Note 17 — Chapter XXIV
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The battle of Prairie Grove, for the number engaged, was a bloodier and more fiercely contested battle than Pea Ridge. Blunt claimed that he and Herron together had only seven thousand men on the field. That Herron, with not more than half that number, had held the enemy at bay for three hours, speaks volumes for the valor of his weary men.
Hindman claims he brought only eleven thousand men to the fight.
The Federal loss was about thirteen hundred; the Confederate loss was estimated at from fifteen hundred to two thousand. Hindman admitted a loss of fourteen hundred.
A few of the Federal regiments engaged lost heavily. The Twentieth Wisconsin lost two hundred and seventeen; the Twenty-sixth Indiana, two hundred and one; the Nineteenth Iowa, one hundred and ninety-three; the Seventh Missouri Cavalry, one hundred and forty-two, and the Thirty-seventh Illinois, seventy-one.
General John C. Black, then colonel of the Thirty-seventh Illinois, states that his regiment marched sixty-six miles in thirty-six hours to get into the fight, and so exhausted were the men that during lulls in the battle they would sink to the ground and be fast asleep in a minute, but would spring to their feet and renew the fight when the call came, with all the fury of fresh soldiers.