Booknotes: Great Crossings

New Arrival:
• Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson
by Christina Snyder (Oxford Univ Pr, 2017).

Great Crossings is pretty well outside the established topical range of CWBA, but everything that comes in dutifully gets a Booknotes posting. This new study examines the Jacksonian period through the lens of a multi-racial (white, black, and Indian) settlement and school in Kentucky. "These diverse groups met in an experimental community in central Kentucky called Great Crossings, home to the first federal Indian school and a famous interracial family."

According to the author's view, Great Crossings was symbolic of both the territorial and ethnic/racial/cultural expansion of the United States. "Great Crossings, a place of race-mixing and cultural exchange, emerged as a battleground. Its history provides an intimate view of the ambitions and struggles of Indians, settlers, and slaves who were trying to secure their place in a changing world."

Booknotes: Midnight in America

New Arrival:
• Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams during the Civil War
by Jonathan W. White (UNC Press, 2017).

The high caliber of Jonathan White's early body of work places him among the rising stars of Civil War historians. Another appealing quality is the range and unpredictable nature of his chosen topics. Among other publications, White has authored books on Civil War civil liberties and treason, the 1864 soldier vote, Lincoln's law practice, a soon to be released Monitor study, and now the dreams of Civil War Americans.

"In this innovative new study, Jonathan W. White explores what dreams meant to Civil War–era Americans and what their dreams reveal about their experiences during the war. He shows how Americans grappled with their fears, desires, and struggles while they slept, and how their dreams helped them make sense of the confusion, despair, and loneliness that engulfed them."

More from the description: "White takes readers into the deepest, darkest, and most intimate places of the Civil War, connecting the emotional experiences of soldiers and civilians to the broader history of the conflict, confirming what poets have known for centuries: that there are some truths that are only revealed in the world of darkness."

Booknotes: Confederate Waterloo

New Arrival:
• Confederate Waterloo: The Battle of Five Forks, April 1, 1865, and the Controversy that Brought Down a General by Michael J. McCarthy (Savas Beatie, 2017).

The professional disgrace of two well-known Union major generals from the Army of the Potomac still generates a great deal of interest today. The circumstances were different (Fitz John Porter was court-martialed and dismissed from the army while Gouverneur Warren was relieved in the heat of battle), but both men were engaged in long battles to restore their reputations and history has generally judged them to have been wronged. It seems like there have been more Warren-Five Forks studies published than the reality shows. McCarthy's Confederate Waterloo lays claim to being "the first fully researched and unbiased book-length account of this decisive Union victory and the aftermath fought in the courts and at the bar of public opinion." There's also a Warren bio in the works from the same press.

A good case could be made that SB has become the preeminent outlet for Gettysburg and Petersburg Campaign military studies. McCarthy's treatment of Five Forks (with its detailed battle history and fine maps) has all the appearances of living up to this reputation.

The other half of the book explores the Warren controversy at great length. While Five Forks was an overwhelming Union victory that hastened the end of the war, it "spawned one of the most bitter and divisive controversies in the postwar army when Sheridan relieved Fifth Corps commander Gouverneur K. Warren for perceived failures connected to the battle. The order generated a life-long effort by Warren and his allies to restore his reputation by demonstrating that Sheridan’s action was both unfair and dishonorable. The struggle climaxed with a Court of Inquiry that generated a more extensive record of testimony and exhibits than any other U.S. military judicial case in the 19th Century." The book's discussion of the case "may cause students of the Civil War to reassess their views about some of the Union’s leading generals."

Review of Carlin - "CAPTAIN JAMES CARLIN: Anglo-American Blockade Runner"

[Captain James Carlin: Anglo-American Blockade Runner by Colin Carlin (University of South Carolina Press, 2017). Cloth, 3 maps, photos, illustrations, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:249/299. ISBN:9781611177138. $34.99]

Although Confederate officers at the helm of commerce raiders (men like like Raphael Semmes of the Alabama and the Florida's John Newland Maffitt) achieved more lasting fame than blockade runner captains, and the foreign service efforts of James D. Bulloch have tended to overshadow those of other agents abroad in Europe, there were certainly many other highly accomplished nautical men that wore multiple hats while aiding the Confederate cause. Captain James Carlin makes a strong case that its biographical subject's blockade running and naval exploits, as well has fleet management skills, are deserving of greater recognition by Civil War scholars and readers.

