces had been mostly quiet after Wilson's Creek, but on January 13, 1862, a force under Samuel R. Curtis headed from Rolla for Springfield in southwestern Missouri (Shea, p. 24). It was a significant movement, because the railroad ended at Rolla; to take Springfield was to move into regions where supply and reinforcement were difficult. Not only was there no railroad, there was only one direct road, the so-called Telegraph Road (or Wire Road) -- and even it was a dirt path, sometimes very muddy, and not really sufficient to supply a large army. Price, who was based in the Springfield area, called for help to stop Curtis, but McCulloch was in Richmond (Shea, p. 26), and probably wouldn't have come anyway. Outnumbered, Price retreated from Missouri into Arkansas (Boatner, p. 627). And Curtis -- who knew better than most Union generals that he had to go after the enemy -- followed. On February 17, his troops skirmished with Price's at Little Sugar Creek. Casualties were slight -- a few dozen on each side -- but it caused Price to retreat even farther (Shea, pp. 27-28). The Confederates were threatened with the loss of the entire Ozark region. They coalesced at Fayettevile, Arkansas, but ended up abandoning the town and burning much of it (Shea, p. 30). Curtis, realizing he was outnumbered now that Price had retreated to where McCulloch was base, halted to await developments (Shea, p. 31).
Everyone knew that the Confederates needed someone who could command both Price's Missouri troops and McCulloch's forces. The Missouri politicians wanted Price to have the job (Castel, p. 66), but Jefferson Davis perceived that there was no point in promoting Price over McCulloch or vice versa; they would just keep quarreling. Davis thought of Henry Heth and of Braxton Bragg -- who both declined (Castel, p. 67; Shea/Hess, p. 20; this was probably fortunate, since Bragg was a poor, uninspiring leader and Heth would later prove incompetent to lead such a large force). Davis's third choice was to appoint Major General Earl Van Dorn (1820-1863) to the post, in effect making McCulloch and Price division commanders under Van Dorn (Catton, p. 207). The vague hope was that, by acting aggressively west of the Mississippi, they could help General Albert Sydney Johnston try to control the situation on the Kentucky/Tennessee front. Van Dorn's goal was to threaten Saint Louis. That was surely a pipe dream, but he had the chance to stop the Federals from taking more of the trans-Mississipi,
Davis was clearly right to appoint someone to take charge of McCullough and Price (and Albert Pike, who had put together what amounted to a brigade of pro-Confederate Indians -- although the agreement they had with the Confederacy was that they were supposed to have the right to stay in Indian Territory; sending them to Arkansas violated the agreement; Shea, p. 36). Whether Van Dorn was the man for the job is a lot harder to answer. He had extensive service in the old United States army -- but his most important service had been as major of the elite 2nd Cavalry regiment (Warner-Gray, pp. 314-315; for more background on Van Dorn, see the notes to "Oh You Who Are Able...."); he never had much luck as an infantryman. He doesn't seem to have had any interest in army administration -- a very bad fault in a Confederate army that didn't get much help from the nation's ill-equipped war department; supplies were a constant problem for Confederate armies.
He didn't even have a real staff at this point, despite having been a general for months (he had been commanding a division in Joseph E. Johnson's army in Virginia); according to Hartje, p. 115, his establishment when he headed west consisted of his adjutant, Colonel Dabney Maury; his nephew Lieutenant Clement Sulivane, who served as his aide; and a "Negro servant named Milton." A man in independent command of a corps should have had several department heads (Commissary General, Provost Marshall, etc.) and a dozen or more people to handle paperwork and provide ideas. Without a real staff, Van Dorn would have to handle everything himself.
And by the time he was ready to fight, he wasn't really in shape to do so. On the way to his new command, he had attempted a risky horse jump, hurting himself badly (Foote, p. 278), and later he fell into an icy stream and took a severe chill, forcing him to travel by ambulance rather than on horseback (Shea, p. 34; Hartje, pp. 115-116, says that he was trying to cover ground too fast, because Van Dorn had wasted a lot of time when he temporarily lost his sword and had to hunt for it). But Van Dorn at least brought unity of command to the Arkansas front. He headed for northwest Arkansas as soon as he heard of the loss of Springfield (Shea, p. 34).
The Union army was organized into four "divisions" (Curtis's own divisions of Jefferson C. Davis and E. A. Carr, and the divisions of Asboth and Osterhaus that formed a corps under the command of Franz Sigel; Shea, pp. 108-109. Shea/Hess, p. 14, suggest that this peculiar arrangement was designed to give the immigrant troops and the native-born their own individual organizations and their own commanders). The "divisions," however, were very small (especially Asboth's); they added up to about 11,000 men (Shea/Hess, p. 14, think Curtis had only 10,250 men and 49 guns actually present at Pea Ridge).
Van Dorn's three units are estimated to have totaled about 17,000 men (Boatner, p. 627; Shea suggests 16,000 not counting Pike's Indians, plus 65 cannon; Castel, p. 70, suggests 16,000 men and 60 cannon but also credits Curtis with a relatively low total). Whatever the precise numbers, the Confederates had about a 3:2 edge in men and a 4:3 edge in artillery; It was one of the very few times in the war when the Confederates substantially outnumbered the Northern forces. What's more, Curtis was keeping his own and Sigel's forces some distance apart, for supply reasons and to prevent ethnic conflicts. And they had supply problems. Clearly they were vulnerable.
When Van Dorn learned that Sigel's and Curtis's forces were separated, his set out to defeat them in detail, going after Sigel first. He headed everyone toward Bentonville, Arkansas, to get between the two federal forces, not even waiting for his own supplies to catch up. Or, for that matter, to meet his officers and learn the capability of his troops (Shea, p. 35).
Van Dorn's army set out on March 4 with just three days' rations in their haversacks (Shea, pp. 35, 37). Van Dorn, who had yet to recover from his illness, led the way in his ambulance -- given his command situation, he could scarcely put a subordinate in charge because he would have to choose between McCulloch and Price! He set a pace that horses could keep but many men could not, especially since they had done no marching while in winter quarters (Shea, p. 39). On top of everything else, it was snowing, so when the men weren't moving, they were freezing.
While this was going on, two locals (one a unionist from Fayetteville and one apparently a spy in Van Dorn's army, the latter one William Miller of the third Iowa Cavalry, based on Shea/Hess, p. 258) found Curtis on March 5 and told him what Van Dorn was doing (Shea, p. 40). (There was a later story that Wild Bill Hickok was involved in the scouting, but it was pure fiction; Shea/Hess, p. 322). Curtis hastily pulled everyone back to Little Sugar Creek. (Shea/Hess, p. 59, think Curtis was concentrating anyway, for supply reasons and because his transport animals were growing weak due to lack of food, but whatever the reason, it effectively spoiled Van Dorn's plan.)
When Van Dorn realized that he could no longer split the Federal forces, he needed another idea. McCulloch, who knew the vicinity because his troops had wintered in the area, told him of a way around the Federal forces via the "Bentonville Detour" (Shea/Hess, p. 80). McCulloch apparently suggested a limited operation -- but Van Dorn (despite not even making a reconnaissance; Hartje, p. 132) went big, hoping to get his entire army into the Union rear and cut the Federals off from Missouri (Shea/Hess, p. 81) -- and marched out at once, against his subordinates' opposition (Shea, pp. 41-42), before the troops could even get a rest. His idea was to fall on Curtis's supply line, and attack the Union army from the rear and supply his men from Federal supplies. What he would do if that didn't work out... was not spelled out.
Given how raw his troops were (especially Pike's), Van Dorn's plan was probably too complex even if he had been healthy enough to control all his units. Although he intended to attack with all his forces, for the last part of the march from Bentonville to Elkhorn Tavern, he used two different roads, with Price on the northern road and McCulloch on the southern (see map on p. 45 of Shea). This, it turned out, brought McCulloch's forces very close to Curtis's troops in a hamlet called Leetown west and a little south of Elkhorn Tavern.
