Sunday, August 15, 2004
Nothin' 'civil' about it
By The Erudite Redneck
PRAIRIE GROVE, Ark. -- This isn't the "land of cotton" and it's not part of what most people think of when they think of the Old South.
But it is the South, nonetheless. The boys in gray and the boys in blue fought to the death here.
The fact that this spot in the northwest corner of Arkansas -- this gorgeous slice of the Ozarks -- was forbidden by geography from direct socio-economic kinship with the Plantation South makes the Civil War Battle of Prairie Grove especially intriguing.
The War Between the States wasn't fought to preserve or abolish slavery. Rather, it was fought for the high ideals of Federalism or Anti-Federalism. But only the deluded fail to recognize that the war, like most wars, was also a war of economics.
But there were no plantations to fight for here. This country was, and is, good for small-time farming and running livestock. There never were many slaves in the Ozarks. There was no need, economically -- at least nothing like the demands of the big Delta plantations.
But Arkansas had seceded. Nothing else mattered. Honor, as well as economics, was at stake.
The Confederacy desperately wanted an avenue to Union Missouri.
On the morning of Dec. 7, 1862, more than 20,000 soldiers met in a small valley at the eastern edge of the town of Prairie Grove. It's a dandy dale, with meadows sloping gently off a fairly easy bluff, northward toward the Illinois River.
The natural peacefulness of the handsome woods and pretty fields vanished with the first puff of smoke from the artillery fire.
I Corps of the Trans-Mississippi Army of the Confederate States of America, lead by Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman, engaged divisions of the U.S. Army of the Frontier, lead by Brig. Gen. Francis J. Herron and Brig. Gen. James G. Blunt near Prairie Grove Church.
Hindman's original plan, to strike Blunt at nearby Cane Hill, was thwarted by the arrival of divisions headed by Herron. Hindman marched his troops past Blunt and Cane Hill that morning, and went to meet Herron.
The Confederates took a defensive position on the ridge overlooking the river. With the Confederates anchored in a line flanking the house of Archibald Borden, a farmer and apple orchardist, the battle started with an artillery duel, followed by full attack by the Union.
Between noon and 2 p.m., Union soldiers charged the ridge twice and met with blood and guts.
Blunt and his men arrived at about 2:30 p.m. and the fighting spread to the west. Bloody attack met with bloody counter-attack until dark. By nightfall, 2,568 had perished -- 1,251 Union; 1,317 Confederate.
The Confederate Army retreated south, to Van Buren, near Fort Smith, with its ammunition nearly used up.
It was the last time any Southern army tried to use the Ozarks as a way into Missouri.
Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park preserves the battleground in much the way it appeared in 1862. The ridge, of course, is plain to see. It takes only a little imagination to see the Union boys charging up it, and the boys in gray resisting.
The battle, like almost all Civil War battles, was hand-to-hand, eye-to-eye, man-to-man. It's eerie. Blood spilled on this very soil. Arms and legs gone in a flash, eyes darkened forever, souls claimed here.
What's striking is that this place is so small, by today's standards. The battlefield, officially, was around 3,000 acres, about five square miles.
But most of the fiercest fighting happened right in front of the Borden House. The house burned, actually, the day after the battle. The one standing today was built after all the dust settled and the powder was put away, in 1868.
But imagine: almost 20,000 young men fighting on a battleground not much bigger than a Wal-Mart parking lot. There was nothing "civil" about it.
END
PRAIRIE GROVE, Ark. -- This isn't the "land of cotton" and it's not part of what most people think of when they think of the Old South.
But it is the South, nonetheless. The boys in gray and the boys in blue fought to the death here.
The fact that this spot in the northwest corner of Arkansas -- this gorgeous slice of the Ozarks -- was forbidden by geography from direct socio-economic kinship with the Plantation South makes the Civil War Battle of Prairie Grove especially intriguing.
The War Between the States wasn't fought to preserve or abolish slavery. Rather, it was fought for the high ideals of Federalism or Anti-Federalism. But only the deluded fail to recognize that the war, like most wars, was also a war of economics.
But there were no plantations to fight for here. This country was, and is, good for small-time farming and running livestock. There never were many slaves in the Ozarks. There was no need, economically -- at least nothing like the demands of the big Delta plantations.
But Arkansas had seceded. Nothing else mattered. Honor, as well as economics, was at stake.
The Confederacy desperately wanted an avenue to Union Missouri.
On the morning of Dec. 7, 1862, more than 20,000 soldiers met in a small valley at the eastern edge of the town of Prairie Grove. It's a dandy dale, with meadows sloping gently off a fairly easy bluff, northward toward the Illinois River.
The natural peacefulness of the handsome woods and pretty fields vanished with the first puff of smoke from the artillery fire.
I Corps of the Trans-Mississippi Army of the Confederate States of America, lead by Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman, engaged divisions of the U.S. Army of the Frontier, lead by Brig. Gen. Francis J. Herron and Brig. Gen. James G. Blunt near Prairie Grove Church.
Hindman's original plan, to strike Blunt at nearby Cane Hill, was thwarted by the arrival of divisions headed by Herron. Hindman marched his troops past Blunt and Cane Hill that morning, and went to meet Herron.
The Confederates took a defensive position on the ridge overlooking the river. With the Confederates anchored in a line flanking the house of Archibald Borden, a farmer and apple orchardist, the battle started with an artillery duel, followed by full attack by the Union.
Between noon and 2 p.m., Union soldiers charged the ridge twice and met with blood and guts.
Blunt and his men arrived at about 2:30 p.m. and the fighting spread to the west. Bloody attack met with bloody counter-attack until dark. By nightfall, 2,568 had perished -- 1,251 Union; 1,317 Confederate.
The Confederate Army retreated south, to Van Buren, near Fort Smith, with its ammunition nearly used up.
It was the last time any Southern army tried to use the Ozarks as a way into Missouri.
Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park preserves the battleground in much the way it appeared in 1862. The ridge, of course, is plain to see. It takes only a little imagination to see the Union boys charging up it, and the boys in gray resisting.
The battle, like almost all Civil War battles, was hand-to-hand, eye-to-eye, man-to-man. It's eerie. Blood spilled on this very soil. Arms and legs gone in a flash, eyes darkened forever, souls claimed here.
What's striking is that this place is so small, by today's standards. The battlefield, officially, was around 3,000 acres, about five square miles.
But most of the fiercest fighting happened right in front of the Borden House. The house burned, actually, the day after the battle. The one standing today was built after all the dust settled and the powder was put away, in 1868.
But imagine: almost 20,000 young men fighting on a battleground not much bigger than a Wal-Mart parking lot. There was nothing "civil" about it.
END
