The bodies of at least eight of the 3d Iowa Cav. were exhumed and found to have been scalped and the bodies otherwise maltreated after their deaths by the scalping knives and tomahawks of merciless Indians. The matter was made subject of a strong communication from Gen. Curtis to Gen. Van Dorn, and the latter's Adjutant-General, Dabney H. Maury, replied, cordially condemning any such deeds, but claiming that, on the other hand, many prisoners of war had been killed in cold blood by Curtis's men, who were alleged to be Germans. The letter said:
The General commanding feels sure that you will do your part as he will in preventing such atrocities in the future, and that the perpetrators of them will be brought to justice, whether Germans or Choctaws.
Gen. Curtis was promoted to Major-General for his victory, and well deserved that honor, in spite of some bitter critics. Sigd was also made a Major-General, with much less reason. Asboth had his withheld Brigadier-Generalcy confirmed to him. Cols. Carr, Davis and Dodge were made Brigadier-Generals, but Cols. Osterhaus, White and Bussey, who had done conspicuous fighting, had to wait some months for their promotion, and Cols. Greusel and Pattison never received it.
Among those who received praise for their gallantry that day was Maj. John Charles Black, of the 37th Ill., later a Colonel and Brigadier-General, Commissioner of Pensions under President Cleveland, Representative-at-large from Illinois, Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, and now President of the United States Civil Service Commission. Maj. Black was severely wounded in the sword arm in the fight, but refused to leave the field until Gen. White ordered him to do so.
Another was Maj. Phillip Sidney Post, of the 59th Ill. He later became Colonel and Brigadier-General; was left for dead on the field at Nashville, but recovered, to be Consul-General at Vienna and represent Illinois for many years in Congress. He was also wounded in the sword arm, and also refused to leave the field until he was peremptorily ordered to do so.
The moral effect of the victory was prodigious and far-reaching. High expectations had been raised by Van Dora, McCulloch, Mcintosh, Price and Albert Pike, which were abjectly prostrated. The mass of fugitives, white and red, who scattered over Missouri, Arkansas and the Indian Territory, each with his tale of awful slaughter and disheartened defeat, had a blighting effect upon the Secessionists, and greatly strengthened the Union sentiment.
It was a desperate two-days' wrestle between the very best that the Southern Confederacy could produce west of the Mississippi River—the ablest commanders and the finest troops—and a small Union army. It was breaking, test, under the fairest conditions, of the fighting qualities of the two combatants.
Though bitter, merciless, sanguinary fighting was to perturb the State for three years longer, it was no longer war, but guerilla raiding and bandittism, robbery and murder under a pretext of war. Price, indeed, made an invasion of the State two years later, but it was a hurried raid, without hope of permanent results.
At the conclusion of the battle Missouri was as firmly anchored to the Union as her neighbors, Illinois, Iowa and Kansas.