The regiment fought on March 7, 1862 on the Leetown portion of the battlefield. A brief, but vivid description follows from "The 16th Arkansas Infantry Regiment" by Mark R. Miller, 1999, Arkansas Research:

"The 16th Arkansas stumbled into place as their colonel shook the regiment into line. An all night march around the enemy flank had placed them squarely in the Union rear. To cut down on noise, the wagons had been left behind and the troops ate the last of their rations. After their cold breakfast, the regiment deposited their blankets and belongings in a pile under guard and moved out.

McCulloch rode forward and conferred with Colonel Hill of the 16th. Ordering forward two companies of the regiment to act as skirmishers, he rode ahead through the timber to scout the Federal dispositions. Disdainful of uniforms, McCulloch wore sky blue pants and a dove-gray civilian jacket. Riding alone he cleared a slight ridge and neared the wood fence of a farmer named Oberson. A ragged volley of gunfire met the lone rider.

The sound of musketry to his front prompted Colonel Hill to order his men forward through a belt of timber toward the sound of the firing. The regimental colors waving overhead drew cannon fire from a Federal battery and Hill had the flag furled to conceal their progress. Clearing the trees, Union troops were spotted ahead and the command was given to fire.

Forty men of Company A, 36th Illinois ducked under the smoke of their own guns curling ahead. They scanned the horizon for evidence of the rider they had fired upon moments before. Seeing no one, a few soldiers scampered ahead and found the unhorsed rider with five bullets lodged in his body. Relieving the corpse of his watch and fine rifle, they scurried back to their comrades by the fence. At that moment the roar of more than 600 rifles, emptying their lethal contents, announced the arrival of the 16th Arkansas on the battlefield.

Pinned down and losing men, the Illinois company commander quickly deduced that to remain alone and exposed would be suicide. He organized a mad dash of the survivors back to the main body of his unit. Exultant, the Arkansas troops advanced from the edge of the woods and rushed past the fence the Federals had so recently occupied. Here in the open field they came into range of the entire Union regiment to their front. Additionally, the artillery in their left-front opened up with grape and canister. These were artillery shells filled with hundreds of bullet-sized balls that when fired made a cannon-sized shotgun. Most disconcerting of all was the news that the lifeless body of General McCulloch lay just to their rear. The fight was beginning to look decidedly uneven unless reinforcements were quickly sent forward.

To their rear was Brigadier General James McIntosh. Not known as a quick thinker, McIntosh was digesting the news that he was now in command of the Confederate right wing after the fall of his superior. With the sound of battle growing loud and eight regiments at his disposal, he elected to bring only one with him to the sound of the firing.

With the 2nd Arkansas Mounted Rifles he went forward. McIntosh positioned this regiment too far to the left of the embattled 16th regiment and consequently started what amounted to a separate battle. Unsupported and without assisting the other engaged unit, he saw the toll the withering fire to his front was taking. Rallying his troops, he was shot through the heart and fell instantly.

The scene behind the Confederate lines was grimly repeated as General Albert Pike was informed that he now commanded the right wing of the rebel army. He decided then not to lead any more regiments forward. Although less than 25 percent of his forces were engaged, he decided it would not be prudent to advance.

William McConnell and his regiment, thus unsupported, slowly fell back with the regiment off to their left. Pike determined to quit the field and march toward the wing of General Price now engaged three miles away. The 16th Arkansas had suffered 21 casualties in their short engagement. They were dismayed to learn that the Confederates were leaving the field in Union hands, but became angry as hornets to discover that their pile of blankets and belongings was gone; the guard they had left was nowhere to be found."

From The New York Herald, 17 Mar 1862 issue, item #3914, comes the following:

"We give some further particulars of the battle at Pea Ridge, Arkansas. The rebels, it is said, had thirty-five thousand men in the field, among whom were twenty-two hundred Indians under Albert Pike. The rebels acknowledge a loss of eleven hundred killed and nearly three thousand wounded. Our loss was six hundred killed and from eight hundred to one thousand wounded. We took sixteen hundred prisoners and thirteen pieces of cannon. In reply to a correspondence from the rebel General Van Dorn to General Curtis, asking permission to bury the dead at the battle of Pea Ridge, the latter states that, although he grants the permission required, he regrets to find that many of the Union soldiers who fell in that battle were tomahawked, scalped and otherwise shamefully mangled, contrary to the rules of civilized warfare, and expresses the hope that the present struggle may not degenerate into savage warfare. The Indians of Mr. Pike's command are doubtless responsible of the hideous tomahawking and scalping business."

