$Intro <FONT=HelpHeader,C,8,12,24>PG01-Dec 7-Battle of Prairie Grove (C-Corps)
 
<FONT=HelpText,L,195,4,39>Length of Play:<FONT=HelpText,L,8,12,24> 90 minutes
 
<FONT=HelpText,L,195,4,39>Command:<FONT=HelpText,L,8,12,24> Major General Thomas C. Hindman
<FONT=HelpText,L,195,4,39>Date:<FONT=HelpText,L,8,12,24> 7 December 1862
<FONT=HelpText,L,195,4,39>Time span:<FONT=HelpText,L,8,12,24> 1:00 PM til nightfall
<FONT=HelpText,L,195,4,39>Location:<FONT=HelpText,L,8,12,24> Southwest of Fayetteville, Arkansas
<FONT=HelpText,L,195,4,39>Weather:<FONT=HelpText,L,8,12,24> Partly cloudy and cold
 
<FONT=HelpText,L,195,4,39>Situation:<FONT=HelpText,L,8,12,24>  Following opening skirmishes at dawn, the Rebel forces command a long ridge north of Prairie Grove Church, soon to be the namesake for said battle.  A two hour cannon duel has driven most of the Rebel guns into the deep woods along the ridge.   The stage is set, Union forces aligned north of the ridge are posed to attack.  
  
<FONT=HelpText,L,195,4,39>Mission:<FONT=HelpText,L,8,12,24>Hold the ridge objectives; for a Major Victory secure the enemy-held objectives.
 
<FONT=HelpText,L,195,4,39>Gameplay:<FONT=HelpText,L,8,12,24> Bonus points for the three enemy-held objectives is 500 each when secured for 5 minutes.
 
<FONT=HelpText,L,195,4,39>Victory Conditions:<FONT=HelpText,L,8,12,24>
  5000 = Major Victory
  4000 = Minor Victory   
  3000 = Draw   
  2500 = Minor Defeat
  2000 = Major Defeat
 
<FONT=HelpText,L,195,4,39>Forces Available:<FONT=HelpText,L,8,12,24> Approximately 12,000 CSA, 10,000 USA
 
 
<FONT=HelpText,C,195,4,39>***Biographical Information***
 
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Thomas Carmichael Hindman
(1828–1868)
 
<FONT=HelpText,L,8,12,24>Thomas Carmichael Hindman was a prominent attorney and Democratic politician prior to the Civil War. In the crisis prior to that war, he was a major player in bringing about the state’s secession. He subsequently served in the Confederate army as a brigadier general, playing a prominent role in the defense of Arkansas and later serving in the Army of Tennessee.

Thomas Hindman was born on January 28, 1828, at Knoxville, Tennessee, one of Thomas Hindman and Sallie Holt Hindman’s six children. His father was a planter and a federal agent for Indian affairs in Tennessee. In 1841, his father purchased a new plantation in Ripley, Mississippi, and the family moved there. Hindman went to local schools, and then, like the children of many prominent Southern planters, he went east to study at the Classical Institute in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.

Hindman demonstrated his aggressive and militant spirit early in life. In 1845, at the age of seventeen, he joined the Second Mississippi Volunteer Infantry that had been organized to fight in the Mexican War. He found little opportunity to realize his military ambitions, however. His unit was assigned to garrison duty at Monterrey, and his writing skills led to his appointment as the regiment’s adjutant. By the war’s end, he had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant. After the war, he returned to Ripley, where he passed the bar exam and began a career as a lawyer. He also became involved in politics, linking himself with the Democratic Party, and was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1854. Contemporary politics often involved personal slurs, and in his early career, Hindman showed himself willing to defend his honor in fights or on the dueling field.

Seeking new opportunities, Hindman moved to Arkansas in 1856, settling in Helena (Phillips County), where he opened a law office. His legal practice languished because he quickly became involved in local politics and devoted much of his time there. His marriage to Mary Watkins Biscoe, daughter of wealthy planter Henry L. Biscoe, in 1857 left him well off financially and furthered his political opportunities. The couple had five children. At Helena, Hindman established a close friendship with future Confederate general Patrick Cleburne. The two were law partners for a time and engaged in numerous business activities together.

