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Living History & Reenactment Music |
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IN TUNE WITH THE TIMES
Musical Rambles Through History © by Sara L. Johnson |
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Sinclair's (St. Clair's) Defeat - The Battle of Pea Ridge |
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November the fourth in the year of ninety-one,
we had a sore engagement near to Fort Jefferson . It was on March the Seventh in the year of sixty-two. We had a sore engagement with Abe Lincoln's crew. I found the words to Sinclair's Defeat in "The American Songster", published 1836. I immediately recognized the connection with the Civil War song The Battle of Pea Ridge. One of my favorite recordings of that ballad is on Cathy Barton and Dave Para's album "Johnny Whistletrigger: Civil War Songs for the Western Border, Vol. 1". The Battle of Pea Ridge is an Ozark variation of St. Clair's Defeat, which is said to have hung on the walls of many Ohio homes in the early 1800s. In its lament of the Confederate defeat at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, The Battle of Pea Ridge exaggerated many of the facts of that battle. The song Sinclair's Defeat did not exaggerate. General Arthur St. Clair's men were camped near present-day Fort Recovery, Ohio. They consisted of regular regimentals, levies, and Kentucky militia men, all "badly clothed, badly paid and badly fed." In all, there were about 1400 men plus 200 women and children camp followers with the group. Although a reconnaissance party warned of imminent attack, and President Washington has cautioned him not to underestimate the tactics used by the Indians, St. Clair had few guards posted and his troops were completely unprepared. At dawn, the Miami and Shawnee forces under Little Turtle and Blue Jacket, possibly augmented by contingents of Wyamdots and Delawares, attacked the militia, who collapsed and retreated in chaos through the middle of the camp of the regulars and levies. As they concentrated toward the middle of camp, they were surrounded by the attacking Shawnee and Miami forces, who deliberately targeted the officers. Their insignia and their visible attempts on horseback to rally their men made the officers easy targets. After three hours of fighting, the ground was covered with the dead. A wounded Major General Richard Butler was propped against a tree by his two brothers, but was soon tomahawked and his heart cut out to be eaten later by the tribes. Colonel William Darke reported that the "whole army ran together like a mob at a fair," breaking through to reach the road they had cut, and escaped because most of the Indians paused in the camp to loot, tomahawk, kill and torture the wounded and the women and children who had been left behind. Of the 200 camp followers, only three women survived. 918 Army casualties included 623 soldiers dead, 258 wounded, 24 civilian employees dead, 13 wounded, and 69 of 124 commissioned officers killed or wounded. It was February of 1792 before a contingent from Fort Washington returned to the battle site to bury what remained of the dead. St. Clair's Defeat was the greatest defeat that U.S. Army ever suffered at the hands of the Native American Nations; and the losses surpassed those in any battle during the American Revolution. (Information from R. Douglas Hurt's "The Ohio Frontier".)
The Civil War song Battle of Pea Ridge made use of many of the same phrases from the original song, but the Confederate casualties were nowhere near the "ten thousand" mentioned in the lyrics, Confederate General Sterling Price was wounded but not fatally, and it was General Van Dorn, not Price, who ordered the retreat. Pea Ridge was near the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), and Cherokee, Creek and Choctaw Indians fought in the battle, under Confederate Gen. Albert Pike.
The sheet music and a playable midi file of St. Clair's Defeat/Battle of Pea Ridge are available on the music page. |
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