The father of English-born James Carlin was a Coast Guard station officer, which meant young Carlin would get the fine formal education that the children of Coast Guard members were entitled. In the mid-1850s after Carlin had only recently completed his merchant marine officer apprenticeship, he was invited by an American naval officer of his acquaintance to join the U.S. Coast Survey as a pilot and master's mate. In this capacity, Carlin gained the intimate knowledge of the South Atlantic coastline that would later serve him well as a blockade runner. He resigned from his post in 1860 and entered South Carolina society by marrying into a well-to-do local family.

In 1861-62, the capable and always ambitious Carlin sought his fortune in blockade running, piloting and commanding both sailing vessels and steamships. As the book shows, this initial period of Carlin's new career was well representative of early Civil War blockade running, with its rapid transition from vulnerable sail power to the narrow, low-profile, and fast steamers that would come to dominate the illicit wartime trade in the South Atlantic and Caribbean.

The diplomatic dimensions of the Union blockade of the southern coast have been abundantly explored in the wider literature, but the book's meticulously detailed account of Carlin's involvement in an extended diplomatic imbroglio between the U.S. and Great Britain offers some interesting insights not found elsewhere. Captured as a passenger on the Memphis in August 1862 as the steamship was exiting Charleston, Carlin was quickly identified by Union authorities as a person of interest and imprisoned in Fort Lafayette.

Source material located in archives on both sides of the Atlantic were effectively used by the author to reconstruct the story of Carlin's incarceration, as well as the protracted diplomatic wrangling (which reached the highest levels of both governments) that finally resulted in Carlin's release after five months of close confinement. Much of the contention revolved around Carlin's citizenship status. Given Carlin's employment with the U.S. Coastal Survey and his long residence in the country, the U.S. State Department and Navy operated under the assumption (without any supporting documentation) that Carlin was a U.S. citizen, while the British government possessed proof of foreign citizenship and demanded that Carlin be released like the other Memphis passengers. The author's view that Secretary of State Seward and Navy Secretary Welles deliberately drew out the proceedings to keep Carlin, whose specialized experience and knowledge made him invaluable to the enemy, imprisoned as long as possible before inevitable release is persuasive. The case study of Carlin's pressured release (even though U.S. authorities clearly recognized the great likelihood that he would return to South Carolina and resume his former activities) is further testament to the global power of British diplomacy of the period.

Carlin indeed returned to blockade running between Charleston and the Bahamas during the first half of 1863. By the end of that time, he was senior captain (informal "commodore") of the Import and Export (I&E) Company of South Carolina. Embittered by his long imprisonment, Carlin also sought out opportunities for more direct action against Union ships, and the book details Carlin's role in outfitting and captaining the spar torpedo boat CSS Torch. The study's full account of the Torch's failed attack on the formidable USS New Ironsides is informative. Though the Torch incident has been largely forgotten in favor of a later attack by the CSS David, which succeeded in damaging New Ironsides, the book plausibly credits the activities of the Torch in forcing the U.S. Navy to position its ships farther from shore.

In late 1863, Carlin was sent to England by his employers to procure new ships to augment the blockade running fleet and replace worn out vessels. He successfully completed this mission, overcoming numerous obstacles along the way. With the tide of war shifting decisively in the Union's favor, Carlin resettled his family in Liverpool in 1864 and skillfully managed the company's fleet from there. A man of action to the end, he was an onboard presence on many late-war trips between Charleston (where he maintained properties) and Nassau. His last runs before the close of hostilities were into Galveston.

After the war, Carlin rejoined his family in Liverpool, where he discreetly disposed of the fleet. However, he still sought out New World business opportunities in Florida, South Carolina, and in the Caribbean. In 1869, he ran arms and revolutionaries into Cuba. On return to the Bahamas, his ship was seized, and he was determined to be in violation of his country's Foreign Enlistment Act, which was being much more strictly enforced after the legal headaches stemming from U.S. claims against British-built commerce raiders. Carlin eventually escaped these troubles and kept a lower profile for the rest of his life, eventually passing away at a rest home (or asylum) in 1891.