The following comes from the Navarro College Civil War Collections: Colonel Clark Wright of the Sixth Missouri Cavalry wrote a detailed account of the Battle of Pea Ridge (Arkansas), where the outnumbered Federals repulsed the largest Confederate offensive of the war west of the Mississippi, saving the state of Missouri for the Union. There is an autographed letter signed, four pages, quarto, dated March 12, 1862 from "Sugar Creek" just north of Fayetteville, Arkansas, written to his wife Sarah Jane, who had fled to Ohio with their children:

"... the Enemy turned the rear of our forces & flanked back upon me, cutting off communication entirely... at four miles out I encountered the Enemy and opened afire upon him, with Artilery & Infantry, and after a contest of some 40 minutes he began to give way, I at once ordered a cavelry charge and routed the high point on his right & played our battery on him some 30 minutes, & in the mean time turned his flank with the Cavelry under cover of timber and charged his battery and took it, at that moment, Sigle [General Franz F. Sigel] engaged him in the rear (having cut through from the Main force) when a regular Stampede took place & the Rebels scattered to the four winds, & made our victory complete... we found several of our wounded scalped, the Rebels has some 4000 Indians who will reap sorrow if our troops ere get hold of them... "

Leetown was surrounded by dense thickets and cornfields. Because of Union Gen. Curtis' placement in the bluffs, Van Dorn avoided a frontal attack. Curtis was outnumbered and had prudently dug his troops in at Pea Ridge. During the night, Curtis led his Southern troops towards the rear of Elkhorn Tavern. Part of his army lagged behind due to poor weather and fatigue. Van Dorn ordered McCulloch's men to the west end of Big Mountain, hoping to hasten their arrival at Elkhorn Tavern. An old road running north from Leetown intersected the Elk Horn Tavern where a later a monument was placed, just west of Patton place, one road leading to Twelve Corners, and the other going in a southerly direction. The present state highway 72 does not follow the line of the old road.

Meanwhile, Union cavalry warned Curtis of McCulloch's movement. In a reluctant change of front to north, Curtis abandoned his fortifications and prepared to meet Van Dorn's two-pronged attack. Curtis' Generals had the first and second division on his left commanded by Generals Asboth and Sigel; the third, under General Davis, composing his center, and the fourth, commanded by Colonel Carr, formed his right. His line of battle extended about four miles, and was confronted by the heavy Confederate force with only a broad and deep ravine covered with fallen trees separating the two armies. Van Dorn had hoped to capture the Union's train of two hundred wagons. A failed Confederate assault on the Union left flank at Leetown on March 7, 1862 cost the Confederates two generals, including McCulloch. The other prong of the Confederate attack fared better, threatening the Union right and driving their soldiers back from Elkhorn Tavern for more than a mile. This successful move was halted at nightfall.

It was impossible to sleep, for the night was bitter cold; no one will ever know how much we suffered from cold and hunger; no tongue or pen can paint it. Friday morning, March 7th, came at last, and with it the order, "Fall in!" The Rangers "fell in" to a man, but such a worn-out set of men I never saw. They had not one single mouthful of food to eat. We marched about five miles and countermarched three miles; General Price had opened the battle on the Telegraph road, near Elk Horn Tavern, at 10 A.M..... Chilling statements written by Sergeant W. KINNEY, in his account of the Battle of Elk Horn Tavern.

The next morning Curtis counterattacked with an artillery bombardment, followed by an advance of his massed army toward Elkhorn Tavern. In the words of Pea Ridge veteran Private I.V. Smith, 1st Missouri Confederate Brigade:

�It was a very cold night, and it was pitiful to hear the wounded calling all through that night in the woods and alone for some water or something to keep them warm. I hope I never will hear such pleadings and witness such suffering again ...�

"The scene is silent and sad," wrote Curtis, "the vulture and the wolf now have the dominion and the dead friends and foes sleep in the same lonely graves."

CSA Gen. Price was headed for more failure.

"The fault is," wrote a Confederate chronicler, "that General Price had retreated from Missouri, not so much under the stress of the enemy's arm as from inherent faults in his own enterprise. He had declared that his invasion was not a raid-that he came to possess Missouri; but the breadth of the excursion, its indefiniteness and the failure to concentrate on important points ruined him. While his command roamed through Arkansas after the Pea Ridge battle, his men, brought to the vicinity of their old homes, which many had not seen for quite some time, were exposed to the temptation to desert, which much weakened Gen. Price's army".