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8030d06306000000000OOOWOoaouuCedar Rapids Troops HelpedStem Confederate Tide NearProf. Bates9 Home 70 Yrs. AgoLocal Man, Then Boy At Cane Hill, Ark., Recalls The Bitter Partisanship AndJGuerilla Warfare.olIT rXED C. HENSON.When Cedar Rapids soldiers helped to stem a threatened Confederate invasion of Missouri in 1862 at Prairie Grove, Ark:., they battlednear the home town of a lad, who was someday to safeguard their home town from inroads of disease with a test tube as his weapon.Dr. C. O. Bates, Cedar Rapids city chemist and retired professor of chemistry at Coe college, lived at Cane Hill, Ark., less than ten miles from the picturesque and hill-skirted prairie land where the courageous Twentieth Iowa, with Indiana, ‘Illinois and Wisconsin regiments aided by Arkansas and Missouri cavalry, hurled back a Confederate force of, vastly superior numbers Dec, 7, 1862.In fact if it hadn’t been for Cane Hill, the battle of Prairie Grove would probably have been fought somewhere in Missouri under less auspicious circumstances for the Union, Brlg.-Gerieral James G. Blunt with his wiry southwestern cavalrymen and Indian scouts had driven the Confederates under General Marmaduke from Cane Hill, a natural military vantage point.Presently his position became precarious as General Hindman and thirty thousand Confederates prepared to Invade Missouri. Blunt’s men would be crushed by numbers. Blunt ordered General Herron one hundred and eighteen miles away to hurry to his assistance.Fight Or Footrace,He dispatched a virile message to his chief, General Curtis, at St. Louis, saying, ’‘General—My division arrived here the 28th of November. General Hindman is advancing with a'large army. I have sent orders to General Herron to hurry to my assistance. Before this reaches you there will have taken place the damndest fight or footrace on record.”But the Iowans and their compatriots were equal to the task. By almost incessant marching In mud and rain they traversed the 118 miles to succor General Blunt in three days and the cavalry moved up from 132 miles away in two and one-half days.When the actual battle of Prairie Grove occurred, Prof. Bates, then a child of four and one-half years, was with his parents at Cincinnati, Ark., about eleven miles from the field One of the ranking officers of the Twentieth Iowa was Major W. G Thompson, afterwards Judge Thompson of' the Linn “county district court and a friend of Bates. The Confederates fell on theWAIMAC. O. BATES.Yankee outposts on Dec, 6 and sent loyal Arkansas cavalry and wagon trains hurling back on the advancing reinforcements in confusion. With wild clamor as the wagons locked wheels on the crowded roads, a hopeless traffic jam ensued. Many of the wagon' drivers fled toward Fayetteville, scored by the derisive shouts of the advancing’ Federal troops.On a mild and bright December day the two forces joined battle at Prairie Grove. Fierce fighting followed and the first Confederate wrave set the blue-clads back on their heels. The rally came at once and with well directed fire into a force several tiknes their strength, the Yanks spread consternation among their foes. All day the battle raged and General Blunt’s cavalry fell on the southerners from the rear, while they were engaging the Herron regiments at the front. By 9 o’clock that night the.vConfederates were retiring toward Van Buren, and the tired northerners slept.Ruse Permits Escape.By a~ ruse General Marmaduke permitted his men to escape to an even further distance the following morning as he and two staff officers kept federal officers engaged in a truce conference for two hours withhchiingBawhentsaccoifromilbaiprsregtisisyihanapadaprlt;1tincrserevithifa;BetyicotoiArre:upthpuafrlt;wtrebala1ceAiit.aatbHP*frvcmno other alleged purpose. The Fed-crals had suffered 800 killed andwounded and the Confederates about 2,000.Dr. Bates recalls of hearing in boyhood from lips of an adult who visited the battlefield after the fight that the Confederate dead blanketed the ground so completely that it would have been possible to have walked over bodies for many rods without touching the earth.The horror of war was accentuated for Dr. Bates by the reality of brother against brother and father against son, represented particularly in his home region. Northwestern Arkansas was settled largely by cov-Fiolw1cDaeinslt;
Newspaper Details
Cedar Rapids Gazette
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, US
Sun, May 28, 1933
Page 28
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 23 Jul 2022
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