Note (return) — I. THE BATTLE OF PEA RIDGE, OR ELKHORN, AND ITS MORE IMMEDIATE EFFECTS

Leetown on the seventh and that at Elkhorn Tavern58 on the eighth. At Leetown, Pike's Cherokee contingent59 played what he, in somewhat quixotic fashion, perhaps, chose to regard as a very important part. The Indians, then as always, were chiefly pony-mounted, "entirely undisciplined," as the term discipline is usually understood, and "armed very indifferently with common rifles and ordinary shot-guns."60 The ponies, in the end, proved fleet of foot, as was to have been expected, and, at one stage of the game, had to be tethered in the rear while their masters fought from the vantage-ground of trees.61 The Indian's most effective work was done, throughout, under cover of the woods. Indians, as Pike well knew, could never be induced to face shells in the open. It was he who advised their climbing the trees and he did it without discounting, in the slightest, their innate bravery.62 There came a time, too, when he gave countenance to another of their