There seems to be a lot of disagreement about the names of places in the area. For example, the map on p. 138 of Hartje shows a hill it calls "Round Top," with "Pea Ridge" a ridge to the north of that. But the map on p. 212 of Shea/Hess, for instance, calls Hartje's "Round Top" simply "Little Mountain," and Hartje's "Pea Ridge" is "Big Mountain." (As of 2022, Google Maps doesn't label either one, but I incline to believe Shea/Hess, who are locals -- particularly since even Hartje sometimes refers to Sea/Hess's names.) My best guess is that Pea Ridge is the whole plateau which Curtis occupied.
The battle began on March 7, 1862. Curtis's forces were all in a strong defensive position on Little Sugar Creek, facing south, expecting Confederate attack from that direction; this was the position Van Dorn hoped to attack from the rear. Gradually Curtis was forced to pull out of that position to respond to Confederate moves. The map on p. 284 of Foote shows Curtis's army arrayed along three sides of a slightly tilted square, with Carr's division dug in on the north side, at Elkhorn Tavern; Davis's and Osterhaus's divisions on Carr's left flank, facing west or northwest (with Osterhaus to the south of Leetown and Davis to the north), and Asboth's division watching the south face of the square and acting as a general reserve -- although large parts of the division remained at Little Sugar Creek for much of the day. Hartje, p.137, describes a battlefield bounded on all sides by roads: the Telegraph Road to the east (where there was no fighting), the Bentonvile Road on the south (by Little Sugar Creek), and the Bentonville Detour, the road Van Dorn took, running north/south on the west side of the battlefield, then turning east to join the Telegraph Road north of the battlefield. In essence, Curtis was occupying a plateau, deploying his troops initially on the south side of the plateau and moving to cover the west and north. The Confederates, generally speaking attacked from the lower elevations on the north and west of the plateau.
There seems to be some doubt about just what Van Dorn planned (Hartje, pp. 131-133) -- whether the separation of Price and McCulloch was deliberate, and where he wanted McCulloch to go. We know he intended to attack from the north. But did he intend to have his entire army attack at Elkhorn Tavern, or did he intend to have just Price attack from the north while McCulloch and PIke attacked from the northwest? The latter is what actually happened: Price attacked Carr's division by the tavern; McCulloch, with at least half of Van Dorn's force, attacked Davis and Osterhaus at Leetown.
Shea thinks the western fight arose because the Federals blundered into McCulloch as the latter marched past. HessEtAl, p. 163, thinks that Van Dorn ordered McCulloch to make his attack because Price's forces were so badly delayed by roadblocks the Federals had set up that McCulloch, who was behind Price, wouldn't be able to get to Elkhorn Tavern, so Van Dorn had McCulloch fight where he could. Others think it was McCulloch's own idea because his troops were stuck (so Castel, p. 73); still others, that the whole thing was intended as a feint to keep Curtis from reinforcing Carr. Shea/Hess, p. 85-87, think that when Price's troops got stuck, Van Dorn still hoped to reunite the forces before attacking Curtis, but both halves of his army encountered Federals before they expected do. (This strikes me as the most likely.)
Whatever the actual plan for McCulloch, Colonel Osterhaus, as the Confederates were marching out, led a small scouting force that blundered into McCulloch's column (Shea, p. 46; Shea/Hess, p. 90, says that this was composed of a jumble of elements from multiple units, which can't have helped its cohesion. The whole story is vastly more complicated than I describe here, but it will do for an outline). Osterhaus hurried back to his division and ordered his cannon to fire high, into the woods, to try to disorder the enemy. It succeeded -- in two regards. First, it scared off many of the Indians, who were unused to artillery fire (Shea, p. 48); most of them would not fight any more. (Although some allegedly stuck around long enough to commit atrocities; it was reported that eight men of the 3rd Iowa Cavalry were scalped and several injured men murdered.) Second, it convinced McCulloch that he needed to attack right there rather than continuing on the flanking maneuver to Elkhorn Tavern. Worse, McCulloch did not inform Van Dorn that he had encountered the enemy (so Shea, p. 48). The Union cavalry and artillery that first met the Confederates were shattered, with heavy casualties, but they totally disordered Confederate plans and (assuming this wasn't the plan all along) caused McCulloch to turn to attack the Federals at Leetown rather than head for Elkhorn Tavern (Shea/Hess, pp. 94-102).
McCulloch had enough men that he surely could have shattered Osterhaus, and probably wrecked the whole federal flank. But it didn't come off. McCulloch decided to scout the enemy line -- alone! And he was killed while doing it (Shea/Hess, pp. 110-111). So no one knew on the Confederate side he was dead for about an hour, and the Confederate attack was kept awaiting orders from McCulloch that of course never came (Shea, p. 49). Finally it was learned he was dead (at least by a few officers; it was kept from most of the division, to prevent morale problems, but that made command problems in the division even worse). His senior brigadier, James McIntosh, ordered the rebel division forward -- but McIntosh, instead of staying back to manage the division, decided to go to his old cavalry regiment, and lead it into action, leaving the rest of the division to care for itself (Shea/Hess, p. 113). Not only did McIntosh take part in the charge, he went in front of the troops -- and was promptly killed (Shea, pp. 49-50; Shea/Hess, p. 115). His troops saw it and basically gave up the fight.
The result was that many of McCulloch's troops never got into action, and those that did attacked piecemeal. McCulloch's other brigade commander, Colonel Louis Hébert, having never received the command to advance, heard the fighting and finally took his brigade in. But that took him out of contact with the rest of the division (so he couldn't take charge; Shea/Hess, p. 116). He stayed with his troops (as a brigade commander was supposed to do by the doctrine of the time, but a division should not) and led them to a confused battle in the woods (Shea/Hess, pp. 140-141). After his brigade's attack failed, many of the troops milled around, and in the confusion, Hébert was captured (Shea/Hess, p. 147. He wouldn't spend much time in Federal captivity, though; Curtis and Van Dorn swapped every possible prisoner, including Hébert, on March 15, just a week after the battle, even though it meant the Federals had to bring prisoners back from Saint Louis; Shea/Hess, pp. 285-286). Several of his regimental commanders were also taken (Shea, pp. 52-53). For practical purposes, that was the end of the battle at Leetown. The Union troops had a very scary day -- Davis gave some ground, and Osterhaus yielded more -- but they then held fast, and the Confederates went to pieces.
Pike -- the only general officer left in McCulloch's part of the army -- tried to take over, but many of McCulloch's prickly subordinates refused to accept his authority. (Their attitude may have rubbed off from Van Dorn, Relations between Pike and Van Dorn were bad; Pike disapproved of Van Dorn's maltreatment of Indians before the war, according to Hartje, p. 121, and Van Dorn distrusted and insulted Pike; Hartje, pp. 164-165. ) Pike managed to lead part of the force north toward Van Dorn and Price; the rest of McCulloch's forces just sort of drifted back south toward Bentonville (Shea, p. 54). (Shea/Hess, p. 188, suggest that Van Dorn should have gone and taken charge of McCulloch's troops at this time, letting Price run his own division. This makes sense, but Van Dorn stayed with Price; one suspects he didn't want to miss a moment of fighting -- plus he probably didn't entirely trust Price.)
Meanwhile, Price's division (with Van Dorn along) was making its much-delayed main attack, against Elkhorn Tavern in the north. They should have been in position hours earlier, but Federals under Grenville Dodge had erected obstructions on Price's road, which caused great delays while they were cleared (HessEtAl, p. 165; Hartje, p. 135, points out that the soldiers were too tired and hungry to clear them quickly, and so were even more tired and hungry when they fought -- plus the delays meant the Federals had had more time to prepare). One wonders if the Federals would have survived without Dodge's work; Shea/Hess, p. 84, think not, because the roadblocks delayed the Confederates for about five hours, and that's about how long it took Curtis to get troops to Elkhorn Tavern -- he ignored Dodge's warnings that he had heard troops approaching. Dodge certainly knew a lot about rough country and crossing it; he would later be a big name in designing the Union Pacific railroad; Shea/Hess, p. 82).
Building the obstructions wasn't the only thing Dodge did to save the Union army; when, on the morning of March 7, Curtis ordered his division and brigade commanders to a meeting, Dodge brought his brigade with him because he thought it might be needed. It was insubordination, but it saved Curtis's bacon; he was able to order Dodge's brigade, and Dodge's division commander Carr, to Elkhorn Tavern to stop the attack oh his rear (Shea/Hess, p. 93).