In the 1856 general election, Hindman actively campaigned for Democratic candidates and became well known for his stump speeches. Despite being a relative newcomer on the political scene, he successfully ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1858. He was reelected in 1860. His 1860 platform had argued that the abolitionist North threatened the rights of the Southern states and that secession was the only way to protect Southern property.

As he secured political office, Hindman discovered that the dominant state Democratic faction known as “The Family” stood in the way of his ambitions. In 1858, he wanted the seat in the United States Senate held by William Sebastian when the incumbent came up for reelection. Democratic leaders endorsed Sebastian rather than Hindman, leading Hindman to establish his own newspaper at Little Rock (Pulaski County), the Old Line Democrat, in opposition to the Family’s True Democrat. Hindman’s alienation developed further when Governor Elias N. Conway, one of the Family’s leaders, sought to settle the state’s banking question by initiating a plan that would have seized the assets of those indebted to the bank, including Hindman’s father-in-law. By 1860, Hindman had established himself as an independent political force in the state and helped secure the election of Henry M. Rector over the Family candidate, Richard H. Johnson, brother of Senator Robert Ward Johnson and editor of the True Democrat, in the race for governor.

Following the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in 1860, Hindman made peace with the leader of the Family, Senator Robert Ward Johnson, and turned to what he considered the more immediate problem of the state’s place in a country dominated by a Republican president. Hindman did not believe Arkansas could remain safely in the Union and joined with Johnson in urging the governor and the legislature to call a state convention to secede. Arkansas responded slowly to the call for secession, however. Hindman campaigned to urge the state convention to act but could accomplish nothing until after the Battle of Fort Sumter. In the wake of his home state’s secession, Hindman resigned from the U.S. Congress. He hoped to be named to the Confederate Congress, but the state legislature failed to name him to that body. He then helped raise a regiment that became the Second Arkansas Infantry and secured appointment as its colonel.

By September 1861, he had received a promotion to the rank of brigadier general and assumed command of a brigade in the Army of Mississippi at Corinth. He served at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6–7, 1862. He escaped from the battle with minor wounds sustained when an artillery shell struck his horse. A week after that battle, the Confederate government promoted Hindman to the rank of major general. In May 1862, it sent him to Arkansas to command the Trans-Mississippi Department, a new military district that was threatened by a Union invasion force under General Samuel R. Curtis. Curtis’s army had moved from Missouri down the White River and, because few Confederate troops remained in the state, possessed a virtually clear road to capture Little Rock.

Hindman’s primary job was to stop Curtis, and he aggressively recruited men and equipment to halt the Union troops. As part of his efforts, he also declared martial law and ordered the army to burn all cotton that the enemy threatened to seize. Curtis failed to secure supplies due to low water on the White River and so abandoned his march on the capital city, moving instead to Helena on the Mississippi River. Hindman took credit for saving Arkansas, although Curtis’s retreat had little to do with Hindman’s efforts. Despite Hindman’s success, his efforts gave rise to serious opposition from civilians and two of his commanders, Generals Albert Pike and Douglas H. Cooper. All complained vigorously to Confederate authorities that Hindman had acted unconstitutionally in his actions. The Confederate government at Richmond, Virginia, succumbed to pressure and replaced him as commander of the Trans-Mississippi District with General Theophilus Holmes. Although now under Holmes’s command, Hindman remained in charge of the District of Arkansas and retained active command of the military force with the state.

In the autumn of 1862, Hindman led his force into northwestern Arkansas in an effort to drive out Union forces that had occupied the area. On December 7, 1862, he engaged Union forces under Generals James G. Blunt and Francis J. Herron at the Battle of Prairie Grove. The battle did not, however, produce a decisive victory for either side. Although a tactical draw, the battle turned into a strategic defeat when Hindman, unable to continue fighting because of his inability to re-supply his troops, had to withdraw to the Arkansas River. His poorly fed and supplied army broke up on its retreat, leaving the northwestern part of the state virtually undefended. Hindman returned to Little Rock, where he asked to be reassigned to another army. Richmond authorities complied, removing him from command in the District of Arkansas. He received a temporary assignment to a court of inquiry in Mississippi.

