CHAPTER XXX. THE REBELS DEFEATED--END OF THE BATTLE--INDIANS SCALPING OUR SOLDIERS AND MUTILATING THEIR BODIES.
While Sigel's batteries had been pouring their iron hail upon the hill which formed the center of the rebel position the divisions of Carr and Davis had slowly advanced till they occupied the woods where the rebels were posted when the fight began. I should have said our guns stopped two or three times, partly to allow them to cool and partly to carry them forward to a closer range. The melting away of the rebel lines was the last act of the battle. The order to retire was given, and before noon the fighting was over.
“General Sigel's command went in pursuit, while the rest of the army remained on the field. The chase was kept up for twelve miles and then given up, as the rebels had a fair road before them and could push on without danger, while we had to be constantly on the lookout for ambuscades. General Sigel captured a good many wagons with supplies and some ammunition, and his men picked up about a thousand stand of arms which the fleeing rebels had thrown away. They were of very little use, as they were mostly shotguns and squirrel-rifles. The best among them were picked out by the officers, to send home as trophies of the campaign and in memory of the battle we had won.
“As soon as it was certain that the rebels had gone and the field was ours we set about looking after the wounded.
“General Vandever went to the hill where the rebel batteries had been posted in the morning, and took me along with him. Such a sight as I saw there I hope never to see again.
“The ground was covered with dead and wounded men, the most of them dead, as they were struck down by shot and shell or by grape and canister. Some were killed by the falling limbs of trees, and one man was crushed by the weight of a limb five or six inches in diameter that had fallen directly upon his shoulders and pressed him to the ground. One tree had been pierced through from side to side by a solid shot; its top was shivered by a shell, and its trunk was pierced by a dozen or more canister-balls. Here lay the fragments of a battery-wagon that had been blown up, and not far off were five artillery wheels. Three mules lay dead by the side of the broken wagons, and one of them was so torn by the explosion that little more than the general shape of the animal remained.
“In a space thirty feet square I counted seven dead men and three wounded ones, one of the latter just gasping his last. A little further on there were fifteen wounded rebels, all begging and imploring for water. I gave them all my canteen contained, and so did the rest of the party, and the general sent me off for more. As I turned my horse to ride away he jumped aside to avoid stepping on a prostrate man whose arm had been torn off by a cannon-shot, and as he jumped he almost trod on another whose leg had been shattered. Close by a tree was a dead man whose head had been blown off by a shell, and by his side was another dead man whose breast was pierced by a grapeshot. A letter had fallen from his pocket, and I sprang to the ground and picked it up, intending to read it later.
“The letter was addressed to Pleasant J. Williams, Churchill's regiment, Fayetteville, Ark.; it was from a girl in Kentucky, to whom Williams was evidently engaged, if I may judge by the tenor of the document. I shall keep it in the hope of some day being able to return it to the writer. She was an ardent rebel, but evidently a very sweet and loving young woman, though, unfortunately, she does not inclose her photograph.
“I went for the water as fast as I could, and wondered how I was to bring it, as I had but a single canteen. On the way I passed through the camp, and when I told a captain of the Third Illinois cavalry the object of my mission, he detailed four men to go with me, and told them to gather up a dozen canteens to carry water to the wounded men. Tired as the men and their horses were, the soldiers went eagerly on their errand of mercy, and it almost made me cry to see how tenderly they cared for the poor fellows who were so lately their enemies. Curious thing, this business of making war! Soldiers try their very best to kill each other, but when the fighting is over they do all they can to help the very men they shot down only a little while before.
“Before I got back to the hill where the wounded men were lying a rebel surgeon had arrived with a flag of truce, and was doing all he could for the sufferers. But several were so badly hurt that they could n't be saved, and one of them died within two minutes after swallowing a draught of water I gave him.
“A horrible thing happened here close to this hill. The bursting of shells, or some burning wads, had set fire to the dry leaves that covered the ground, and the woods were burning in every direction. We tried to remove the wounded before the fire reached them, and thought we had got them all away; afterward some were found in secluded spots, and though still alive, they had been terribly burned and blackened by the fire among the leaves and fallen brushwood. One poor fellow had crawled close to a dry log that was set on fire by the burning leaves, and was so badly burned that he died soon after being found. The doctors said his wounds were so severe that it is doubtful if he could have lived even if the fire had not reached him.
