ack, obliging him
that night to take a new position a mile to the rear. The fighting next
day was at first in favor of the Confederates, and for a time the Union
army was in a critical position; but with great bravery and skill the
enemy's left was turned, the centre broken, and their forces driven in
disorder from the field.

In this battle Albert Pike used 2,000 Indian allies. They belonged to
the "civilized" tribes, and good service was expected from them; but
they were unaccustomed to fighting in the open, could not be
disciplined, and in the excitement of the struggle it is alleged they so
lost their heads that they scalped about as many of the Confederates as
Unionists. At any rate, the experiment was a failure, and thereafter
they cut no figure in the war.

INDECISIVE FIGHTING.

The enemy were so badly shaken that they retreated toward the North to
reorganize and recruit. Reinforcements from Kansas and Missouri also
joined Curtis, who advanced in the direction of Springfield, Missouri,
upon learning that Price was making for the same point. Nothing
followed, and Curtis returned to Arkansas. He had been at Batesville in
that State a few months when he found himself in serious peril. His
supplies were nearly exhausted, and it was impossible to renew them in
the hostile country by which he was surrounded. An expedition for his
relief left Memphis in June, but failed. Supplies from Missouri,
however, reached him early in July.

Curtis marched to Jacksonport, and afterward established himself at
Helena on the Mississippi. In September he was appointed commander of
the department of Missouri, which included that State, Arkansas, and the
Indian Territory. There were many minor engagements, and the Unionists
succeeded in keeping the Confederates from regaining their former
foothold in Missouri and north of Arkansas. It may be said that all the
fighting in that section produced not the slightest effect on the war as
a whole. The best military leaders of the Confederacy advised President
Davis to withdraw all his forces beyond the Mississippi and concentrate
them in the East, but he rejected their counsel, and his stubbornness
greatly weakened the Confederacy.

Having given an account of military operations in the West, it now
remains to tell of the much more important ones that occurred on the
coast and in the East, for they were decisive in their nature, and
produced a distinct effect upon the progress of the war