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Hey everyone, welcome to episode number 222 of our Civil War podcast. I'm Rich.

And I'm Tracy. Hello y'all. Thanks for tuning into the podcast. As we promised at the

end of the last episode, now that we've finished with the Battle of Corinth, with this show

we're heading west from Northern Mississippi back across the Mississippi River to my home state

of Arkansas. Yep, it's been a while since we were there on the podcast, but we are going to

turn our attention back to the war in the Transmississippi because next up on the podcast timeline

is the Battle of Prairie Grove, which took place just a stone's throw from Tracy's hometown

of Fayetteville. Oh, and remember Transmississippi is just the term used to refer to the region west

of the Mississippi River, including Kansas, the Indian Territory, Missouri, part of Louisiana, Texas,

and of course Arkansas. And although it's been a while since we've been there on the podcast,

I was back home to Arkansas last month. And while I was there, my dad and I visited the Prairie

Grove Battlefield State Park. Some of you may remember seeing a photo of me at the battlefield that we posted

on Facebook and Twitter last month. So we've been looking forward to covering the battle and Tracy's dad

has been pretty interested in when we're going to get to it. Not only is it not far from Tracy's

hometown, but Prairie Grove was an important turning point in the war in the Transmississippi since when

the two armies collided at Prairie Grove on December 7th 1862. It effectively ended major

Confederate offensive operations west of the Mississippi River for the rest of the Civil War.

And the personalities of the commanders at Prairie Grove are kind of fascinating. One

army was led by Thomas Hindman, a zealous secessionist who had single-handedly revived the Confederate

war effort in the Transmississippi. The other army was headed by James Blunt, a brash Kansas

abolitionist who liked nothing better than personally leading his troops into battle, pistol in hand.

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