Iowa At Pea Ridge: The Day The Line Didn't Break

Defeat of the Rebel forces at Pea Ridge
(colorized image from Harper's Weekly)

When the Battle of Pea Ridge blew open in northwestern Arkansas in March 1862, Iowa troops were all over it—jammed into the worst ground, holding the ugliest stretches of line, trying to keep Missouri from sliding back into Confederate hands.

Pea Ridge wasn’t dramatic terrain. No wide fields. No pretty hills. Just woods, ridges, bad roads, and ravines that swallowed units whole.

Armies didn’t move cleanly there. They got lost.

Union commander Samuel Ryan Curtis knew that if he lost here, Missouri was gone. Win, and the Confederacy’s push north was finished.

Curtis said the enemy came in “with the confident expectation of cutting off and destroying our army.” That confidence didn’t survive the Iowa infantry.

Iowa troops made up the spine of Curtis’s Army of the Southwest. When things bent, they bent first. When the line held, they were usually the ones doing the holding.

Union right wing under General Carr at Pratt's Store 
on the second day of the battle (colorized image)

They did not know what kind of fight they were walking into.

Iowa sent a heavy force to Pea Ridge. Infantry, cavalry, artillery. The 4th, 9th, 12th, 16th, 17th, and 24th Iowa Infantry. The 3rd Iowa Cavalry. The 1st and 2nd Iowa Batteries.

These weren’t new recruits. Most had already fought in Missouri. They’d marched in icy rain, slept hungry, and knew the war wasn’t a parade.

Curtis trusted them. He had little choice. So did officers like Grenville M. Dodge, who was still learning the job. Figuring out how fast things could fall apart once shooting started.

The battle kicked off in confusion.

Confederate General Earl Van Dorn tried to swing his entire army around Curtis’s position and smash it from behind. His men marched all night, freezing, stumbling, getting separated in the dark.

Curtis caught it late, but not too late.

Union units were yanked out of camp and turned around in the dark. Iowa regiments were shoved into the woods with little sense of where the enemy was or who was supposed to be on either side of them.

Curtis admitted later that it was touch and go. “The movements of the enemy were bold and vigorous, and for a time the issue was doubtful.”

That’s about as close as he came to saying he did not know what would happen.

By morning, the doubt turned into gunfire. On the Union left near Leetown, Iowa troops ran headlong into a mess.

The 4th and 9th Iowa were pushed into thick timber where nobody could see more than a few yards. Units lost formation almost immediately. Officers yelled. Men fired at smoke and sound.

It was brutal and close.

Curtis called it “obstinate and bloody,” which is officer talk for men shooting until their shoulders ached and their mouths tasted like burned powder.

Fighting at Pea Ridge (colorized image from Harper's Weekly)

Confederate forces punched through the Union line and nearly split the army in two. Iowa regiments slammed the gap shut, firing from behind trees, dragging wounded men back by their belts. An Iowa newspaper later said the men “stood to their work with a firmness that would not yield.”

An Iowa soldier wrote home that the noise never let up. Cannon. Muskets. Men screaming for help. “The roar was like thunder that wouldn’t move on.”

While Leetown boiled over, the actual pressure landed at Elkhorn Tavern. The 12th, 16th, and 17th Iowa were right there when the fight turned savage.

The Confederates wanted the road south. Iowa stood in the way.

The 12th Iowa got surrounded and fought until it couldn’t anymore. Watching regiments nearby knew if they lost the ground, it was over.

Curtis didn’t sugarcoat it. “The Twelfth Iowa, after a gallant resistance, was surrounded and captured.”

The rest of the line dug in harder. That’s where the Iowa artillery saved the day.

The 1st and 2nd Iowa Batteries were dragged forward under fire and unlimbered close enough to see faces. Their guns ripped into the Confederate lines advancing on the tavern and blew holes where infantry fire wasn’t enough.

By the morning of March 8, Curtis stacked his artillery and ordered everything forward.

Curtis later wrote, “The enemy was driven from the field by the steady fire of our artillery and the advance of our infantry.” That infantry was Iowa men who hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten right, and hadn’t stopped moving in two days. They went anyway.

By midday, Van Dorn’s army cracked. He admitted it himself, writing that he was “compelled to withdraw my forces from the field.” He blamed it on exhaustion, confusion, and lost officers.

Curtis didn’t bother with explanations. He simply said, “The enemy is flying in all directions.”

Iowa papers ran that line everywhere.

The road south told the story. Abandoned wagons. Broken muskets. Gear dumped to lighten the load. A retreat that turned sloppy fast.

The victory cost plenty.

Iowa units took hard losses. Officers went down. Companies shrank. Losing the 12th Iowa hung over the army until the men were exchanged months later.

But Pea Ridge locked things in place. Missouri stayed Union. The Confederacy never seriously threatened it again.

Curtis wrote that the victory had “secured Missouri and Arkansas to the Union cause.” An Iowa soldier put it better in a letter printed back home. “We have done something worth the suffering.”

Pea Ridge was won by Iowa regiments pulled from farms, river towns, and prairie counties, men who held when the line bent and didn’t run when it would’ve been easier.

Pea Ridge was an Iowa victory.