Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West (review)

book reviews157 'bedrock' of the army" (401) and that "Longstreet, not Jackson, was the finest corps commander in the Army of Northern Virginia" (402). Wert's cogent analysis of Longstreet's generalship suffers from a significant contradiction. He writes that "Williamsburg marked Longstreet's first real combat as a division commander, and his method of command—demonstrated on this field and future fields—was to issue orders and then leave the fighting to his subordinates" (103). But Wert's own descriptions of Longstreet at Second Manassas (173-74), Sharpsburg (192-93), Fredericksburg (217), Gettysburg (265fr"), Chickamauga (312, 318), and the Wilderness (380-81) depict Longstreet as very much a "hands-on" commander who kept in close touch with his subordinates and appeared at the front lines whenever necessary. Wert observes that a recognition of Longstreet's contributions to the war "requires a reexamination of Southern icons" (403). This is unquestionably occurring. Perhaps the best evidence is the fact that the Sons of Confederate Veterans recently established a memorial committee to place a statue of Longstreet at Gettysburg. It is long overdue. William Garrett Piston Southwest Missouri State University Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West. By William L. Shea and Earl J. Hess. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992. Pp. xiii, 417. $2995) In the spring of 1 862 the Union Army of the Southwest, commanded by Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis, and the Confederate Army of the West, under the command of Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn, fought in northwest Arkansas not only the largest and bloodiest Civil War battle west of the Mississippi River but one of the war's most decisive as well. Under orders from Jefferson Davis to seize the offensive in the trans-Mississippi, Van Dorn attempted to weld together two previously antagonistic Rebel forces in the area—Ben McCuIloch 's small Confederate army of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas troops and Sterling Price's Missouri State Guard—and "liberate" Missouri. In what promised to be a brilliant turning maneuver, Van Dorn flanked Curtis out of an almost impregnable defensive position along Little Sugar Creek and occupied a line solidly athwart the Union line of communications. Curtis responded , however, with a masterful change of front and boldly launched his outnumbered army into the advancing Confederates. For reasons still controversial after 130 years, the battle of Pea Ridge became two simultaneous but distinct engagements. On March 7, McCulloch's division encountered the Union divisions of Peter J. Osterhaus and Jefferson C. Davis at Leetown, while Price's division engaged that of Eugene A. Carr at Elkhorn Tavern, two miles to the east. Both battles were Confederate disasters. The deaths of McCulloch and his senior subordinate, James 158civil war history McQueen Mcintosh, the capture of his next in command, and the failure of the next ranking officer to learn that command had devolved upon him resulted in the disintegration of McCulloch's wing. On March 8 the Federals at Elkhorn Tavern, reinforced by the remainder of Osterhaus's and Davis's divisions plus the fresh division ofAlexander S. Asboth, drove Van Dorn and Price from the field and ultimately from the theater. The debacle on Pea Ridge resulted not only in the consolidation of Union control of Missouri but also the loss of Arkansas to the South. Curtis's triumph shattered Van Dorn's ambitious plan for capturing the vital river port of St. Louis and threatening Illinois and the Union heartland from the west, thus allowing Federal forces in Tennessee—forces that had just won the North's first significant victory at Fort Donelson—to continue their string of victories at Shiloh and Corinth without fear of an enemy at their backs. Despite its tremendous importance, Pea Ridge—in common with every other Civil War campaign in the trans-Mississippi—has until now received shamefully slight scholarly or popular attention. William L. Shea's and Earl J. Hess's altogether admirable study of this campaign goes far toward rectifying that neglect. It stands tall among a group ofrecent books—T. Michael Parrish's Richard Taylor, Douglas Hale's Third Texas Cavalry, and Alvin M. Josephy's The Civil War in the American West, among...