Because the tavern was on the heights above the rough ground of Cross Timber Hollow (HessEtAl, p. 109), it was a strong defensive position. Van Dorn didn't expect any opposition, but Dodge was there, and eventually the rest of Carr's division came up, and Carr did a fine job of putting in a spoiling attack at the start and then holding the line (Shea, pp. 55-59). Carr was probably outnumbered by three to one, but he held on for most of the day before being forced to abandon the tavern, pulling back first Vandever's brigade (the subject of this song) and then Dodge's (Shea/Hess, pp. 195-197). Carr himself suffered three wounds and eventually was awarded the Medal of Honor (Shea, p. 58). Even when retreating, he kept his lines intact, so the Confederates could not break into the Union rear. Finally elements of Asboth's division came up to relieve them; it was only about 500 men, but they also had ammunition and everyone else, on both sides, was out (Shea/Hess, p. 204. Hartje, p.150, believes Van Dorn tried for one more attack, but Price halted the assault, and it was too late to start again).
In the course of the day, Price was wounded (although he stayed in the field) and one of his brigadiers, William Slack, was killed (Shea, p. 59). Van Dorn's army does not seem to have been badly hurt, apart from the straggling caused by the cold and the lack of food. but its command structure was almost demolished.
Shea/Hess, p. 206, consider the action to this point a draw, but with opportunities for both sides. The Federals, however, had an intact command structure, which gave them an inherent advantage, plus they had more supplies; Van Dorn had left his supply train was far behind, so his men had no food or ammunition except what they could take from the dead. In fact, Shea, p. 63, reports that no one on Van Dorn's staff even knew where the train was!. (Shea/Hess, p. 214, think that Van Dorn's failure to keep track of his supplies was the worst of his many failures in the campaign, and I suspect they're right.) Price's division had used up everything, both food and ammunition; they were almost unable to fight. Further, Shea/Hess, p. 213, suggest that Van Down made no attempt to figure out what was going on with McCulloch's division; "The Confederate commander became so immersed in the fight at Elkhorn Tavern that he effectively abdicated as army commander."
The wounded suffered very badly that night; the Federals had insufficient medical supplies and doctors, and the Confederates effectively no supplies and few doctors (Shea/Hess, pp. 207-208. In the absence of sufficient local medical facilities, after the battle, many wounded had to be evacuated all the way to Springfield, causing them intense pain and no doubt resulting in more unnecessary deaths; Shea/Hess, p. 273).
Even the healthy Confederates were without food, and had left their coats behind, leaving them to shiver through a cold night. By staying where he was, Van Dorn was arguably hurting his own men more than the enemy.
On the night of March 7/8, Curtis concluded that the Confederates were mostly used up, and so realigned his forces but stood his ground, ignoring what was left of McCulloch's division and bringing everyone up to face Van Dorn and Price (Shea, pp. 62-63; Shea/Hess, p. 120, who add that this was one of the best cases of battlefield management of the war -- it was hard to re-face an entire army in the presence of the enemy. Pea Ridge is the only instance in the war of it happening). Curtis also resupplied his troops, both with food and ammunition, which Van Dorn could not do.
Van Dorn should have gotten out of there, but he stood his ground -- indeed, some sources say he tried again to attack. His tired troops, disorganized and short of ammunition, couldn't do much. Curtis turned his artillery on them, using all his firepower to knock out individual batteries as Van Dorn deployed them piecemeal and thus neutralized Van Dorn's superiority in total guns (Shea/Hess, p. 236), then counterattacked with his infantry and rolled up the Confederates (Shea, p. 65), starting on Pea Ridge and proceeding south. At last Van Dorn (who had finally realized that his men were out of ammunition and his supply train was far away; Shea/Hess, p.239) gave up and ordered a retreat -- and he and Price headed away from their forces (Shea, p. 68). The Confederate army fled (Boatner, p. 628).
The only good news for the Confederates was, because the troops scattered, Curtis couldn't mop up the entire army (Shea, pp. 68-69; Shea/Hess, pp. 246-247, thinks that van Dorn wanted to retreat by going around the Union forces, but that Curtis's attack disrupted that, and because Curtis held back Carr's exhausted division, the attack failed to bag the whole bunch. And Curtis's horses were too jaded to engage in an all-out pursuit, and there was little forage in the vicinity; Curtis's messages back to Springfield and Rolla over the next several days were all demands for horses and ammunition; Shea/Hess, pp. 276-277).
Even without a serious pursuit, it was still an overwhelming victory. Even General Pike gave up on Van Dorn's army and headed back to Indian Territory (Shea/Hess, p. 256).
The Federal grip on Missouri would never again be seriously threatened. Federal control of Missouri was not inevitable; Shea/Hess, p. 308, contend that, had Van Dorn won, it would have completely changed the complexion of the war in Missouri -- and, by so doing, very possibly saved (e.g.) Memphis, and dramatically changed the course of the war in the west. Since it was the western armies that did most of the work of winning the war, this could have been disastrous. And Hartje, p. 160, considerers Pea Ridge a very near thing -- he thinks Van Dorn would have won had he had better troops and subordinates. Of course, if he'd taken time to train his men, then Curtis might have had time to get rid of subordinates like Sigel, so he too might have done better....
There is general consensus that the Federals had about 1300-1400 casualties (Livermore, p. 79, say 203 killed, 980 wounded, 201 missing; similarly Shea, p. 69; Boatner, p. 628, says 1384 total casualties, which is the same bottom line figure).
Confederate losses are simply unknown -- Shea, p. 69, says Van Dorn "lied -- and lied inconsistently" about his losses (though, given his hatred of army administration, it might be just that he never did the work to find out). According to Shea/Hess, his original estimate was 800 killed and wounded and 200-300 captured; later he claimed not more than 600 killed and wounded and 200 captured. Since the Federals sent more than 450 prisoners into captivity, this is demonstrably false (Shea/Hess, p. 270). But any actual casualty figures must be speculative. Livermore, p. 79, guesses 600 killed and wounded and 200 missing, which last number is surely low and even the first doesn't seem likely. Castel, p. 79, says in the text that Van Dorn had 800-1000 killed and wounded but in the footnote quotes an expert who (like Shea) is convinced that the Confederates under-counted their losses. Shea, p. 69, and Shea/Hess, p. 271, estimated 2000 lost in one way or another, or 15% casualties -- slightly higher than Curtis's loss rate of about 13%. Possibly the 1000 number is right in terms of raw casualties (though I strongly suspect it's more). But many deserted, and McCulloch's division had no high officers left, and Price was only slightly better off.
Van Dorn never did admit defeat, claiming "I was not defeated, but only foiled in my intentions" (Shea/Hess, p. 284). The high command apparently disagreed. P. G. T. Beauregard called Van Dorn's forces across the Mississippi (without consulting with his superior Albert Sydney Johnston or the Confederate authorities, according to Shea/Hess, p. 287), and Shea, p. 70, reports that he took such a large fraction of his forces that Arkansas was left almost undefended; the man who took charge after Van Dorn, Thomas C. Hindman, was "shocked" by how little was left. Van Dorn also took most of the supplies and equipment, making it very hard for Hindman to rebuild (Shea/Hess, p. 289, 296). And for all that, Van Dorn was too late to join in the Battle of Shiloh (Shea, p. 70), where his forces might have been decisive, and when he and Price finally went into action east of the Mississippi, in the mid-sized battles of Iuka and Corinth, they were defeated.
After that the Confederates finally assigned Van Dorn to a cavalry command, for which he was much better suited; he did fairly well in that role until he was murdered by a man whose wife he had seduced (for that, see again the notes to "Oh You Who Are Able....").
Curtis's army spent the next several weeks moving around Arkansas (the hope was that he might take Little Rock), struggling all the while to find suppies. On July 12, 1862, they finally reached Helena, Arkansas, on the Mississippi, which could be supplied by boat from Memphis (Shea/Hess, p. 303). Most of Arkansas remained in Confederate hands, but with Curtis having taken a large number of slaves as contraband and interfered with its internal communications, its ability to contribute to the Confederate cause was much reduced.
