UNIFORM OF THE UNITED STATES REGULARS IN 1861.
THE PEA RIDGE CAMPAIGN.BY FRANZ SIGEL, MAJOR-GENERAL, U. S. V.

THE battle of Pea Ridge (or Elkhorn Tavern, as the Confederates named it) was fought on the 7th and 8th of March, 1862, one month before the battle of Shiloh. It was the first clear and decisive victory gained by the North in a pitched battle west of the Mississippi River, and until Prices' invasion of 1864 the last effort of the South to carry the war into the State of Missouri, except by abortive raids. Since the outbreak of the rebellion, Missouri, as a border and slave State, had represented all the evils of a bitter civil strife. The opening events had been the protection of the St. Louis arsenal, the capture of Camp Jackson, the minor engagements at Boonville and Carthage, the sanguinary struggle at Wilson's Creek on the 10th of August, forever memorable by the heroic death of General Lyon. The retreat of our little army of about 4500 men to Rolla, after that battle, ended the first campaign and gave General Sterling Price, the military leader of the secessionist forces of Missouri, the opportunity of taking possession of Springfield, the largest city and central point of south-west Missouri, and of advancing with a promiscuous host of over 15,000 men as far as Lexington, on the Missouri River, which was gallantly defended for three days by Colonel Mulligan. Meanwhile, General Fremont, who on the 25th of July had been placed in command of the Western Department, had organized and put in motion an army of about 30,000 men, with 86 pieces of artillery, to cut off Price's forces, but had only succeeded in surprising and severely defeating about a thousand recruits of Price's retiring army at Springfield by a bold movement of 250 horseman (Fremont's body-guard and a detachment of "Irish Dragoons") under the lead of Major Zagonyi. Our army, in which I commanded of division, was now concentrated at Springfield, and was about to follow and attack the forces of Price and McCulloch, who had taken separate positions, the one (Price) near Pineville in the south-western corner of Missouri, the other (McCulloch) near Keetsville, on the Arkansas line. Although McCulloch was at first averse to venturing battle, he finally yielded to the entreaties of Price, and prepared himself to cooperate in resisting the further advance of Fremont. Between Price and McCulloch it was explicitly understood that Missouri should not be given up without a struggle. Such was the condition of things when the intended operations of General Fremont were cut short by his removal from the command of the army (November 2d), his successor being General David Hunter. The result of this change was an immediate and uncommonly hasty retreat of our army in a northerly and easterly direction, to Sedalia on the 9th, and to Rolla on the 13th; in fact, the abandonment of the whole south-west of the State by the Union troops, and the occupation of