In July 1863, Hindman regained an active command when appointed to a division in the Army of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He entered an army with an officer corps seriously divided, and he did little for his career when he linked himself with the faction of General William J. Hardee against the commander of the army, General Braxton Bragg. Two disabling wounds also plagued him. The first came at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, although he returned to his division just in time for the Confederate loss in the Battle of Chattanooga on November 24–25, 1863. In the Atlanta campaign, he received a wound at Kennesaw Mountain, on June 27, 1864, that left him partially blinded. At this time, he left his command for a final time and joined his family in Texas, to where they had moved following the Union occupation of the eastern part of Arkansas.

In June 1866, unable to secure a pardon from President Andrew Johnson and indicted by a federal district court in Arkansas for his activities during the war, Hindman and his family moved to Mexico. He initially sought to practice law in Mexico City but then joined other Confederate refugees at the town of Carolota, where he again tried to practice law and also engaged in coffee planting. Conditions in Mexico were unfavorable to Hindman’s efforts, and in 1867, he returned to Helena. His combative spirit quickly embroiled him in Reconstruction politics. In the 1868 election, he urged conservatives to take the oath of allegiance so that they could vote against Republican candidates. He was unique among conservatives, however, in encouraging acceptance of African-American suffrage and organization of black voters into support of the conservative cause.

On September 28, 1868, an assassin fatally shot him through a window at his home. Law officials never arrested anyone for the act. The motive of the killer was never determined, although political opponents, personal grudges, and even domestic problems were among the reasons considered. He is buried at Maple Hill Cemetery in Helena.
 
<FONT=HelpText,C,195,4,39>***Historical Information***
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Battle of Prairie Grove
December 7, 1862
  
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The Battle of Prairie Grove was the last time two armies of almost equal strength faced each other for control of northwest Arkansas. When the Confederate Army of the Trans-Mississippi withdrew from the bloody ground on December 7, 1862, the Union forces claimed a strategic victory. It seemed clear that Missouri and northwest Arkansas would remain under Federal protection.
 
Brigadier General James G. Blunt’s Union command remained in the Cane Hill (Washington County) area after the engagement there on November 28. This encouraged Major General Thomas C. Hindman to attack the Federal troops with his Confederate Army of the Trans-Mississippi at Fort Smith (Sebastian County) thirty miles away. The Southern army crossed the Arkansas River on December 3 and marched north into the rugged Boston Mountains. Learning of the Confederate threat, Blunt requested assistance from the two divisions of the Union Army of the Frontier under the command of Brigadier General Francis J. Herron camped near Springfield, Missouri, about 120 miles away. Immediately, Herron ordered a forced march in hopes of joining Blunt’s command at Cane Hill before the Confederates could attack.
 
On December 6, Confederate cavalry drove in Blunt’s pickets on Reed’s Mountain while the rest of Hindman’s Southern forces arrived and camped near the home of John Morrow on Cove Creek Road. During the night, the Southern commanders learned that Herron’s men in blue had arrived at Fayetteville (Washington County). They decided to march north past Blunt and intercept and attack the Union reinforcements somewhere between Fayetteville and Cane Hill. It would be at Prairie Grove (Washington County).
 
The battle began at dawn on December 7, with the defeat of Union cavalry by Confederate mounted soldiers a mile south of the Prairie Grove church. Federal troops retreated toward Fayetteville with the Southern cavalry in pursuit. The panicked Union soldiers stopped running when Herron shot a soldier from his horse. The Confederate cavalry skirmished with Herron’s main army before falling back to the top of the Prairie Grove ridge, where the Confederate artillery and infantry were already in line of battle in the woods.
 
After crossing the Illinois River under artillery fire, Herron positioned his artillery and exchanged fire with the Confederate cannon. The superior range and number of Union cannon soon silenced the Southern guns, allowing the Union infantry to prepare to attack the ridge. Before the infantry advanced, the Union artillery pounded the Southern position on the ridge for about two hours.
 