There is a Pea Ridge National Military Park, but it was not established until 1956 and didn't really become organized until 1963 (Shea/Hess, p. 329); it is still not as heavily supplied with interpretive kitsch as most Civil War battle sites.
Shea/Hess, starting on p. 326, cite several poems about the battle, including one by Herman Melville; none is well-remembered. They are aware of the Confederate versions of this song, but not of the only other seemingly-traditional song about the event, "Pea Ridge Battle (II)."
--- The Five (and a half) Versions ---
There seem to be only five substantial published versions of this song:
-- Belden's (from Ethel Doxey; republished by Cohen)
-- Randolph's A (from Mrs. W. A. Patton) [It is perhaps worth noting that Randolph reported that his grandfather had fought at Pea Ridge, in an Illinois cavalry unit; Cochran, p. 18]
-- A version from the family of Dan Martin and published by Johnston, pp. 33-36, which seems to be the best-preserved of the bunch.
-- A version in the Max Hunter collection, "My Name It Is Dan Martin," which was from Jimmy Driftwood, so he may have changed it a little (e.g. the lines in the first verse of his version, "Jined up with th rebels Just t' spite my mother-in-law" looks to me like a Driftwood joke). There is good reason to believe that Driftwood started from a real song, though. The John Quincy Wolf Jr. collection has a fragment, "Who's Price A-Fighting (The Pea Ridge Battle), sung by Neal Morris, Driftwood's father, in 1961. It is clearly the source of Driftwood's version, which Driftwood augmented. Also, Randolph's B fragment has similarities to Driftwood's text.
-- The version of Doney Hammontree, However, Hamontree's text was collected twice, once by High and once by Irene Carlisle ("The Battle of Pea Ridge," collected March 11, 1951, in the University of Arkansas collections). And the two collections have substantial differences -- starting in the very first line, where the Carlisle text reads "My name it is Dan Martin, I was born in Arkansas" and the High text reads "My name tis Danuel Martin, I was borned in Arkansaw." Where the two agree, I cite them as "Hammontree"; where they disagree, as "High" and "Carlisle."
-- There are also the fragments, Randolph's B and Alsopp's; they add no information not found in the full versions, although they confirm that a few of the lines were genuinely traditional.
Of the texts, Randolph's A and Carlisle's version of Hammontree are clearly the closest, with most of the details being the same except for pronunciation, but Randolph notably has a couple of stanzas about the singer's lieutenant that don't seem to occur elsewhere.
--- Information from the Versions ---
It appears that whoever wrote the song knew a great deal about the battle, on both the Federal and Rebel sides. There are many details, most of them accurate except for errors that are probable the result of mistakes in transmission. But, curiously, the published versions are very distinct both in content and in emphasis. The notes below attempt to explicate these details, noting which version(s) they are found in. The versions are identified by their sources: Belden, Randolph (A text), Martin, Hammontree (specifying High or Carlisle where they differ), and Driftwood.
Note that some versions are from a Northern, some from a Southern, perspective. The two are distinct enough that there was surely a deliberate rewrite along the way. I will deal below with which is more likely to be original.
-- "My name it is Dan Martin" (all substantial texts, with variants): There is every reason to believe that this attribution is correct, or at minimum to believe that the song is by someone in the same Civil War company (Company D, Phelps's Regiment) as Daniel H. Martin of Benton County, Arkansas. I will return to this point after we've looked at the other information in the song.
-- "I was forced to go/flee to Rollie" (Belden) = "Raleigh" (Randolph) = "Rolla" (Martin; Hammontree; High makes it "Rolley"): Rolla, Missouri, was important as the end of the railroad line from Saint Louis to the southwest. It was thus the main base of supply for Union armies in southern Missouri and Arkansas. This meant that it was fairly secure, so little wonder that in Belden's version, the Arkansas Unionist was "forced to go" there. (It is worth noting that, although Arkansas was southern, the people of the Ozarks were much more likely to be Unionist than those in the less mountainous parts of the state)
-- "Phillips's Regiment" (Belden) = "Phelps' regiment" (Martin, Randolph, Hammontree): There was no regimental commander at Pea Ridge named "Phillips," based on Shea, pp. 108-112. However, the (Union) 25th Missouri was "Phelps's Missouri Regiment," commanded by Colonel John S. Phelps. And, although it had an official regimental number, the number never really used it. Matthews, p. 49, says that the men "unanimously decided to call our Regt. the 'Phelps Regt.'"; I cannot recall him using any other name.
Clifford Ocheltree points out that Rolla was the county seat of Phelps County, so any regiment recruited there would be a "Phelps Regiment." True, but that the modern introduction to Matthews (p. i) says that "The regiment's colonel was U. S. Congressman John Phelps, a man with no previous military experience. [This was not unusual for regimental commanders, who were mostly people influential enough to raise a regiment.] Its ranks were filled with Union sympathizers, 'refugees' from southwestern Missouri, anxious to reclaim their homes from pro-Southern Missourians and their Confederate allies. (There were a couple of other units with many Missouri refugees, according to Shea/Hess, p. 15, but Phelps's was the only one specifically organized around such men.)
Phelps's Regiment fought only one major battle, at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, but performed well and suffered significant casualties contributing to the Union victory. Matthews, p. 63, says that the majority of the men in the regiment were southwestern Missourians and that Company D, for whom this song was probably composed, was especially heavy with men from Springfield and other parts of Missouri the Confederates controlled.
Thus it would be quite reasonable for a man who had fled to Rolla to join Phelps's regiment. As we shall see, the song gives other evidence that this was the unit intended. It was in Vandever's Second Brigade of Carr's Division, so it was in the thick of the fighting.
Phelps himself (1814-1886) was a lawyer who was born in Connecticut but moved to Springfield, Missouri in 1838 and was congressman from that state for many years (Warner-Blue, p. 367). He was originally Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment, then became colonel on December 19, 1861. He mustered out May 13, 1862 (the 25th was a six month regiment, based on Warner-Blue, p. 367), but was made a brigadier general in July 1862 and was appointed military governor of Arkansas in late 1862 and early 1863, when he had to leave office because congress failed to confirm his appointment as brigadier general (Phisterer, p. 283; Warner-Blue, p. 368); he was governor of Missouri 1876-1880 (Boatner, p. 650). He was important enough to have his own entry in the Dictionary of National Biography.
Not all of Phelps's regiment was present at Pea Ridge; a large part had been left behind to guard the supply line, including about half of Company D in which the author of this song served (Matthews, p. 81). But clearly the author, as well as the company's three officers, were at the battle; a sergeant was in charge of those left at Cassville, Missouri (about two-thirds of the way from Springfield to the Arkansas border).
The fact that some had been left behind makes its casualty rate very high indeed; Shea/Hess, p. 334, says the regiment suffered 12 killed, 71 wounded, 11 missing. It wasn't the heaviest unit loss in the Union army (the 9th Iowa, also in Vandever's brigade, had 38 killed, 174 wounded, 4 missing, and the two regiments of Dodge's Brigade also had over 100 casualties each; Shea/Hess, p. 333), but given that it probably brought only a few hundred men to the fight, this was probably among the highest proportional losses in Curtis's army. Casualties in Dan Martin's Company D were, if anything, even worse; according to Matthews, p. 106, all three of the company's officers were casualties, as was the orderly sergeant, at least one other sergeant, and every corporal in the company; there was only one uninjured sergeant left to command the company. (Lieutenant Matthews himself, shot through the lung, thought his wound mortal, but he survived.) Matthews, p. 117, says that there were 30 members of Company D present in Arkansas, and 17 were wounded; though none actually died, though some had limbs amputated or were otherwise maimed for life.
-- "His Colonel and his officers, They used us mighty well" (Martin): Strange phrasing, since Phelps not only raised the regiment but commanded it. In any case, John S. Phelps was colonel of the Phelps Regiment, and C. B. Holland the Lieutenant Colonel (Matthews, p. 117). Marcus Boyd had been the Lieutenant Colonel (under Phelps) of the Greene County Home Guard before (most of it) became the Phelps Regiment (Matthews, p. 119). Other officers who were directly over Company D were the Phelps Regiment's Major W. G. Geiger, plus of course the company's own officers: Captain John W. Lisenby, 1st Lieutenant R. P. Matthews (the author of Matthews), and 2nd Lieutenant Charles C. Moss, of whom more below.
