The completeness of Curtis’s victory, the loss to the Southerners, by death or capture, of some of their best-loved and ablest commanders, McCulloch, McIntosh, Hebert, and the nature of the country through which the Federals pursued their fleeing forces, to say nothing of the miscellaneous and badly-trained character of

[Footnote 71:  Official Records, vol. xiii, 486.]

[Footnote 72:  The same charge was made against the Indians who fought at Wilson’s Creek [Leavenworth Daily Conservative, August 24, 1861].]

[Footnote 73:  Roman, Military Operations of General Beauregard, vol. i, 240.]

[Footnote 74:  Official Records, vol. viii, 796.]

those forces, to which, by the way, Van Dorn ascribed[75] much of his recent ill-success, all helped to make the retirement of the Confederates from the Pea Ridge battle-ground pretty much of a helter-skelter affair.  From all accounts, the Indians conducted themselves as well as the best.  The desire of everybody was to get to a place of safety and that right speedily.  Colonel Watie and his regiment made their way to Camp Stephens,[76] near which place the baggage train had been left[77] and where Cooper and Drew with their men had found refuge already.  Some two hundred of Watie’s Indians were detailed to help take ammunition back to the main army.[78] The baggage train moved on to Elm Springs, the remainder of the Indians, under Cooper, assisting in protecting it as far as that place.[79] At Walnut Grove, the Watie detail, having failed to deliver the ammunition because of the departure of the army prior to their arrival, rejoined their comrades and all moved on to Cincinnati, where Pike, who with a few companions had wandered several days among the mountains, came up with them.[80]

In Van Dorn’s calculations for troops that should accompany him east or follow in his wake, the Indians had no place.  Before his own plans took final shape and while he was still arranging for an Army of the West, his orders for the Indians were, that they should make their way back as best they could to their own country and there operate “to cut off trains, annoy the enemy in his marches, and to prevent him as far as possible from supplying his troops from Missouri and

[Footnote 75:  Official Records, vol. viii, 282.]

[Footnote 76:—­Ibid.. 291.]

[Footnote 77:—­Ibid., 317.]

[Footnote 78:—­Ibid., 318.]

[Footnote 79:—­Ibid.; Britton, Civil War on the Border, vol. i, 273.]

[Footnote 80:  Official Records, vol. viii, 292.]

Kansas."[81] A little later, but still anterior to Van Dorn’s summons east, more minute particulars of the programme were addressed to Pike.  Maury wrote,