The night of March 7 closed down with a tumult of widely-varying emotions in the 33,000 men who joined battle in the morning. All of Gen. Pike's Indians, except a portion of Col. Standwaitie's regiment of Cherokee half-breeds, and several thousand whites were rushing off toward the Arkansas River at full speed. The remnant of McCulloch's Division, which Col. Greer had rallied, and which had some fight left in it, unutterably weary, hungry and depressed, bivouacked near the battlefield, awaiting Van Dora's orders. Price's Missourians, who were no less weary and hungry than their comrades, from a night of severest marching and a day of sharp fighting, camped on the ground which they had wrung from Carr's Division by seven hours of bitter struggling and the cost of a number of prominent officers and several hundred men. Their success, though dearly bought, was sufficient to encourage them. They had captured several hundred prisoners and two pieces of artillery. They had driven Carr's Division back a quarter of a mile, were across the Union line of retreat, and Van Dorn had his headquarters at Elkhorn Tavern.
Price had greatly endeared himself to his troops by his conduct during the day. He was everywhere at the front, leading and encouraging his men, and though wounded in the arm had refused to quit the field. His generalship was not so conspicuous as his soldiership. With him and Van Dorn it was the story of Wilson's Creek over again. Instead of lining up their superior force and sending all forward with a crushing solidarity, they had personally led detachments, and when these had been fought out, gone back and brought up fresh forces, Van Dorn had shown generalship only in the concentration of his artillery. He had been so engrossed in this, and in pushing forward detachments he had better left to the Missouri leadership that he neglected his powerful right wing, which had gone to pieces, as there was no one left to take the place of McCulloch and Mcintosh. He hoped, though, with the aid of 3,000 men whom Greer was bringing to him, to complete his victory in the morning.
There was much to depress Curtis's men in their tireless bivouac south of Elkhorn Tavern. Dodge's and Vandever's Brigades had been very roughly handled in the long struggle. Rebel bullets had made sad havoc in their ranks. They had lost two guns and over a quarter of their force in killed and wounded. Osterhaus's and Davis's Divisions, in the center, had had costly encounters with the enemy, and had lost five pieces of artillery. They did not then know that in reality the victory was theirs, but believed that most of the enemy had merely left their front to augment the mass which was formed across their line of retreat They therefore looked forward to the morrow with well-grounded apprehension. They had no rations in their haversacks, and their animals had been without forage for two or three days. Unless the enemy could be driven from their "cracker line" the very next day, starvation for man and beast stared them in the face.
CHAPTER XIX. THE VICTORY IS WON.
Gen. Curtis's army was far from realizing as the night closed down on that exciting March 7 how completely it had whipped the overwhelming numbers of Van Dorn, Price, McCulloch, Mcintosh and Pike. Those of Jeff C. Davis's and Osterhaus's Divisions, who had done the heavy fighting on the Leetown front, knew that they had driven away the mass of the enemy in their front until there was no longer any show of opposition. They of Carr's Division, on the extreme right, the brigades of Dodge and Vandever, realized that they had had a terrible fight, in which they had generally defeated the enemy, inflicting great slaughter, though they had suffered heavily themselves. Still, the enemy had gained a little ground. The men of Carr's Division felt that now, since the rest of the army was coming to their help, they would undoubtedly win a victory in the morning, and clear the rebels from the road leading back to Springfield. This confidence was shared by the men of Jeff C. Davis's and Osterhaus's Divisions, who had come to their assistance, and they all felt more hopeful than did Sigel and Asboth's Division, which had taken little or no part in the fighting. The following remarkable letter from Gen. Asboth to Gen. Curtis, written at 2 o'clock in the morning of March 8, reveals the general belief of that portion of the army that the condition was desperate and it would require extraordinary efforts to release the army from a very hazardous situation: