Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to episode 221 of our Civil War.

I'm Tracey, hello y'all, welcome to the podcast.

Earl Van Dorn cut a dashing figure no doubt about it.

Handsome, always well dressed and an expert in the saddle, Van Dorn was also a womanizer

who would be shot down in 1863 by a betrayed husband.

He took to combat like a decked water, but promoted to high command in the War's Western

Theatre, Van Dorn unfortunately for the Confederacy failed to prove himself a good field

commander.

At the October 5th, 1862, Battle of Davis's Bridge, in the aftermath of the Confederate

defeat at Corinth, much of Van Dorn's force escaped capture or destruction thanks primarily

to Federal Blunders rather than any strategic brilliance on Van Dorn's part.

42 years old in the fall of 1862, Earl Van Dorn was a West Point graduate who saw extensive

service during the Mexican War and then duty on the Texas Frontier against hostile Indians.

Van Dorn resigned from the U.S. Army when his home state of Mississippi seceded.

A point to command the newly created Trans Mississippi District in January 1862 by fellow

Mississippi and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Van Dorn saw the Civil War as an opportunity

for glory.

He wrote in a letter, quote, who knows that out of the storm of revolution, I may not

be able to catch a spark of lightning and shine through all time to come.

He caught more than a spark of lightning when he rashed into an offensive in northwest Arkansas

that ended when an outnumbered Federal force smashed Van Dorn's army of the West at the

Battle of P Ridge in early March 1862.

...