THE FIRST YEAR OF THE IVAR IN MISSOURI.

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the afternoon seven pieces of cannon and about 200 prisoners, and at nightbivouacked near Elkhorn Tavern. But morning revealed the enemy in a newand strong position, their forces united and offering battle. The Confederatessoon learned that McCulloch and McIntosh had been killed the day beforeand their force routed and dispersed. The battle was renewed nevertheless,and the Missourians fought desperately and were still holding their groundwhen about 10 o’clock Yan Dorn ordered a retreat, and the army leavingMissouri to her fate began to fall back toward Yan Buren.

In this battle, sometimes called the battle of Pea Ridge, and at othertimes the battle of Elkhorn, the Federal general reported his losses at 203killed, 980 wounded, and 201 missing. Van Dorn ’s were probably greater,and he lost heavily in good officers. McCulloch and McIntosh were killed;General Price was again wounded and narrowly escaped death; GeneralW. Y. Slack, whom his men idolized and whom the whole army held in honor,was fatally wounded; and Colonel B. A. Rives, one of the knightliest of sol-diers and bravest of gentlemen, and Churchill Clark, a heroic boy, were killed.

Halleck, who had determined to make the Tennessee “the great strategicline of the Western campaign,” now began to concentrate all of his forces onthat river and the Mississippi , in order “to fight a great battle on theTennessee, ” one which would “settle the campaign in the West.” He con-sequently ordered Curtis not to advance any farther into Arkansas ; andsent out of Missouri all the troops that could be safely taken thence, someof them to Pope on the Mississippi, and others to Grant on the Tennessee .

The concentration of Federal armies on the Mississippi portended suchdanger to Beauregard, who had lately assumed command of the defensesof that river, that General Albert Sidney Johnston ordered Yan Dorn to movehis army to within supporting distance of Beauregard. This Yan Dorn beganto do on the 17th of March, on which day he wrote to General Johnston thatne would soon “ relieve Beauregard by giving battle to the enemy near NewMadrid,” or, by marching “boldly and rapidly toward St. Louis , betweenIronton and the enemy’s grand depot at Rolla .”

While he was executing this plan, and while the greater part of the armythat had survived Elkhorn was on the march across the mountains of NorthArkansas toward Jackson port, Van Dorn was suddenly ordered by GeneralJohnston on the 23d of March to move his entire command by “ the best andmost expeditious route ” to Memphis . His forces, to which he had given thename of “the Army of the West,” were accordingly concentrated in all hasteat Des Arc, on the White River, whence they were to take boats for Memphis .The first division of this army, to the command of which General Price had been assigned, was the first to move, Little’s Missouri Brigade embark-ing on the 8th of April for Memphis, just as Pope was taking possessionof Island No. 10, and Beauregard was leading Johnston ’s army back toCorinth from the fateful field of Shiloh.