-- "For four months we stayed at Rollie" (Belden; Martin has "Rolla"; High, although not Carlisle, has a variation of this line): Roughly right; the Phelps regiment was recruited from late August to December 1861, according to the information in Matthews, but would have been a functioning unit from about October, and it was heading for Springfield in February. Thus they were in Rolla during the worst of winter, as the song implies.
-- "He gathered up his rebels, Into Arkansas he run" (Martin): As noted above, Sterling Price abandoned Springfield, Missouri and retreated into Arkansas when Curtis's army approached.
-- "We chased them to Cross Hollows" (Martin): This is another indication that the unit in the song is Phelps's Regiment, or another unit in its brigade. After the skirmish at Sugar Creek, Vandeveer's Brigade went on to a former Confederate camp at Cross Hollow (Shea/Hess, pp. 50-51, south of what became the Pea Ridge battlefield -- and then had to make one of the longest forced marches of the war -- more than forty miles -- to reach Elkhorn Tavern in time for the fight (Matthews, pp. 86-87, 90-93; Shea/Hess, p. 173). Vanderveer's was the only major unit to make that trip.
-- "It was the sixth of March that we did march away" (Randolph, Hammontree): March 6, 1862, was when Van Dorn's army started on the final march to attack the Federals on March 7. Note that this date was significant to the Confederate army but not really to the Union -- but it is interesting that the person who produced the Confederate version knew the date.
-- "T'was on the seventh day of March In eighteen sixty two" (Driftwood): This is the correct date for the start of the battle, but perhaps a modification by Jimmy Driftwood, since it occurs only in his version.
-- "To fight the Federals and the flop-eared Dutch" (Randolph, Hammontree "Feds" for "Federals"): Franz Sigel was the best-known officer in Curtis's command -- the only one who had been in command of a brigade at Wilson's Creek -- and he was famously German and his military failures (to this time) overlooked because of his recruiting of Germans, disparagingly known as "Dutch." The distinction between "Federals" and "Dutch" might be an indication that the singer knew that Curtis's forces were divided into two divisions under Sigel and two under Curtis's direct control, as noted above -- although it might just be a crude insult. This is obviously an addition to the original song.
-- "meet old Sterling Price" (Belden, Martin) = "Price/old Price" (Randolph, Driftwood; Hammontree; also mentioned in Randolph B): Sterling Price (1809-1867), former governor of Missouri and commander of Missouri's Confederate troops. For another song about him, see "Sterling Price"; for his activity early in the war, see "The War in Missouri in '61."
He was not a soldier by profession; he had led a regiment in the Mexican War, in which he "displayed a laxness in enforcing discipline, a tendency to quarrel with other officials, and a penchant for acting in a highly independent, almost insubordinate, fashion" (Caster, p. 5). He still acted like that during the Civil War; the poor training of his troops before Wilson's Creek was one of the reasons he fought with McCulloch, and while it's less clear that that was an issue at Pea Ridge, it can't have helped.
Price was commander of about half of Van Dorn's army, and would serve as a Major General throughout the war, without great success.
Belden's text is correct in saying that Price "to Arkansas he run"; although Price had stayed in Missouri after Wilson's Creek, as we saw above, he retreated when Curtis's army headed for Springfield and beyond.
Belden's text is also correct in saying that Price suffered an arm wound at Pea Ridge; he took a bullet in the right arm that also bruised his side (HessEtAl, p. 114) -- if he hadn't moved his arm just before it hit, he thought the bullet would have killed him (Shea/Hess, p. 180). He did not leave the field, but his ability to lead his troops was affected. His injury meant that the Confederate high command was truly decimated -- McCulloch dead, Price injured, Van Dorn unwell.
Castel, p. 62, says "It is easy to see why Price inspired contempt in professionals such as McIntosh," because he was always proposing impossible plans and failed to impose much discipline on his men. Yet the soldiers seem to have liked him a lot, because he was very brave in the field (and so suffered several injuries such as the one he suffered at Pea Ridge) and also seems to have tried to care for him.
Note that Belden's reading "meet old Sterling Price" could mean to come into Price's presence -- but it could also mean to have to commands rendezvous (as Price and McCulloch did) or to encounter each other in battle, i.e. to fight Price.
-- "General Curtis" (Randolph)/"old Curtis" (High): Samuel Curtis (1877-1866), Union commander at Pea Ridge. He was field commander of Union forces in Missouri and Arkansas for most of the war. Although badly outnumbered at Pea Ridge, he asked far less of his raw troops than Confederate commander Van Dorn, and so was able to win the battle. A West Pointer, he had also been a civil engineer, a lawyer, and in the years before the Civil War, a congressman from Iowa. He had also led a regiment in the Mexican War. Resigning his seat in congress in 1861, he became colonel of the 2nd Iowa regiment, and was promoted brigadier general on May 17, 1861. He was promoted to major general soon after Pea Ridge. He had little to do for the rest of the war, although he did fight off "Price's Missouri Raid" in 1864 (Boatner, p. 215).
-- "Mackintosh"/"Mackintush" (sic.) (Belden, Martin): Presumably James McQueen McIntosh (1828-1862), a West Pointer who was McCulloch's senior brigadier and second in command, killed March 7. He had been colonel of the 2nd Arkansas Mounted Rifles, and was made brigadier on January 24, 1862 (Warner-Gray, pp. 202-203). His brigade was a cavalry brigade, even though it was part of a division that had a lot of infantry. His brother, interestingly, stayed with the Union.
Shea/Hess, p. 70, says that "McIntosh was an 1849 West Point graduate who had served for years on the frontier but had failed to develop the skills necessary for high command. Impulsive, recless, and courageous to a fault, McIntosh liked nothing better than plunging headlong into a fight." As an example of his lack of insight they point to his approach to Sigel's forces as they were retreating from Bentonville to Curtis's Little Sugar Creek position. He could have won the skirmish in several ways, but came up with an elaborate multi-part plan that let Sigel escape.
-- "We fought them full nine hours" (Martin): I haven't seen an exact count of how long the troops fought on March 7, and it depends on whether reference is to Elkhorn Tavern alone or Leetown as well -- but it was an all-day fight, which in early March would make nine hours not an impossible estimate.
-- "(Ben) McCullough" (Belden)/"McCulloch" (Randolph)/"McCullock" (Driftwood)/ "brave McCuoullogh" (Carlisle)/ "Ben McCullough" (High)/"Ben McCully" (Martin): Ben McCulloch (1811-1862). Commander at Wilson's Creek, and field commander of Confederate forces west of the Mississippi (or at least in Arkansas) until the arrival of Van Dorn. As we have seen, he was then relegated to division command, and was killed on March 7. High's version says that he was killed about an hour after the encounter at Leetown began; since no one really knows just when he fell, this can't be said with certainty, but his death halted the Confederate advance for about an hour (Shea, p .49). It also was probably the single worst blow to the Confederates; McCulloch, unlike Price and Van Dorn, had been doing a competent job until then (Shea/Hess, p. 313).
-- "Bentonville Road... about eleven o'clock next day" (Randolph) = "Bentonville Road, they marched me all that night And about eleven o'clock next day they led us into the fight" (Hammontree): The "Bentonville Road" could refer either to the road from Fayetteville to Bentonville, along which Van Dorn led his army in his hopes of attacking SIgel before he reunited with Curtis; or to the "Bentonville Detour," a lane at Pea Ridge that Van Dorn used to move north of Elkhorn Tavern (Shea, p.41); or to the road from Bentonville to Elkhorn Tavern which Sigel used to fall back to Curtis's position on Little Sugar Creek (see map on p. 38 of Shea). The evidence is confusing -- Randolph's version of the song is from the Confederate standpoint, but it was Sigel who marched at night away from Bentonville (Shea, p.40); the Confederates mostly marched during the day. The Confederates did march at night on the Bentonville Detour right before the attack (Shea, p. 41). Van Dorn's final march to Pea Ridge began at about 11:00, but 11:00 p.m., not a.m. (Shea, p. 41). Hammontree's text, unlike Randolph's, fits what Van Dorn actually did, so one suspects that either Randolph's text is a badly assimilated leftover from a Unionist version or an error for Hammontree's tex.