Though the project began with author Colin Carlin's interest in family history, the text is refreshingly free of tones of ancestor worship or exaggerated achievement. Carlin also takes a suitably skeptical view of family lore not based on actual evidence. Rather extensive continuity interruptions exist in the known life of James Carlin, and the author does a noteworthy job of using a variety of archival records located in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. in order to address, either directly or by way of inference, many of these biographical gaps. On occasion, Carlin's grasp of peripheral history can be a bit unsteady (e.g. in the book, you'll find "Arthur Sidney Johnson" for Albert Sidney Johnston and CSS "Huntley" for the famous submarine Hunley) but this concern doesn't appear to carry over to matters more directly at hand.

Captain James Carlin lifts out of relative obscurity an important Civil War nautical figure. In addition to richly documenting Carlin's often shadowy life, the study contributes significantly to our wider knowledge of the war's blockade, naval, and diplomatic histories.

Click here to view more CWBA reviews of USC Press titles

Battlefield Atlas of Price's Missouri Expedition of 1864 now in print

Back in May of last year, I mentioned the freely downloadable digital atlas of the 1864 Missouri Expedition that was published by the press of the U.S. Army's Combat Studies Institute. A print version Battlefield Atlas of Price's Missouri Expedition of 1864: Road to Saint Louis, Battle of Lexington, Mine Creek, Marmaduke's Raids, General Samuel Curtis, Sterling Price just became available.

Booknotes: McClellan and the Union High Command, 1861-1863

New Arrival:
• McClellan and the Union High Command, 1861-1863: Leadership Gaps That Cost a Timely Victory by Jeffrey W. Green (McFarland, 2017).

Green's book examines the Union high command during the first half of the war through the lens of McClellan, who was the dominant military figure of that period (at least in the eastern theater). "This re-examination of the high command and McClellan's war in the East provides a broader understanding of the Union's inability to achieve victory in the first two years, and takes the debate about the Union's leadership into new areas."

An interview with the author is forthcoming and will serve as a better introduction to the volume than a Booknotes post, so I'll cut this short. I have my fingers crossed that I'll get the answers back in time to post the Q&A this week.

The National Tribune Civil War Index

National Tribune articles are a key part of modern Civil War research. "The National Tribune was the premier Union veterans’ newspaper of the post-Civil War era. Launched in 1877 by a New York veteran to help his comrades and sway Congress to pass better pension laws, a short time later the National Tribune began publishing firsthand accounts penned by the veterans themselves, and did so for decades thereafter." SB typically concentrates on more commercial fare, but they have published reference works in the past. Here, they've teamed up with Richard Sauers to put out The National Tribune Civil War Index in three volumes currently scheduled for a late 2017 release.

● The National Tribune Civil War Index: A Guide to the Weekly Newspaper Dedicated to Civil War Veterans, 1877-1943. Volume 1: 1877-1903

● The National Tribune Civil War Index: A Guide to the Weekly Newspaper Dedicated to Civil War Veterans, 1877-1943. Volume 2: 1904-1943

● The National Tribune Civil War Index: A Guide to the Weekly Newspaper Dedicated to Civil War Veterans, 1877-1943. Volume 3: Author, Unit, and Subject Index

More from the description: "The first two volumes are organized by author, his unit, title, and page/column location. The third volume―the main index―includes a subject, author, and unit guide, as well as a “Unit as Sources” index that lists articles that mention specific commands but are written by soldiers who were not members of that unit. As an added bonus, this reference guide includes the contents of both the National Tribune Scrapbook and the National Tribune Repository, two short-lived publications that included articles by veterans, and a listing of the major libraries that have National Tribune holdings." Undoubtedly, research libraries of all kinds will want a copy of this set for their reference sections.

Booknotes: The Civil War Diary of Rev. James Sheeran, C.Ss.R.

New Arrival:
• The Civil War Diary of Rev. James Sheeran, C.Ss.R.: Confederate Chaplain and Redemptorist edited by Patrick J. Hayes (The Catholic Univ of America Pr, 2016).

A native of Ireland, Rev. Sheeran was the chaplain of the 14th Louisiana during the Civil War. He "was one of only a few dozen Catholic chaplains commissioned for the Confederacy and one of only two who kept a journal." Sheeran's voluminous 1862-65 diary is "arguably the most unique narrative of the war written by a chaplain of any denomination and certainly is the most extensive." The diary has long been used as source material for Army of Northern Virginia studies, and Gary Gallagher's cover blurb describes the new edition as "by far the fullest and most accurate to date."

