Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West

Conclusion. A Military Analysis of Pea Ridge

AMilitaryAnalysisofPeaRidge T he Pea Ridge campaign was one of the earliest sustained operations of the Civil War.It provides a window through which we can glimpse the evolution of warfare in America in the mid-nineteenth century. While the campaign was traditional in manyrespects, the use of repeating rifles, dessicated vegetables, and telegraphic communication reflected the impact of industrialization . Moreover, the ready reliance on fieldworks at Little Sugar Creek and the social and economic impact of operations along the White River anticipated the trench warfare and strategic raids that dominated the war in 1864-65. The campaign also illuminated some of the problems involved in maneuvering and fighting across the undeveloped, wooded, and often rugged landscape of the westernConfederacy. S T R A T E G Y The campaign was an integral part ofHalleck's overall strategy for Union success in the West. He rightly believed that establishing Federal control of St. Louis and as much of Missouri as possible was essential before beginning large-scale offensive operations in Tennessee and the Mississippi Valley. Halleck, so often maligned by contemporaries and historians as an ineffectual nag, deserves much of the credit for the success of the Pea Ridge campaign. He conceived the risky winter operation, placed Curtis and Sheridan in keyposiConclusion 308 H I Pea Ridge tions, granted permission to march on his own authority, and provided crucial moral and logistical support during the initial months ofcampaigning. The result was one of the first Federal incursions into the Confederacy and the most successful Federal operation ever carried out in the Trans-Mississippi. Ironically, the Federal victory at Pea Ridge was so complete that it has obscured the magnitude of the Confederatethreat to Missouriin 1862.Van Dorn commanded the most powerful rebel force ever assembled in the TransMississippi . It made little difference whether he led the Army of the West northward with a firm grasp of the strategic situation in his head or with only a burning desire for glory in his heart. Had VanDorn not been turned back at Pea Ridge,he might well have reached the MissouriRiver and might even have threatened St.Louis.At the very least, a sizable Confederateforce rampaging around central Missouriwould have caused tremendous havoc and would have forced Halleck to divert thousands of troops and tons of supplies from the river offensives.1 Pea Ridge reshaped the strategic balance of forces in the West. VanDorn was sojolted byhis defeat that he readily agreed to Beauregard's suggestion that he transfer his command to the eastern side of the Mississippi. He had been appointed to command the Trans-Mississippi two months earlier in order to win a major strategic advantage. When he crossed the river, all Confederate hopes of controlling that region ended. Curtis's victory at Pea Ridge was the turning point of Federal efforts to dominate the TransMississippi . The departure of the Army of the West from the TransMississippi eliminated the primary reason for the presence of the Army of the Southwest atop the Ozark Plateau. Federal operations in the TransMississippi after Pea Ridge ceased to have much effect on the overall strategic situation in the West, but they continued to have a tremendous impact on military,political, social, and economic affairs in the immediate theaterof operations. In the course of their movements across northern and eastern Arkansas, the Federals ravaged the countryside, engaged in wholesale emancipations of dubious legality,and came within a whisker of capturing Little Rock. After Curtis turned away from Little Rock, the nature of Federal operations in Arkansas changed. What had been a more or less orthodox invasion became the first strategic raid of the Civil War.The economic impact on eastern Arkansas of the March to the Mississippi was comparable to the effect of later raids on portions of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas. By the time his army reached the Mississippi River at Helena, Conclusion \ \ \ 309 Curtis found that he no longer was in the forefront of the strategic picture. The Federal advance down the Mississippi, made possible in part by his accomplishments, had preceded him. L O G I S T I C S During the first few weeks of the campaign the Army of the Southwest drove over two hundred miles across a sparsely settled and often hostile frontier region from the railhead at Rolla, which itself was a hundred miles from the primary Federal depot at St. Louis. Lackingrailroads or...