-- "They marched us down to the Widow Scott's" (Randolph, Hammontree): I have not been able to locate the Widow Scott's. It was not Curtis's headquarters (he was based at Pratt's Store between Little Sugar Creek and Elkhorn Tavern; see e.g. the map on p. 57) and Van Dorn -- who didn't even really have a staff yet -- didn't have an established headquarters location. I would guess it is near Leetown where Osterhaus fought McCulloch. It is not unlikely that its location has been forgotten -- there was no survey of the battlefield until much later, so there is uncertainty even about the location of such vital places as Pratt's Store (HessEtAl, p.88).
-- "Rain"(Belden)/"Range" (Martin): Neither army had a general named "Rain," let along "Range." It is safe to say that this is an error for "Rains" -- but which General Rains? Boatner, pp. 676-677, lists two Confederate generals and another important officer named Rains, and Warner-Gray, pp. 249-251, lists two Confederate generals -- but none of them were at Pea Ridge. In earlier editions of the Index I suggested that this was general James E. Rains (1833-1862), who served in the west though he was still only a colonel (11th Tennessee) at the time of Pea Ridge. But it turns out that the eighth "division" of Price's Missouri State Guard (actually a weak brigade; Shea/Hess, p. 23, compares these Guard divisions to regiments, which are smaller still) was commanded by Brigadier General James S. Rains (Shea, p. 112). The officers in the Missouri State Guard, up to and including Price himself, held Missouri ranks, not Confederate ranks; evidently James S. Rains never had his Missouri general's commission converted into a real Confederate commission.
According to Gerteis, p. 29, "[Missouri governor Clayiborne] Jackson appointed James S. Rains commander of the Eighth Military District, which included the southwestern counties of the state from Jackson County (and Kansas City) south to the Arkansas border. Born in Tennessee in 1817, Rains moved to Sarcoxie, Missouri, in 1840. He served as a judge in Newton County and as a member of the legislature." In other words, a political appointee with no military training (Gerteis, p. 40). He served at Wilson's Creek under Price, and stayed with Price when Price retreated to Arkansas. His wound at Pea Ridge was arguably the highlight of his war; skimming through the various references in Gerteis, it seems he never acquired much military skill. Even by the standards of Price's troops, his men were apparently badly trained; they were routed by half their numbers in a skirmish at Dug Springs prior to Wilson's Creek; it was his performance that led McCulloch to think Price's men were hopeless (Castel, pp.36-37). A Federal spy reported that he was "drunk all the time" in the winter of 1861/1862. Rains was eventually put out to pasture without achieving higher rank.
Price's units all started out as Missouri militia, and still had that status when they fought a Wilson's Creek. Many did not want to enter the Confederate service because it might require them to serve outside Missouri. Price himself was still a militia officer at Pea Ridge; he didn't take a Confederate commission until April 8, when he became a Confederate major general (Castel, p. 82; Shea/Hess, p. 19 says that Jefferson Davis made an agreement that Price would be made a major general when -- but only when -- he had convinced enough Missouri troops to enlist in the Confederate army to form a division for him to command). Reportedly, when the Confederates started converting Missouri State Guard soldiers into regular Confederate units, they started with the good troops -- Little's Brigade, then Slack's. Rains's men had not yet been converted at the time of Pea Ridge, which is probably another comment on their quality.
Rains's unit was part of the fighting on January 7, but it was on Price's left, fighting Dodge's brigade, not Price's right, where it would have fought Phelps's Regiment (Shea/Hess, p. 197).
After the battle, Rains spoke so strongly against Van Dorn that Van Dorn had him arrested. It will perhaps tell you something about Rains's character that, when Van Dorn offered to release him from arrest, Rains refused -- he wanted a court martial to clear his name (Hartje, p. 155). If he'd devoted half as much energy to training his troops as he to staying in a high dudgeon about his honor, he might actually have amounted to something as an officer....
-- "They mustered eighty thousand" (Belden)/"They mustered eighteen thousand" (Martin): Belden's number is absurdly impossible; no army west of the Mississippi ever approached that number, and no army that size could have been supplied for long away from the railroads. Clearly an error of hearing for Martin's "eighteen thousand," which is in fact about right for Van Dorn's army -- probably a little high, but close, particularly if you count hangers-one who would not fight.
-- "Segal" (Belden) = "Seegle" (Hammontree) = "SIgel" (Randolph B): [Franz] Sigel (1824-1902), a wing and division commander under Curtis. He had attained his rank by bringing many German immigrants to the Union colors; other soldiers (both Union and Confederate) had a very low opinion of his "Dutchmen" (as witness the insult to the "flop-eared Dutch" above). Generally inept, Sigel had his one good day of the war at Pea Ridge (and even that was accomplished under Curtis's eye; Shea/Hess, p. 30, comment that, early in the campaign, Curtis let Sigel operate on his own, because he "had not yet learned that Sigel had an alarming tendency to ignore orders and engage in eccentric maneuvers.... [W]ithin few weeks he would be careful not to let the German general out of his sight"). On p. 230, they claim that Sigel thought the battle lost on the night of March 7, and was hoping to cut his way out and retreat -- but Curtis pointed him in the right direction and it actually worked out; Shea/Hess, p. 311, in the same paragraph that they call him erratic and unreliable overall, refer to his performance on March 8 as "stellar." (After the battle, though, Sigel turned into a super-retreater again; he apparently tried, without orders, to retreat to Missouri, making it easier for the Confederate army to retreat; Shea/Hess, pp. 258-259. After the battle, Curtis and his superior Henry W. Halleck corresponded at length about what to do with Sigel, who was not only incompetent but was claiming credit for winning Pea Ridge; Shea/Hess, pp. 278-279).
-- "old Slack" (Belden)/"General Slack" (Randolph, Hammontree): William Y. Slack, a Confederate brigadier killed on March 7. Shea, p. 111, list him as colonel commanding Price's Second Missouri Brigade, which makes him leader of one of Price's better units. According to Warner-Gray, p. 278, he was born in Kentucky in 1816; his family moved to Missouri in 1819. By training a lawyer, he was another of Claiborne Jackson's brigadiers by fiat. He had already been wounded once, at Springfield; at Pea Ridge, he was wounded again (Shea, p. 59), although he lingered for two weeks, so the cause of death may have been infection in the wound rather than the wound itself. About a month later, the Confederate congress promoted him to brigadier in the Confederate army (it's not clear whether they knew he was dead). The promotion was dated after Pea Ridge, though, so he was still a Confederate colonel (although a Missouri brigadier) at the time of his death. As for being "old Slack," he wasn't young, but he was younger than either McCulloch or Price.
According to Shea/Hess, p. 175, his habit of always being out in front of his troops explains his demise; he was "possibly the only [Confederate] casualty" of the first round of fighting when Vandeveer's brigade (and hence Phelps's Regiment) arrived on the field. Thus he was not only killed at Pea Ridge, he was killed by someone in the same brigade as Dan Martin.
-- "a tavern called Elkhorn" (Belden; Carlisle; Ranolph calls it "Elk horn"; High has the "battle of Elk-Horn"); also "Next morning at the Elk Horn Tavern" (Martin): the center of the fighting on March 7, held by Carr for most of the day before he was driven back. Shea, p. 55. has a sketch of it, but I don't know if it is authentic.
The tavern was built at an unknown time prior to 1858 to serve the traffic along the Telegraph Road (also known as the Wire Road) -- the great road from Rolla to Springfield and on past Fayetteville that was the main means of transportation in this railroad-less, navigable river-less part of the country. Jesse Cox, who bought the property in 1858, placed the elk antlers on the roof of the two story building that gave it its name (Shea/Hess, p. 152). The building was destroyed sometime in 1863 (HessEtAl, p. 108); there is a reconstructed version, one of the key locations of the Pea Ridge battle site, but I suspect that much of the reconstruction is guesswork.
