March 6, 1862

March 6, 1862: Bentonville, Arkansas. Gen. Earl Van Dorn puts his army on the road from Fayetteville on March 4, in a swirling snowstorm, heading north to attack what he thought was the divided force of Gen. Samuel Curtis of the Union army. After two days, the Confederates approach Bentonville, hoping to catch part of Curtis’s army there, not knowing that Curtis and his Army of the Southwest had fallen back to Little Sugar Creek, to high ground that would make a good defensive position. Franz Sigel, the immigrant hero general from Germany who commands part of Curtis’s force, sends most of his troops eastward towards Curtis, to join up as the right flank of the army and thus unite the Federal forces. But Sigel remains in Bentonville, or near it, with a small rear-guard to see what the Confederates will do. Van Dorn sends Brig. Gen. James McIntosh with his brigade on a wide march to the west in order come around behind Bentonville and trap the Union rear guard there, but Sigel, being warned by a Unionist man from Fayetteville, escapes just before the Rebels envelope the town. Along the way, there is skirmishing between the Yankees and McIntosh’s infantry and some cavalry. At one point, Sigel puts his troops into line, with artillery, and lures the Rebel cavalry into it: the artillery sprays canister into the Southern horsemen with deadly effect. Sigel completes his retreat to join Curtis’s lines. Van Dorn’s plan is frustrated, so he puts his troops on a different route, on the Bentonville Detour Road–one that will bring them north and behind Pea Ridge overlooking the Union position, knowing that Curtis will expect the Rebels to advance out of Bentonville along Telegraph Road. The rebels march all night.

—Pres. Lincoln sends a message to Congress recommending a plan of compensated emancipation done by the individual states.

—Confederate artilleryman Private George Michael Neese, serving with Stonewall Jackson’s army in the Shenandoah Valley, writes in his journal: "A private in the rear rank has very little opportunity of knowing or learning anything concerning the movements or strength of an approaching enemy, but I have a sort of unexplainable intuition that the Yanks are advancing on Winchester with a heavy force, and that within the next few days we will see either a fight or a fall-back."