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William Shea offers a gripping narrative of the events surrounding Prairie Grove, Arkansas, one of the great unsung battles of the Civil War that effectively ended Confederate offensive operations west of the Mississippi River. Shea provides a colorful account of a grueling campaign that lasted five months and covered hundreds of miles of rugged Ozark terrain. In a fascinating analysis of the personal, geographical, and strategic elements that led to the fateful clash in northwest Arkansas, he describes a campaign notable for rapid marching, bold movements, hard fighting, and the most remarkable raid of the Civil War.

The 1862 battle of Pea Ridge in northwestern Arkansas was one of the largest Civil War engagements fought on the western frontier, and it dramatically altered the balance of power in the Trans-Mississippi. This study of the battle is based on research in archives from Connecticut to California and includes a pioneering study of the terrain of the sprawling battlefield, as well as an examination of soldiers' personal experiences, the use of Native American troops, and the role of Pea Ridge in regional folklore.\"A model campaign history that merits recognition as a major contribution to the literature on Civil War military operations.\"--Journal of Military History\"Shines welcome light on the war's largest battle west of the Mississippi.\"--USA Today\"With its exhaustive research and lively prose style, this military study is virtually a model work of its kind.\"--Publishers Weekly\"A thoroughly researched and well-told account of an important but often neglected Civil War encounter.\"--Kirkus Reviews\"Offers the rich tactical detail, maps, and order of battle that military scholars love but retains a very readable style combined with liberal use of recollections of the troops and leaders involved.\"--Library Journal\"This book is assured of a place among the best of all studies that have been published on Civil War campaigns.\"--American Historical Review\"Destined to become a Civil War classic and a model for writing military history.\"--Civil War History\"A campaign study of a caliber that all should strive for and few will equal.\"--Journal of American History\"An excellent and detailed book in all accounts, scholarly and readable, with both clear writing and excellent analysis. . . . Utterly essential . . . for any serious student of the Civil War.\"--Civil War News

The 1862 battle of Pea Ridge in northwestern Arkansas was one of the largest Civil War engagements fought on the western frontier, and it dramatically altered the balance of power in the Trans-Mississippi. This study of the battle is based on research in archives from Connecticut to California and includes a pioneering study of the terrain of the sprawling battlefield, as well as an examination of soldiers' personal experiences, the use of Native American troops, and the role of Pea Ridge in regional folklore.

Prairie Grove seems to have been the first and perhaps the only time a specially prepared and equipped military unit was used to succor the wounded after a Civil War battle.4 While Russell and his staff, aided by civilian volunteers, wrestled with inadequate facilities, incompetent doctors, improper diet, infection, and a host of other problems, his sons became involved in the odd mix of social and military activities common to Fayetteville and other occupied towns. When not helping their father, Fred and Erwin hobnobbed with soldiers, collected souvenirs, explored the countryside, enjoyed the mild southern winter, courted (or at least flirted with) the local belles, and, in true soldierly fashion, complained about the dearth of mail and newspapers. Floors covered with old dressings, filth, and dirt, air very offensive, with considerable Hospital Gangrene.

In mid-November, Blunt and his powerful Kansas Division, so called because it was composed largely of volunteers from that state, was camped along Flint Creek in western Benton County, a short distance north of present-day Siloam Springs.3 Sixty-five miles to the south in the Arkansas Valley, Hindman labored with renewed zeal to prepare his frazzled command for another round of offensive operations, but his efforts were hampered by a crippling shortage of food. [...]it was QuantrilPs band, minus Quantrill, that fell back into the Arkansas Valley with Marmaduke's command, but the effect was the same.

Europeans and Africans had settled along the Mississippi River and its tributaries more than a century earlier, but by the time of the Civil War much of the landscape remained in a state of nature. When the author was a little Rebel growing up in New Orleans in the 1950s, he often heard his elders explain the outcome of the Civil War-and salve their wounded southern pride in the process-by invoking the litany of the Lost Cause: \"They had the most men, but we had the best generals.\" The idea of a theater of war called the Trans-Mississippi gained acceptance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a time when the history of the Civil War was being adjusted to suit changing tastes.

Shea details the events at Cane Hill on Nov 28, 1862. Cane Hill was an important military engagement that had a significant impact on the course of the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi, because it brought the war to within thirty miles of the Arkansas River, damaged a Vital center of culture and education, and precipitated the battle of Prairie Grove.

LOYAL RESIDENTS OF FAYETTEVILLE MUST HAVE THOUGHT DELiverance was at hand when they awoke on 29 October and found the streets swarming with blue-clad soldiers. But they soon learned that Union liberation was only slightly less onerous than Confederate occupation. “The stores are broke open and everything looks like the picture of ruin,” wrote Aaron P.Mitchell of the Twentieth Iowa. “It is strictly against orders to destroy anything but the boys will, a great many of them, run the risk and break in and take anything they can find that they need. They have arrested quite a number for breaking

THE ATTACKING FORCE ON THE RIGHT OF THE UNION LINE WAS COMposed of 1,350 infantry and dismounted cavalry from Weer’s Second Brigade and Cloud’s Third Brigade. It consisted of Colonel Thomas Ewing’s wing of the Eleventh Kansas on the left and Colonel Thomas M. Bowen’s Thirteenth Kansas, two battalions of Bassett’s Second Kansas Cavalry, Major Henry H. Williams’s Tenth Kansas, and Lieutenant William Gallaher’s company of the Third Indian on the right. Weer gave the order to advance, and the Federals hurried across the Morton cornfield and Wilson wheatfield at the doublequick. No one mentioned plowing through cornstalks, so William