More from the book description: "The window given into the pastoral dimension of serving in America's bloodiest war is further enhanced by a running commentary on politics, race, religion, and charitable works throughout the South. He also supplies an insight into incarceration as a prisoner of war at Fort McHenry, Baltimore. Last, because Sheeran was a frequent name dropper, tracking the movements of key military personnel or other personages of the war is made considerably easier through Sheeran's references―all of which have been scrupulously documented in an easy-to-use index."

Having had a Catholic upbringing, I probably shouldn't have needed to look up which order was C.Ss.R and had members called Redemptorists. Since Sheeran was apparently a diehard Confederate, my first thought was that the publisher had come up with another word for Redeemer/Redemptionist.

Up on Peach Tree Creek

In terms of Atlanta Campaign battle books, it continues to amaze me how quickly we've gone from decades of next to nothing to, after only a few short years, the existence of competing (for lack of a better term) major works. Full length studies of Ezra Church from Gary Ecelbarger and Earl Hess were published only a year apart, and now Hess is applying his own inimitable touch to another major Atlanta battle. I had more than a few problems with the clunkiness and poor presentation of Robert Jenkins's 2014 study of Peach Tree Creek [see the review] but still appreciated its great strengths and found it more than worthy of recommendation. This coming September, Hess's The Battle of Peach Tree Creek: Hood's First Effort to Save Atlanta will be published by UNC Press.

From the description: "Offering new and definitive interpretations of the battle's place within the Atlanta campaign, Earl J. Hess describes how several Confederate regiments and brigades made a pretense of advancing but then stopped partway to the objective and took cover for the rest of the afternoon on July 20. Hess shows that morale played an unusually important role in determining the outcome at Peach Tree Creek—a soured mood among the Confederates and overwhelming confidence among the Federals spelled disaster for one side and victory for the other."

The proper spelling of the battle — 'Peach Tree Creek' over the more traditional 'Peachtree Creek' — is one obvious point of agreement between the two authors.

Booknotes: American Civil Wars

New Arrival:
• American Civil Wars: The United States, Latin America, Europe, and the Crisis of the 1860s edited by Don H. Doyle (UNC Press, 2017).

This is a good idea for a book. The international dimensions of the Civil War era beyond just North America and Europe are getting much more attention these days, and editor Don Doyle has collected quite an international cast of topics and historians for his essay anthology titled American Civil Wars.

From the description: "Contributors position the American conflict squarely in the context of a wider transnational crisis across the Atlantic world, marked by a multitude of civil wars, European invasions and occupations, revolutionary independence movements, and slave uprisings—all taking place in the tumultuous decade of the 1860s. The multiple conflicts described in these essays illustrate how the United States' sectional strife was caught up in a larger, complex struggle in which nations and empires on both sides of the Atlantic vied for the control of the future."

Domestic essays look at growing U.S. global power, the crisis over possible foreign intervention during the Civil War, and Confederate designs on Latin America. Others examine themes related to the British, French, and Spanish empires, as well as Dominican reannexation, Mexico's own civil conflict, Cuba, politics in Spanish America, and slavery in Brazil. "This volume breaks new ground by charting a hemispheric upheaval and expanding Civil War scholarship into the realms of transnational and imperial history."

Booknotes: Yes, Lord, I Know the Road

New Arrival:
• Yes, Lord, I Know the Road: A Documentary History of African Americans in South Carolina, 1526-2008 edited by J. Brent Morris (Univ of S Carolina Pr, 2017).

"Yes, Lord, I Know the Road is the first comprehensive history of African Americans in the Palmetto State." Its collected documents span the "first North American slave rebellion near the mouth of the Pee Dee River in the early sixteenth century" through Barack Obama's 2008 victory in the state's Democratic primary.

Editor J. Brent Morris contributes a general introduction and his selections assembled together "a wide variety of annotated primary-source documents―personal narratives, government reports, statutes, newspaper articles, and speeches―to highlight the significant people, events, social and political movements, and ideas that have shaped black life in South Carolina and beyond." Many of the documents are published here for the first time, and many others have been previously published but difficult to find.

The resources are presented in the typical manner of documentary histories, with the material organized by theme and with brief introductory comments for each item. Notes and an index are in the back.