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“We had repeatedly heard that the rebels were very badly supplied with shoes, and there was proof of the truth of this statement in the way they stripped the shoes from the feet of dead and mortally-wounded men, no matter to which side they belonged. Not one corpse in twenty of all that I saw on the battlefield had shoes on its feet. In some cases pantaloons and coats were removed, but such instances were not numerous, the great need of the rebels seeming to be in the line of shoes. Of course, the clothing of our soldiers would hardly be desired by the rebels, as it would be dangerous for them to wear, and they have no ready means of changing its color.
“The general told me to look for him at Elkhorn Tavern as soon as I had carried out the order about taking water to the wounded rebels, and I did so. On the way I passed the spot where a captain of a rebel battery was killed near the close of the battle, his head having been carried away by one of our cannon-shot. They said his name was Churchill Clark, and that he was the son of a prominent politician well known in the state of Missouri. Young Clark was educated at the military academy at West Point, and was said to be a splendid officer. He turned against the government the advantages of the education he had received at its expense. He was carried away by the idea that the right of the state was paramount to the right of the nation, and this is the end of states-rights for him—killed in battle at Pea Ridge.
“But if the battlefield was horrible, the scene at Elkhorn was worse. Dead and wounded men were lying all about, the house was filled with wounded, and every few minutes a corpse was brought out to make room for a man whom the surgeons hoped to save. Blood was everywhere, and the sight was a sickening one. All the medical men were busy as they could be, and with the hardest work they were not able to give much attention to each individual case.
“The next morning the general sent me to Elkhorn with a message to one of the surgeons. Outside of the building was a row of corpses of officers and men mingled indiscriminately, most of them having died during the night from the effect of their wounds or after amputation of limbs. Several legs and arms that had been cut off were lying on the ground, some of the legs having the stocking and perhaps a portion of the pantaloons still in place.
“The attendants were busy removing the corpses and carrying them to a place of burial. Each was covered with a blanket, and officers and men were moving among them, raising the blanket coverings one after the other, in order to find some missing individual. 'That's Captain ———,' said one of the officers, as he turned down a blanket and revealed a face and the double-barred shoulder-straps which indicated the rank of the wearer. 'That's private ————, of Co. B,' or 'that's Sergeant———, of-regiment,' were the remarks of the attendants as they went steadily on with their work. Here sat a soldier who was crying bitterly, as he had just discovered the body of his brother among the dead. The surgeons and their aids gave him no attention; in fact, they were quite regardless of anything except the wounded whom they were trying to save.
“Details were sent out to look carefully over the ground where the battle was fought, in order to bring in the wounded and bury the dead. The work of humanity was rapidly performed, and before night all the dead had been laid to their rest, and all the wounded, except a few who were not discovered until afterwards, were relieved as far as possible. The dead, where they lay thickly, were buried in trenches containing ten and in some cases twelve or fifteen corpses, but in most cases they were buried singly or by two's and three's. Most of those who fell at Pea Ridge found their graves where they lay, and there they will sleep undisturbed through all the rest of this war that is convulsing the country and threatening the existence of a nation which was founded as the home of universal liberty.
“From the hospital I carried a message to Colonel Bussey, of the Third Iowa Cavalry, who had returned from pursuing the rebels as far as Bentonville, and was just then in that part of the field where his regiment made a charge upon the combined white and Indian troops of General Pike, and was repulsed with the loss of several men. It afterward, as I have said elsewhere, rallied and defeated the rebels, recapturing three guns of a battery which had been temporarily lost.
“The rebels may deny as much as they please that the Indians scalped their fallen foes, but here was the evidence that they did it. Eight men of Colonel Bussey's cavalry were killed in the charge, and the Indians occupied the ground immediately and took off the scalps of those eight men and otherwise mutilated their bodies. Some of the bodies indicated that the men were only wounded and not dead when the Indians came into possession of them by the repulse of the cavalry, but the scoundrels quickly dispatched them with the tomahawk. Marks of the tomahawk, or some weapon like it, were plainly visible on several bodies, and the surgeons who examined the gunshot wounds on some of the bodies declared that they were not sufficient to cause death.
