Keetsville is a town in Missouri north of the battlefield. Sigel, it was stated, “followed some miles north towards Keetsville, firing on the retreating force that ran that way.” There were about twenty-four pieces of our artillery that got into the Keetsville road through mistake; they were without an escort, entirely unprotected. After we had gone about three days’ march, leaving Huntsville to our left and Fayetteville to the right, the Third Texas was sent in search of this artillery, and, after marching all night and until noon next day, passing through Huntsville, we met them, and escorted them in. They had not been fired on or molested in the least. The Federal officers, however, were not chargeable with all the inaccuracies that crept into official reports.
General Van Dorn in his report of this campaign, says: “On the 6th we left Elm Springs for Bentonville.... I therefore endeavored to reach Bentonville, eleven miles distant, by rapid march, but the troops moved so slowly that it was 11 A. M. before the leading division (Price’s)—reached the village, and we had the mortification to see Sigel’s division, 7000 strong, leaving it as we entered.”
Now, as I have already stated, the Third Texas was in advance, and we saw Sigel leaving Bentonville long before 11 A. M., and Price’s division never saw them in Bentonville nor anywhere else that day. General Curtis reported that two of his divisions had just reached his position, near Pea Ridge, when word came to him that General Sigel, who had been left behind with a detachment of one regiment, was about to be surrounded by a “vastly superior force,” when these two divisions marched rapidly back and with infantry and artillery checked the rebel advance, losing twenty-five men killed and wounded. So this was the force that ambushed us, and according to this account, Sigel moved out of Bentonville in the morning with one regiment, instead of 7000 men. So the reader of history will never know just how much of fiction he is getting along with the “history.”
Leaving the battlefield in the manner stated, we moved very slowly all day. In fact, fatigue, loss of sleep, and hunger had rendered a rapid movement impossible with the infantry. Our men were so starved that they would have devoured almost anything. During the day I saw some of the infantry men shoot down a hog by the side of the road, and, cutting off pieces of the meat, march on eating the raw bloody pork without bread or salt. The country through which we were marching was a poor, mountainous district, almost destitute of anything for the inhabitants to subsist upon, to say nothing of feeding an army. Stock of any kind appeared to be remarkably scarce. J. E. Dillard managed to get a small razor-back pig, that would weigh perhaps twenty-five pounds, strapped it on behind his saddle and thus carried it all day. When we were relieved of picket duty and went into camp at midnight, he cut it up and divided it among the men. I drew a shoulder-blade, with perhaps as much as four ounces of meat on it. This I broiled and ate without salt or bread.
We continued the march southward, passing ten or twelve miles east of Fayetteville. About the fourth day we had been resting, and the commissary force was out hustling for something to eat, but before we got any rations the Third Texas was suddenly ordered to mount immediately and go in search of our missing artillery. This was in the afternoon, perhaps four o’clock. Moving in a northeasterly direction, we marched all night on to the headwaters of White River, where that stream is a mere creek, and I do not think it would be an exaggeration to say that we crossed it twenty times during the night. About 10 A. M. we passed through Huntsville, county seat of Madison County, a small town having the appearance of being destitute of everything. By this time the matter of food had become a very serious question, and we appeared to be in much greater danger of dying from starvation in the mountains of northern Arkansas than by the enemy’s bullets. Our belts had been tightened until there was no relief in that, and, as if to enhance my own personal suffering, the tantalizing fact occurred to me that I was treading my native heath, so to speak, for I am a native of Madison County, and Huntsville had been my home for years, where to enjoy three squares a day had been an unbroken habit of years. But to-day I was literally starving in the town of Huntsville, County of Madison, aforesaid, and not a friendly face could I see, nor could a morsel of bread be procured for love or patriotism. Passing onward two or three miles, and having learned that the guns were coming, we rested, and privately made details to scour the country and beg for a little food “for sick and wounded men.” Tom Johnson went out for our mess, and the sorrowful tales that were told in behalf of the poor sick and wounded soldiers we were hauling along in ambulances, with nothing with which to feed them, would have melted a heart of stone. The ruse was a success, as the details came in at night with divers small contributions made from scant stores for “the poor sick and wounded men,” which were ravenously consumed by the well ones. The artillery shortly afterwards came up and was escorted by us to the command. Camping that night a few miles from Huntsville, the artillery had taken the wrong road as it left the battlefield, had gone up into Missouri, and had had a long circuitous drive through the mountains, but otherwise they were all right.
After we returned with the guns, the army moved on southward. When we were again in motion, as there was no further apprehension of being followed by the enemy, hunger having nearly destroyed my respect for discipline, I left the column by a byroad leading eastwardly, determined to find something to eat. This proved a more difficult errand than I had expected, for the mountaineers were very poor and apparently almost destitute of supplies. I had traveled twelve or fifteen miles when I rode down the mountain into a little valley, at the head of Frog Bayou, coming to a good log house owned and occupied by a Mr. Jones, formerly of Jackson County, Alabama, and a brother of Hosea, Allen, William, and Jesse Jones, good and true men, all of whom I knew. If he had been my uncle I could not have been prouder to find him. Here I got a good square meal for myself and horse, seasoned with a good hearty welcome. This good, true old man was afterwards murdered, as I learned, for his loyalty to the Confederate cause. After enjoying my dinner and a rest, I proceeded on my way, intending to rejoin the command that evening; but, missing the road they were on, I met the regiment at our old winter quarters. Thus about the middle of March the Third Texas Cavalry was again housed in the huts we had erected on the bank of the Arkansas River. I do not know the casualties of the regiment, but as far as I remember Company C had only one man, Jos. Welsh, wounded, and one man, Orderly Sergeant W. M. Caldwell, captured. But as the prisoners were exchanged, our captured men soon returned to us.
Thus ended a short campaign which involved much suffering to me, as well as others, and was the beginning of trouble which nearly cost me my life, a trouble which was not fully recovered from until the following winter. When I was taken with measles in Missouri, the disease affected my bowels, and they became ulcerated, and all through the long spell of typhoid fever and the very slow convalescence this trouble was very hard to control. When I left Rusk to return to the army I was apparently well, but having been comfortably housed all winter was not in proper condition to enter such a campaign at this season of the year. Before leaving winter quarters the men were ordered to prepare ten days’ rations, and when we overtook the command at Fayetteville they had been out nearly that length of time, and rations were already growing scarce. We furloughed men and a number of recruits who had accompanied us to join the command were not here to draw or prepare rations, and our only chance for a living was to share rations with our comrades, who were as liberal and generous as they could be, but they were not able to do much.
Captain D. R. Gurley
Sixth Texas Cavalry, A. A. G. Ross’ Brigade