GENERAL 8TERLING PRICE.	GUIBOR’S BATTERY.	ELKHORN TAVERN.
FROST’S BRIGADE.	BURBRIDGE’S, WHITFIELD’S, AND SLACK’S REGIMENTS.	CHURCHILL’S ARKANSAS AND TEXAS TROOPS. BLEDSOE’S AND GORHAM’S BATTERIES.
HILL’S ARKANSAS AND TEXAS TROOPS.
LAST HOUR OF THE BATTLE OF PEA RIDGE, MARCH 8, 1862.
Adyance of the Union forces to retake the position at Elkhorn Tavern. From a painting by Hunt P. Wilson, in possession of the
Southern Historical Society, St. Louis.
quick eye saw the bright bayonets as they were pushing through the brush, and, riding up, he yelled in his rough-and-ready style, ‘ Guibor, they ,re flankin’ you! ’ ‘I know it, but I can’t spare a gun to turn on them,’ was the reply. There was no supporting infantry on his left. Said Rock, * I ’ll charge them! ’ This meant to attack a full regiment of infantry advancing in line, 700 or 800 strong, with 22 men. . . . Galloping back a few paces to his little band, his clear, ringing voice could be heard by friend and enemy. ‘Battalion, forward, trot, march, gallop, march, charge! ’ and with a wild yell in they went, their gallant chief in the lead, closely followed by ‘ Sabre Jack ’ Murphy, an old regular dragoon; Fitzsimmons, Coggins, O’Flaherty, Pomeroy, and the others. The last named were old British dragoons; three of them had ridden with the heavy squadrons at Balaklava, and all well knew what was in front of them. . . . Within thirty seconds they were right in the midst of the surprised Federal infantry, shouting, slashing, shooting. Corporal Casey charged on foot. Guibor’s two guns were at the same time turned left oblique and deluged the Federal left with canister. The result was precisely what Champion had foreseen, and proved his reckless courage was directed by good judgment. The attack was a clear surprise, the result a stampede; the infantry fired an aimless, scattering volley—then, expecting a legion of horsemen to fall on them, fled in confusion. Champion did not follow. Knowing when to stop as well as to commence, he secured their flag and quickly returned to the battery which he had saved, with a loss of only three of his gallant rough-riders.”
continued to fight its two remaining guns until the Confederate regiment of Colonel Clint Burbridge was upon them; when, their horses being killed, that regiment took them in, and at nightfall brought them down the road. To the left on the Van Winkle road the [Confederate] batteries of McDonald, Bledsoe, and Wade had been engaged in a severe artillery duel in which the Federal batteries held their own until the Confederate infantry got within range, when they were forced back, leaving two guns captured by Rains’s men led by the gallant O’Kane. The cavalry on the extreme left,under General J ohn B. Clark and Colonel Robert McCulloch, had turned the Federal right wing, and the latter’s entire line was falling back to meet reinforcements hurrying to their assistance from Sugar Creek on their left rear. The Federals placed 18 or 20 guns to command the tavern. Guibor moved up with the Confederate line, or a little in advance, and formed in battery in the narrow road in front of the tavern, losing several horses in the movement. And now commenced a hot fight. The rapid fire of the twenty pieces of Federal artillery . . . commenced waving and blazing in his front, while the two guns were replying with grape and canister. Now came the crisis. A regiment of United States infantry moved out of the timber on the left front of the guns about one hundred yards distant, with a small field intervening, the fences around it leveled to the ground. On Guibor’s right was the tavern, on his left a blacksmith’s shop, and in the lot some corn-cribs. Behind these buildings ‘Rock’ Champion had placed his company of cavalry to protect their horses from thickly flying bullets. Rock’s
with Rives’s and Burbridge’s regiments came up on a left-wheel, with Rains on their left, across to the hollow, and the whole line charged up with a wild cheer. Captain Guibor, who well understood how to fight artillery in the brush, took all the canister he could lay his hands on, and with two guns went up in the charge with the infantry. General Rains’s brigade on the left, led by Colonel Walter Scott O’Kane, and Major Rainwater made a brilliant dash at the redoubt and battery which had been throwing on them for an hour or more from its position in an old field. Eight guns were captured along the line. The Federal troops, being dislodged from the woods, began forming in the fields and planted some new batteries back of the knobs in the rear. And now the fight grew furious. Gorham’s battery could not hold its position, and fell back to its old place. Guibor planted his two guns directly in front of the tavern and opened at close quarters with grape and canister on the Federal line, in which great confusion was evident, as officers could be seen trying to rally and re-form their men.
“The entire Confederate line was charging up to the Elkhorn Tavern; Colonel Carr, the Federal cavalry commander, had withdrawn his command from the bench of the mountain on the Confederate right. The Illinois Battery, at first planted in the horse-lot west of the tavern, had limbered to the rear and taken a new position in the fields. The Federal Mountain Howitzer Battery had also moved away. The 8th Iowa Battery, which had poured such a hot fire down the road upon Guibor and Gorham, had by this time lost the use of two of its guns, dismounted by the fire of Guibor’s battery, but
MAJOR-GENERAL SAMUEL R. CURTIS, U. S. V.
Commanding the Union Army at Pea Ridge.
MAJOR-GENERAL FRANZ SIGEL, U. S. Y.
Commanding First and Second Divisions at Pea Ridge.
SHARP FIGHTING AT PEA RIDGE,
— FROM THE CONFEDERATE SIDE.
Mr. Hunt P. Wilson, who was a member of Guibor’s Confederate battery, has given the “ St. Louis Republican” a spirited description of the contest on the Confederate right in the first day’s fight. He thus describes the Confederate advance:
• • • “ The column entered by what is called Cross Timber Hollow. Some of the ridges are 150 feet high. In the valley of this defile is located what is known as the tan-yard, three-quarters of a mile from Elkhorn Tavern. From the tan-yard there is a gradual ascent. . . .
“ The fire in front began to lull, and Slack’s brigade
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