Booknotes: This Will Make A Man of Me

New Arrival:
• This Will Make a Man of Me: The Life and Letters of a Teenage Officer in the Civil War
edited by James M. Scythes (Lehigh Univ Pr, 2016).

At seventeen years of age, infantry Second Lieutenant Thomas James Howell of the 3rd New Jersey was an uncommonly young Civil War officer. Unfortunately, like many of his comrades, Howell's life was a tragically brief one, coming to a grisly end during the Battle of Gaines's Mill. "Featuring sixty-five letters that Howell wrote home to his family, this book describes soldier life in the Army of the Potomac during the spring and summer of 1862, focusing on Howell’s experiences during Major General George B. McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign."

The material is extensively annotated by editor James Scythes, who also contributes a substantial general introduction, as well as lengthy introductory narratives to Parts I and II of the book and a concluding essay. Numerous maps and photographs are also included. Beyond the novelty of the subject's extreme youth, it looks like the material might also (as already mentioned above) prove quite useful to Peninsula Campaign students.

Review of Thompson - "TEJANO TIGER: Jose de los Santos Benavides and the Texas-Mexico Borderlands, 1823-1891"

[Tejano Tiger: Jose de los Santos Benavides and the Texas-Mexico Borderlands, 1823-1891 by Jerry D. Thompson (Texas Christian University Press, 2017). Cloth, map, photos, notes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:343/424. ISBN:9780875654072. $29.95]

Life in the Texas borderland sandwiched between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers often proved precarious during the nineteenth century. Tensions between rival local, state, and national governments were rife, and Indian raids and cross border banditry frequent and widespread. Laredo native Santos Benavides (1823-1891) was both witness and key participant to this decades-long period of domestic strife, open warfare, and transformative social and political change. Career Southwest history specialist Jerry Thompson's Tejano Tiger: Jose de los Santos Benavides and the Texas-Mexico Borderlands, 1823-1891 gives this important figure his proper historical due and is the first full biography of Benavides to appear in the scholarly literature.

Born into a prominent Laredo Tejano family in 1823, Santos Benavides greatly benefited, according to Thompson, from his uncle Basilio's guiding hand and long experience in local and state politics under three republics. In the period preceding the Civil War, Santos would become a very successful rancher and businessman, as well as a popular local political leader (among other posts, he would be elected mayor of Laredo in 1856). He also gained valuable para-military experience fighting bandits operating out of Mexico and, from the opposite direction, raiding bands of Comanche and Lipan Apache.

Santos was commissioned a captain of Texas volunteers in 1861, and he would eventually reach the rank of colonel (the highest ranking Tejano in the army of the CSA) even though he never led more than a few companies at a time. His entire Civil War service was spent along the Rio Grande front, a post which required both military and diplomatic skills. It is Thompson's view that Benavides excelled in both arenas. Through great affection for Mexico but loyalty to Texas, Benavides was able to promote friendly relations (for the most part) on both sides of the border. He also demonstrated his military skills on two great occasions. In 1861, he crushed invading forces led by Mexican marauder and would-be revolutionary Juan Cortina and in 1864 defeated advancing Union forces at the gates of Laredo.

However, as the book shows, pitched battles were few and far between, and Benavides's most significant contribution to the Confederate cause was in consistently keeping open a vital stretch of the Rio Grande for the all-important cotton trade with Mexico, the proceeds of which kept the isolated Trans-Mississippi Department afloat. This task became even more important when Union forces seized the mouth of the Rio Grande in 1863, and advanced inland. The victory at Laredo mentioned above was a critical event in keeping Union forces based on the coast from linking up with their brethren in southern New Mexico and choking off border trade entirely.

Thompson also explores at some length the unproductive feud between Benavides and his immediate superior, Colonel John S. "Rip" Ford. Ford was frequently frustrated with Benavides's insubordination, and Ford, in turn, was blamed by Santos for preventing the rank-ambitious Tejano from obtaining a much sought after brigadier general's star. Even though the two never reconciled, Ford (unlike Benavides) was able to look past personal animosities, and the famous Texan generously praised the Civil War contributions of Santos in his memoirs. Really, the Civil War section of the book is far richer than expected. Those chapters together comprise perhaps the literature's very best account of the Civil War along the Texas-Mexico border between Eagle Pass and Rio Grande City.