The Twentieth Wisconsin and Nineteenth Iowa Infantry regiments crossed the open corn and wheat fields in the valley before surging forward up the slope, capturing the Confederate cannon of Captain William Blocher’s Arkansas Battery near the home of Archibald Borden. The Union soldiers continued their advance until suddenly the woods erupted with cannon and small-arms fire. The Confederates surrounded the Federal troops on three sides and quickly forced them to retreat to the Union cannon in the valley. A Southern counterattack went down the slope into the open valley, where it was met with case shot composed of small lead balls inside exploding projectiles. Herron’s artillery also used canister shot, consisting of tin cylinders filled with iron balls packed in sawdust which, when fired, turned a cannon into a giant shotgun blast, leaving gaping holes in the Confederate ranks and forcing a retreat to the cover of the woods on the ridge.
 
Seeing Confederate movement on his flank, Herron decided to attack again. The Thirty-seventh Illinois and Twenty-sixth Indiana Infantry regiments went up the hill into the Borden apple orchard. Lieutenant Colonel John Charles Black of the Thirty-seventh Illinois led the way with his right arm in a sling because of a wound he had sustained at Pea Ridge (Benton County) nine months earlier. Outnumbered, the Federal soldiers fell back to a fence line in the valley, where they stopped another Confederate counterattack using Colt revolving rifles carried by the men of Companies A and K of the Thirty-seventh Illinois. Black sustained a serious wound to his left arm but remained with his command until it was out of danger. Black received the only Medal of Honor awarded for this battle.
 
With only two fresh infantry regiments left, Herron’s command was in peril even as Confederate troops began massing to attack the Twentieth Iowa Infantry, which served as the Federal right flank. Before the attack, two cannon shots rang out from the northwest at about 2:30 p.m., signaling the arrival of Blunt’s command; he quickly deployed and attacked the Confederate left flank. Blunt’s division was at Cane Hill the morning of December 7 expecting to be attacked by the Confederates. Hindman left Colonel James Monroe’s Arkansas cavalry on Reed’s Mountain to skirmish with Blunt’s Federal troops while the rest of the Confederate army marched past the Union position. The ruse worked, as Blunt’s command remained in a defensive position at Cane Hill until it heard the roar of battle at Prairie Grove. Marching to the battlefield, the Union soldiers under Blunt arrived in time to save Herron’s divisions.
 
The Confederates responded to the Union advance on their left flank by skirmishing in the woods with the Federal troops until Blunt gave the command to fall back to his cannon line in the valley. Believing this was an opportunity to win the day, Brigadier General Mosby M. Parsons, in command of the Confederate Missouri Infantry brigade, launched an attack across the William Morton hayfield at about 4:00 p.m. As the Southern soldiers advanced, a devastating fire from all forty-four cannon in the Union army tore into the Confederate ranks, which fell back to the cover of the wooded ridge as darkness fell.
 
Nightfall ended the savage fighting, but neither side gained an advantage. The opponents called for a truce to care for the wounded and gather the dead. During the night, the Confederates wrapped blankets around the wheels of their cannon to muffle the sound and quietly withdrew from the ridge because of a lack of ammunition and food. Federal troops slept on the battlefield with few tents or blankets and without campfires even though temperatures were near freezing.
 
Hindman’s command had about 204 men killed, 872 wounded, and 407 missing with several of the missing being deserters. The Federal Army of the Frontier had 175 killed, 808 wounded, and 250 missing. The Confederate Army of the Trans-Mississippi consisted of about 12,000 troops from Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, and the Cherokee and Creek nations, with about twenty-two cannon. The Union Army of the Frontier had about 10,000 soldiers from Arkansas, Missouri, the Cherokee and Creek nations, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, and Wisconsin, with about forty-four cannon.
 
The battle was a tactical draw, with the casualties about the same in each army. But the Southern retreat during the night gave the Union a strategic victory, as a full-scale Confederate army would never return to northwest Arkansas, and Missouri remained firmly under Union control. This savage battle was probably the bloodiest day in Arkansas history. 
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=513
  
<FONT=HelpText,L,195,4,39>Scenario Author:<FONT=HelpText,L,8,12,24>Randy Keen "RebBugler"

