Exploring the Unknown Civil War: The Trans-Mississippi Theater

Battles of the Trans Mississippi West

The Trans-Mississippi West was the least important but yet the most significant theater in the Civil War. The Trans-Mississippi to the west of the Mississippi River to the Appalachian Mountains, was the scene of almost 73 military engagements. It is often known as the “Unknown Civil War”because most attention was directed toward the Eastern Theater. Technically, the Civil War started in Missouri and what was known as Bloody Kansas before the firing on Fort Sumter. The Trans-Mississippi Theater was divided into two major areas. The states of Missouri, Arkansas, Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), Texas and Louisiana west of the Mississippi the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department, which was

Jackson and General Sterling Price. The Confederates were led by William Quantrill and William “Bloody Bill” Anderson. Some soldiers remained under arms and carried out robberies and murders for sixteen years after the war, under the leadership of Jesse James, his brother, Frank James, and Cole Younger and his brothers. There were a lot of military engagement in the state of Arkansas, such as the battle of Pea Ridge in March 1862. The Battle of Pea Ridge, also known as the Battle of Elkhorn Tavern, was a land battle. It was fought March 6 thru 8 of 1862, at Pea Ridge in northwest Arkansas. Union forces, led by Brig. Gen. Samuel Curtis, moved south from central Missouri, driving Confederate forces into northwestern Arkansas. Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn launched a Confederate counteroffensive, hoping to recapture northern Arkansas and Missouri. Curtis held off the Confederate attack on the first day and drove Van Dorn's force off the field on the second. The battle, one of the few in which a Confederate army outnumbered its opponent, essentially established Federal control of Missouri and northern Arkansas. The Union mounted several expeditions throughout the war into southern Arkansas, Texas and western