Setting the Scene
Lake all National Park Service units associated with a battlefield, Pea Ridge National Military Park has a lot of cannons. Probably none of them were involved with the actual Battle of Pea Ridge. A fun project if I had Elon Musk's (illegal and unconstitutional) access to all the Federal Government databases would be to track how the National Park Service inventories all these cannons. Like, how much do they actually know about each cannon? Do they know where they all came from, or did they just have each park pick out a bunch of cannons from the post-war cannon pile?
"Say, Clint," you might be saying. "It's fun to get sidetracked on cannon accounting and all, but we're here for a battle. What's the deal with this Battle of Pea Ridge, anyway?"
Well, friends, I'm glad I pretended you asked. The Battle of Pea Ridge was fought between 10,000 US troops and 16,000 Confederate traitors on March 6 and 7 of 1862. This was still early in the Civil War when people were sorting out what a war was and where they wanted to do all the fighting. The bulk of the attention was focused on Virginia and Maryland, but everybody knew at some point, they'd have to work out control of the Mississippi River. Pea Ridge wasn't really about that, though you could say it was a side quest to that fight, because it determined the fate of St. Louis. The park calls this "The Battle That Saved Missouri for the United States." I think that's a little overblown, but all these parks want you to think they were the crucial moment when the fate of the entire Union hung in the balance.
Here's the deal. On Christmas Day of 1861, Union General Samuel Curtis was given command of a 10,000-man army and told to kick all the Confederates out of Missouri. He spent the next couple of months doing that and managed to run a couple of Confederate armies down into Arkansas. But the landscape turns mountainous in Arkansas south of Fayetteville, and a couple of Confederate generals -- Major General Sterling Price and Brigadier General Ben McCulloch, if you're into tracking all the names -- used the terrain as cover to link up and form a combined force of 16,000. Another guy -- Confederate Major General Earl Van Dorn, because this park enjoys long lists of generals -- took command of the combined force, and started a dash back north, hoping to make a fast run at St. Louis.
The Confederates' problem was that Union General Sam Curtis and his 10,000 buddies were still sitting smack dab on top of the road they needed to get to St. Louis. And that road was right here, on this 4,000 acres. What's left of the original road is maybe a mile behind me. Curtis and his men were camped down there along a creek and in a line stretching off to the right a couple of miles toward Elkhorn Tavern.
Ultimately, then, this battle story is pretty straightforward, in that the Confederates wanted to go straight forward but couldn't. They'd need to deal with these Union guys first.
Setting the Scene
Lake all National Park Service units associated with a battlefield, Pea Ridge National Military Park has a lot of cannons. Probably none of them were involved with the actual Battle of Pea Ridge. A fun project if I had Elon Musk's (illegal and unconstitutional) access to all the Federal Government databases would be to track how the National Park Service inventories all these cannons. Like, how much do they actually know about each cannon? Do they know where they all came from, or did they just have each park pick out a bunch of cannons from the post-war cannon pile?
"Say, Clint," you might be saying. "It's fun to get sidetracked on cannon accounting and all, but we're here for a battle. What's the deal with this Battle of Pea Ridge, anyway?"
Well, friends, I'm glad I pretended you asked. The Battle of Pea Ridge was fought between 10,000 US troops and 16,000 Confederate traitors on March 6 and 7 of 1862. This was still early in the Civil War when people were sorting out what a war was and where they wanted to do all the fighting. The bulk of the attention was focused on Virginia and Maryland, but everybody knew at some point, they'd have to work out control of the Mississippi River. Pea Ridge wasn't really about that, though you could say it was a side quest to that fight, because it determined the fate of St. Louis. The park calls this "The Battle That Saved Missouri for the United States." I think that's a little overblown, but all these parks want you to think they were the crucial moment when the fate of the entire Union hung in the balance.
Here's the deal. On Christmas Day of 1861, Union General Samuel Curtis was given command of a 10,000-man army and told to kick all the Confederates out of Missouri. He spent the next couple of months doing that and managed to run a couple of Confederate armies down into Arkansas. But the landscape turns mountainous in Arkansas south of Fayetteville, and a couple of Confederate generals -- Major General Sterling Price and Brigadier General Ben McCulloch, if you're into tracking all the names -- used the terrain as cover to link up and form a combined force of 16,000. Another guy -- Confederate Major General Earl Van Dorn, because this park enjoys long lists of generals -- took command of the combined force, and started a dash back north, hoping to make a fast run at St. Louis.
The Confederates' problem was that Union General Sam Curtis and his 10,000 buddies were still sitting smack dab on top of the road they needed to get to St. Louis. And that road was right here, on this 4,000 acres. What's left of the original road is maybe a mile behind me. Curtis and his men were camped down there along a creek and in a line stretching off to the right a couple of miles toward Elkhorn Tavern.
Ultimately, then, this battle story is pretty straightforward, in that the Confederates wanted to go straight forward but couldn't. They'd need to deal with these Union guys first.