Benavides generally supported conservative Democrats and later aligned himself with their stances on social issues when he served in the state legislature after the Civil War. Some of his closest friends and allies, like Edmund J. Davis, declared themselves for the Union in 1860-61, but it appears that Santos himself had no reservations about joining the Confederate cause. In addition to having social views compatible with the Texas majority, perhaps he viewed his wealth as being best protected and served by remaining loyal to the Lone Star State. Thompson also very plausibly suggests ideological transference between Santos and Uncle Basilio's long standing opposition to strong central control from Mexico City and the States' Rights debates of their new country post-annexation.

Given how deeply intertwined the long life of Santos Benavides was with his beloved hometown of Laredo, the book also serves as an excellent social, economic, and political history of the town itself. One of the study's most striking features was its in-depth discussion of party machine politics in Laredo, which proved just as cutthroat as those found in the great cities of the North and culminated in the shockingly bloody election riot of 1886. Thompson also details how Santos and other local leaders during the post-Civil War period built between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo a literal and figurative bridge between Texas and Mexico. Benavides was influential in bringing the railroad to Laredo from the Texas interior, as well. At the same time, he used his deep personal connections south of the border to assuage the security concerns of Mexican officials, who feared that railroad links in the northern Mexican states might entice another invasion from the United States. The effort was a success, and Benavides helped modernize trade and communications between both countries.

As he did both before and during the Civil War, Benavides consistently sought closer ties between Texas and Mexico during his three terms as a state legislator in Austin. The Civil War ruined many others, but Benavides was fortunate enough to have retained his considerable wealth and (as mentioned above) was often sought out as a facilitator of border business interests. According to Thompson, Benavides's extremely poor command of the English language (which he apparently made little effort to improve throughout his life) was a significant limiting factor to political advancement. Perhaps his greatest political disappointment was in fellow Democrat Grover Cleveland's dismissive rejection of Benavides as candidate for U.S. Ambassador to Mexico.

In researching this book, Thompson mined an impressive array of archives and newspapers from both sides of the border. Complaints are few, and none are serious. Cosmetic errors pop up here and there, and, at one point, a photo caption inaccurately claims that John B. Magruder lost an arm in Mexico.

Tejano Tiger convincingly positions Jose de los Santos Benavides as one of South Texas's most important social, political, and military figures of the nineteenth century. In addition to providing an exhaustive record of the Civil War military career of Santos Benavides, Thompson's book also recounts the full life of a man whose unusually steadfast commitment to binational harmony and prosperity deserves to be more widely remembered.

Five books on the campaign and battle of Pea Ridge

In recognition of the battle's impending 155th anniversary:

1. Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West by William L. Shea and Earl J. Hess (1992).

The 1990s comprised a golden decade for authors, publishers, and readers. Entire aisles at mega bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders were crammed with Civil War titles of all kinds (the contrast to B&N today is rather disheartening given that the actual richness of the literature is not at all diminished). One of the best titles released during this era was Shea and Hess's Pea Ridge, a treatment of the campaign that's unrivaled in every way to this day and perhaps may never be superseded.

2. The Battle of Pea Ridge: The Civil War Fight for the Ozarks by James R. Knight (2012).

If detailed, full-length battle studies aren't your thing, then Knight's popular overview (which, if I recall correctly from the notes, heavily references Shea & Hess) will more than suffice.

3. Wilson's Creek, Pea Ridge, and Prairie Grove: A Battlefield Guide, with a Section on Wire Road by Hess, Hatcher, Piston, and Shea (2006).

Part of Nebraska's This Hallowed Ground series, this volume is the best guide for touring the Pea Ridge battlefield. Including the critical Ozarks thoroughfare of the Wire Road in the book was an inspired choice.

4. "The Battle Raged... With Terrible Fury:" Battlefield Archaeology of Pea Ridge National Military Park by Carl Carlson-Drexler, Douglas Scott, and Harold Roeker (2008).

This highly readable government report is an archaeological study of the battlefield that arrives at some interesting conclusions. You can download the digital version for free from here.

5. The March to the River: From the Battle of Pea Ridge to Helena, Spring 1862
by Robert G. Schultz (2014).

The resounding victory at Pea Ridge left Union military authorities in NW Arkansas in a quandary over how to properly exploit it. While its narrative is choppy and maps poor, Schultz's book is the first and only full-length account of General Curtis's long march west to east across the state and his occupation of Helena after the aborted advance on Little Rock.