“Colonel Bussey and several of his officers and men have made oath to the evidences of the use of the tomahawk and scalping-knife by the Indian allies of the rebels, and the documents will be placed on record. It is probable that more than this number were scalped, as several bodies were buried before an investigation was thought of, but about these eight there can be no mistake. We hope the rebels are proud of these murderous savages, who may yet turn upon them in their frenzy when least expected to do so. A few of the Indians were captured, and if our men had not been restrained by their officers they would have hanged or shot the rascals. General Curtis has allowed all the rebel surgeons to come and go freely under parole, with the exception of the surgeon of an Indian regiment; him the general is keeping a close prisoner, and will send under guard to St. Louis.”
The rebels disappeared so suddenly from the battlefield that the union commanders could not make out where they had gone. General Sigel went after them in one direction and Colonel Bussey in another, but could not overtake them, and the pursuit was soon given up. It seems they turned off through several hollows and ravines, taking obscure roads, and finally reuniting in the neighborhood of Bentonville, where they camped for the night. A good many of them continued along the road without halting, determined to get a safe distance between themselves and the terrible Yankees. Previous to the battle the officers had spread the most startling stories about northern atrocities to prisoners, with the object of nerving the men up to a high pitch of courage.
On this subject let us listen to Jack, whom we left in the hands of the enemy, and who was carried away by them in their retreat.
“The night after they captured the colonel, and took me along with him,” said Jack, “we had a hard old time of it. We had very little to eat, and nothing but our clothes to sleep in. We were no worse off than the officers and men around us, as there were a good many of them that had n't any blankets, and nearly all were ragged and fearfully out at the elbows. Each man had for his rations a piece of corn-bread as dry as a stone and nearly as hard, and some of them had nothing more than an ear or two of corn, that they chewed on as though they were horses. One of the doctors dressed Colonel Herron's wounded leg. He could n't stand on it, and when he wanted to move around I helped him on one side and one of the hospital attendants on the other. They put him in an ambulance along with one of their own wounded officers and started us off on the road to Bentonville, and there we stayed through the night. Probably they would have sent us further if they'd known how the next day's battle was coming out.
“They were going to send me off with the soldiers, but Colonel Herron asked to be permitted to keep me as a personal attendant. He offered to give his parole and become responsible that I would not escape, the same as he had done when we were first captured, and this they accepted after a little palaver. At one time I thought they wouldn't do it, and began to think I'd have to trudge along the road with the soldiers. And I think I owe my good fortune to an old friend; at least I 'll call him so, as he acted like a friend, though he had no reason to remember me kindly.
“You remember the captain we helped to capture near Rolla when we went on our scouting expedition on foot?”
“Certainly,” replied Harry; “I remember him well.”
“He was the man that befriended me,” said Jack, “and he did it just at the right time, too. He was one of the officers that was debating whether to do as the colonel wanted, and let me go with him, and while they were talking a little way off from us he kept eying me all over. After a while he came up to me and said:
“'Are you one of the boys that was out one day on the road from Rolla to Pilot Knob, and found out where a captain had a recruiting camp?'
“I turned all sorts of colors, I know, and while I was trying to stammer out something to convince him I was n't the boy he was looking for he nodded his head in a satisfied sort of way.
“I thought my case was done for and he'd have me shot sure, but he only laughed and said I was made of good stuff and had 'got the sand,' whatever that was. Then he went back and talked with the others, and after a few minutes he came to me and said he would be responsible for me.
“My heart went down in my boots at this, but he did n't let it stay there long. 'You're all right,' said he, 'and you may go with your colonel. But, first, you must give me your solemn word of honor that you won't try to escape as long as you are allowed to be with him.'
“I gave my word of honor and signed a parole which he wrote out, and then he said he thought he could trust me. 'You caught me once,' said he, 'but you weren't under any parole, and I had no business to talk with you as I did. You boys did a smart thing, and just the kind of thing I believe in, and as long as you're in my hands I 'll look out for you. And I 'll look out for you, too,' he added, dropping his voice, 'if you try any Yankee tricks on me now that you're under parole.'
“I repeated my promise, and felt relieved at the way he acted toward me. Then he hurried a man off and got something for us to eat. It was n't much, only a slice of corn-bread and a piece of bacon for me, and a tin cupful of tea and some more bacon and bread for the colonel. He told me to stay by the ambulance, where the colonel was, and said I could ride with the driver, except 'when they were going up-hill, where I must get off and walk'.”
