upon the result of one engagement. This I deemed it
unwise to do. I commenced retreating at once. I reached
Cassville with loss unworthy of mention in any respect. Here
the enemy in my rear commenced a series of attacks running
through four days. Retreating and fighting all the way to
Cross Hollows, in this State, I am rejoiced to say my
command, under the most exhausting fatigue all that time,
with but little rest for either man or beast and no sleep,
sustained themselves and came through, repulsing the enemy
upon every occasion with great determination and gallantry.
My loss does not exceed four to six killed and some 15 to 18
wounded. That of the enemy we know to be ten times as great.

Gen. Price's estimate of the losses he inflicted is widely divergent
from that of Gen. Curtis, who does not admit any losses in killed in
the noisy engagements while pushing Price back through the rough gorges,
until he arrived at the Sugar Creek Crossing, six miles into Arkansas,
where he lost 13 killed and 15 or 20 wounded in a very spirited little
fight with the combined troops of Price and McCulloch, and camped that
night upon the battlefield from which the enemy had retreated. Here Col.
Cyrus Bussey joined him with five companies of the 3d Iowa Cav., having
made a forward march from Rolla, Mo., in four days.

308

Curtis was so encouraged by his success that he kept on pushing Price
back upon McCulloch, even upon the boasted "Gibraltar" at Cross Hollows,
and then, to the astonishment and delight of himself and the whole army,
forced the evacuation of this stronghold by a flank movement The rebels'
abandonment of it was so complete that they burned all their stores and
the great array of cabins built for quarters, leaving only the chimneys
to mark the long rows.

Thus any expectation of a sanguinary battle fell in disappointment.
So much had been said about Cross Hollows that the Union troops were
certain that they would have to fight a desperate battle at or near it.
It was known that at least 4,000 regularly-organized troops had been
quartered there for months, subjected to thorough drill and discipline.
Gen. McCulloch had boasted that he had prepared a trap in which to catch
and ruin the Federal General if he ventured that far south. McCulloch's
only fear was of being unable to draw the Federal General into the trap.

The Confederates left their sick and wounded behi