In Van Dorn's original plan, he hoped to have Price's and McCulloch's divisions, which had taken separate roads from Bentonville, reunite at the Tavern to attack Curtis's rear (Shea, p. 42). It was an important position because it blocked the exit from Cross Timber Hollow, meaning that the Confederates would have to attack uphill and perhaps be bunched by the ground. This made it the center of a strong defensive position (Shea,p. 56)
-- "Price he tuck the Dinver road the train tuck to the rit" (High)/"Some took up the left-hand road, and some took up the right" (Carlisle): Perhaps the original line was something like "Price he took the left hand road, McCulloch took the right" (which is in fact what happened, based on the map on p. 45 of Shea; this is what led to the Confederate army fighting two separate fights).
-- "Pea Ridge" (Belden, Driftwood, Hammontree)/"the Pea Ridge Fight" (Randolph): Pea Ridge -- or the lower ground around it of it -- was of course the site of the battle, although Curtis had planned his battle around the nearby Little Sugar Creek. The generic title for the battle is usually given as "The Battle of Pea Ridge," although the Confederates called it "Elhhorn Tavern" (HessEtAl, p. 108). But "Elkhorn Tavern" should ideally be reserved for the fight on the northern battlefield, the one fought mostly by Price. McCulloch's fight is sometimes called the "Battle of Leetown," since that was the nearest settlement, Phisterer, p. 95, for instance, gives "Pea Ridge" as the collective title for what he calls the battles of Bentonville, Leetown, and Elkhorn Tavern. The point being that "Pea Ridge" is not a title a participant would automatically have known -- the locals often used the name "Big Mountain" for Pea Ridge (so, pretty consistently, HessEtAl, with explanation on p. 86 that "Big Mountain" was the local name, by contrast to a "Little Mountain" closer to Leetown). One suspects that the Confederates called it "Elkhorn Tavern" because they felt that the real battle was there, while the Federals felt that both Leetown and Elkhorn were important parts of the fight.
Pea Ridge itself was named because wild peas grew abundantly on its slopes (Castel, p. 71).
-- "McManus acted queer" (Randolph; Carlisle "quare"; High, astounding, transfers this event to "Vandorn"): I have found no mention of this in the histories. Since he was "shooting at the Dutch" and this is in the context of Leetown, this McManus must have been in McCulloch's forces. No unit commander in McCulloch's division was named "McManus," but presumably it was a lower-ranked person. The behavior described is hardly unusual; a lot of men had a hard time actually fighting during a battle. This was especially true this early in the war, when the men weren't particularly accustomed to battle. We might note, however, that Phelps's regiment had a soldier, William S. McManns or McMenus (Matthews, pp. 28-31 in the list of men in the regiment).
-- "Our General McCulloch's killed" (Randolph): accurate (although there is some dispute about how it happened and was discovered; see above).
-- "brave Van Dorn" (Belden, Hammontree): Brave he was; competent was another question. To summarize what was said above, Earl Van Dorn (1820-1863) was commander of Confederate forces beyond the Mississippi. He came in with a high reputation: F"rom no officer was more expected at the outset of hostilities in 1861 than from Earl Van Dorn. Few men of his age had more military experience and prestige. His record of service in the Mexican War and on the Indian border indicated that he possessed courage and definite leadership possibilities.... But Earl Van Dorn lacked some vital quality as a man and as a general that kept him from achieving the success that his country expected" (Hartje, pp. x-xi).
He was appointed to soothe the squabbles between Price and McCulloch over who was senior (the two had been squabbling about this for over a year; Price was made Major General earlier, but by the government of Missouri; McCulloch was appointed by the Confederate government). He commanded the Confederates at Pea Ridge, and was largely responsible for the disaster.
Foote, p. 277, offers this description: "Approaching his prime at forty-one, he was dark-skinned and thin-faced, with a shaggy mustache, an imperial, and a quick, decisive manner; 'Buck,' his fellow Confederates called him. Except for his size (he was five feet five: two inches taller than Napoleon) he was in fact the very beau sabreur of Southern fable, the Bayard-Lochinvar of maiden dreams. Not that his distinction was based solely on his looks. He was a man of action, too -- one who knew how to grasp the nettle, danger, and had done so many times. Appointed to West Point by his great-uncle Andrew Jackson, he had gone on to collect two brevets and five wounds a a lieutenant in the Mexican War and in skirmishes with Comanches on the warpath." His experience of high command -- like every Civil War officer of his age or younger -- was nil.
And he seems to have been good at making enemies -- he was assassinated in 1863 for apparently sleeping with another man's wife! (For more on Van Dorn's rakish personal life, see the notes to "Oh You Who Are Able....")
The use of the word "brave" -- or, indeed, any complimentary word -- hints at Union origin; hardly any Confederate who went through the battle had any good words for Van Dorn (Shea/Hess, p.268).
"We planted out our batteries and waited till daylight. Next morning we rose early" (Martin): Clearly a reference to the night of March 7/8, when Curtis assembled his entire force south of Elkhorn Tavern for his counterattack. (It cannot refer to the previous night, because all Federal units changed position in the course of March 7.) These verses appear, however, to be displaced in the Martin text, since they occur before the verses referring McCulloch being killed and Price injured.
-- "Van Dorn was taken very sick" (Randolph)/"Van Dorn he grew very sick" (Hammontree): As mentioned above, he was sick even before the battle started, though the men may not have known that. But because he couldn't travel on his own, it probably seemed to his men that he fled the field when he decided his army must retreat. (Ironically, I read somewhere that he felt much better on March 8, the day the battle was finally lost.)
-- "Van Dorn he lost his hat" (Randolph, Hammontree, Driftwood spells it "Van Dorr"): This verse is the sum total of the Allsopp fragment: "It was at the battle of Elkhorn, Van Dorn he lost his hat, And for about a half a mile He laid the bushes flat." I have not heard of an incident of Van Dorn losing his hat. If this refers to anything, I suspect it is the aforementioned incident (Hartje, p. 115) when Van Dorn temporarily lost his sword and had to hunt for it. But this was before the battle -- indeed, it was before Van Dorn even met Price and McCulloch. So it is quite a confused reference.
-- "Plumb to White River he did go" (Randolph, Hammontree): This is roughly right. Insofar as Van Dorn's army went anywhere (as opposed to scattering to the four winds), it went southeast (toward the White River) to Van Winkle's Mill (Shea, p.69). Van Dorn later took the army to Des Arc on the White River so that it could be taken across the Mississippi (Castel, p. 81).
-- "Well, Price come dashing down the road... And when he heard of McCulloch's death, The tears rolled down his face...." (Morris). This is the one thing in the versions which is really, truly, utterly wrong; Price and McCulloch had quarreled constantly. They even published letters attacking each other in the major papers! (Castel, p. 63). It's interesting that Jimmy Driftwood cut it from his father's version. It is reported that Price cried after Van Dorn ordered the Confederates to retreat (Castel, p. 76) -- but that was because of the defeat, not McCulloch's death. According to Castel, pp. 80-81, the Confederate army did not feel defeated, and their opinion of Price actually rose after the battle, even though Van Dorn implicitly attacked his troops' indiscipline (and most moderns think Van Dorn was right). Even General Rains apparently felt this way; he declared, "By God, nobody was whipped at Pea Ridge but Van Dorn!" (Shea/Hess, p. 260; Hartje, p. 155). Which is absurd; one could certainly make a case that the fiasco was entirely Van Dorn's fault, but the Confederates definitely lost.
-- "Price said, boys I never shall, Surrender to the foe, Before I'll bow to Abraham I'll go to Mexico (an' he did)" (Driftwood): Price did indeed flee to Mexico after the war, although he returned to Missouri when the French colonial expedition to that country was overthrown in 1866; he died in 1867 (Warner-Gray, p. 247). But note that this refers to events after the war -- the only time the song refers to events after the Pea Ridge battle. I suspect this is a later edition, perhaps by Driftwood.
"I served out my six months at Rolla" (Martin): Phelps's Regiment was a six month unit, so this is is accurate.
"I went back to the army And enlisted for three years" (Martin): An interesting verse; is this something Martin added later? As Johnston's account (summarized below) shows, Dan Martin did indeed rejoin the army, but under very different circumstances. I note that this part of the song does not appear in other versions. This hints that Martin might have written the song while with Phelps's Regiment, and that others in the regiment spread it, but Martin changed it for his own family.
--- Who Is Dan Martin? ---
-- "Price said, boys I never shall, Surrender to th foe, Before I'll bow to Abraham I'll go to Mexico (an' he did)" (Driftwood): Price did indeed flee to Mexico after the war, although he returned to Missouri when the French colonial expedition to that country was overthrown in 1866; he died in 1867 (Warner-Gray, p. 247). But note that this refers to events after the war -- the only time the song refers to events after the Pea Ridge battle. I suspect this is a later edition, perhaps by Driftwood.
The above doesn't address the most specific item of all: the very first line of the song, which claims to identify its author: "My name it is Dan Martin." This is found in every substantial text, with the name given as either "Dan Martin" or "Daniel Martin."
-- There is one other identifying name, "There was a young lieutenant, His name was Charley Moss" (Martin; Randolph)
This gives us an absolute fix: Martin and Moss both belonged to Company D of Phelps's Regiment.
Matthews, pp. 30-31, says that Charles C. Moss joined Phelps's regiment as a private on October 31, 1861, at Rolla and was a member of Company D. He was made 2nd Lieutenant on December 6, 1861, and would suffer a hip wound at Pea Ridge. According to Matthews, p. 118, he would later become a captain in the First Arkansas Cavalry. Thus the mentions of Moss also point us to the Phelps Regiment. Dan Martin wasn't the only one who liked Moss. Matthews, p.39, says that he "was a jolly, funny, good natured boy, who would sing his comic songs had he been a Maj[or] General in charge of [an army] Corps. Matthews should know; he had been orderly sergeant of the Home Guard company that, after Phelps's Regiment was formed, became Company D, and after the company was organized as a six month regiment, he became its First Lieutenant, with Moss as Second Lieutenant and Martin one of the privates (Matthews, pp. 46-47).
Matthews, pp. 28-29 in the list of members of the Phelps regiment, lists among the men Daniel H. Martin, Private, age 23, enlisted October 17, 1861 at Rolla, Missouri, jut like Moss. He was a member of Company D. He thus fits every criterion for being the author of this song. This was my conclusion before I saw Johnston, but Johnston reached the same result independently (and long before I looked at the matter). On p. 33 he says that Daniel Hugh Martin was born in Benton County, Arkansas (date unknown), and died August 4, 1880, in Marble, Madison County, Arkansas.
Dan Martin seems to have been quite a character, and by no means an amusing one. Johnston, pp. 37-39, has biographical details. He was born c. 1838, making him 23 or 24 at the time of Pea Ridge. He is said to have been quite tall -- six feet, two inches -- with light hair and blue eyes. Martin's father James D. Martin was a minister; his mother died when he was still a boy. He was born in Benton County, Arkansas. (I verified this from the 1850 census records; Daniel H. Martin of Benton County was born c. 1838.)
Johnston adds that Martin disliked his stepmother, whom he claimed mistreated him, and arranged an accident for his father which left the father with a broken collarbone. He then ran away from home at the age of thirteen. Two years later, he came back to kidnap his ten-year-old sister to get her away from his stepmother.He was married at the time he enlisted, and returned to his wife when the regiment mustered out after Pea Ridge. But he later joined the 1st Arkansas Cavalry (Union). He was detached for a time, went AWOL, apparently managed to explain himself, but disappeared again and was listed as a deserter. After the war, believing his first wife had been unfaithful, he stole his daughter and moved to Arkansas, taking another wife, then abandoning her before taking a third wife, Rutha A. Hawkins, in 1877. They moved repeatedly in the period before he died in 1880. No explanation is given for his rambling. He may just have had severe wanderlust. And it is possible (as the song hints) that he was reconciled with his father after James Martin found a third wife. But, since we know Dan was a deserter and a bigamist, one wonders about other crimes.
Which brings us to Matthews, pp. 84-85, which has this statement: "While the fight was progressing, Dan Martin, the noisiest man in Co[mpany] D, told the boys that his father belonged to a Texas reg[imen]t, and might possibly be in that fight and it would be a good joke on the old man if he should get his chunk knocked out. After the fighting had ceased and we had bivouacked for the night, Dan got permission to go and look over the battle field and soon after returned and asked Capt[ain] Lisenby for a man or two to help him bury his father whom he had sure enough found dead."
The context is this: Curtis's army has driven Price out of Springfield; Price is retreating toward or into Arkansas. Prices's forces periodically fought rearguard actions against Curtis; this incident arose during one such. The exact place is not identified, only that it is somewhere between Cassville and Little Sugar Creek -- but the units engaged tit with those at Little Sugar Creek. Certainly it was either in Benton County, Arkansas or in the part of Missouri just over the border.
But Phelps's Regiment wasn't engaged at Little Sugar Creek (Shea/Hess, pp. 39-43). So how could Martin have known there was a Texas regiment involved? Price's entire force was Missouri state militia. To be sure, Hébert's brigade came to support Price at Little Sugar Creek, and it did include the 4th Texas Cavalry Battalion. But Curtis didn't know this (Shea/Hess, p. 41), so how would Dan Martin?
Also, if Dan Martin was so estranged from his father, how did he know his father was in a Texas regiment? (For what it's worth, the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Database does not list a James Martin who served in the relevant unit. This doesn't prove much, since search results depend on knowing just what to look for. For example, the "Charles C. Moss" of Matthews is listed as "Charles D. Moss." Which is right? I can't tell.)
There was simply no reason for Dan Martin to suspect Curtis's army had fought against his father at Little Sugar Creek.
Now to give Martin his due, Matthews wrote his account 28 years later (and the original manuscript is lost; what we have is a typescript which might have transcription errors). So Matthews might have details wrong. But if it is accurate, what possible reason could Dan Martin have had to go look for his father among the Confederate dead in that particular place? None. But he was in or near his home county -- quite possibly near his father's home. Did Dan Martin find his father's body -- or did he leave the ranks to murder his father? I think the latter a better fit for the evidence. His father would not have had to be in uniform -- many Confederates had no uniforms (the Missouri troops had no uniforms at this time, e.g. -- at about this time they received their first issued clothing of any kind, which were pants of undyed wool; Shea/Hess, p. 50).
None of which has anything to do with whether Dan Martin of Company D wrote this song, of course.
--- Northern or Southern? ---
We have versions of this with both northern and southern orientations. So which is the original? Shea/Hess, who quote four southern stanzas on pp. 321-322, think there is not much variation in the versions. But they didn't know Belden's version. In fact the evidence is conflicting.
-- Of the five versions, three are pro-southern. (Sort of. High's version of Hammontree has the singer fleeing "those bad rebels"; Carlisle has him flee "those dishonored Feds" -- so Hammontree apparently had it both ways!) This is interesting but not really very good evidence -- the sample is small, and it is biased. All the versions with a southern orientation are from Arkansas; Belden's northern version is from Missouri. So each state had a version that conformed with its Civil War allegiance. It may be that Southern versions predominate simply because Arkansas was better surveyed. The Martin version, the most authoritative, says that the singer "fled from those bad rebels," so it probably deserves extra weight.
-- The song knows a surprising amount about the battle (more than any foot soldier would know), and it names generals on both sides. But it names just two on the Union side: Curtis and Sigel, the two best-knnown officers by far. On the Confederate side, it mentions Van Dorn, Price, McCulloch, McIntosh, Slack, and even the extremely obscure Rains (though it has his name wrong). It seems as if the song knows more about the Confederate command.
-- Several versions mention going to Rolla. That was Union territory from the moment Nathaniel Lyon took command in the state. No Confederate would go there, either to fight or to enlist.
-- But we have seen that the song involves an actual Union soldier, Dan Martin, and the actual place of his enlistment. The Union version is thus entirely consistent in its viewpoint. The Confederate versions do not have an obvious change of perspective, but it's there even so. The overwhelming weight of evidence is that this started as a Union song and was partially adapted by an unknown Confederate sympathizer. - RBW
BibliographyLast updated in version 6.5
File: LA12

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2024 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.