Troop Numbers at Prairie Grove
Being a relatively small battle compared to the more commonly discussed battles of the Civil War, Prairie Grove didn’t see the deployment of massive amounts of Union or Confederate soldiers. According to General Blunt, the Union army had fielded no more than 8,000 troops for the battle, a figure significantly lower than the figure estimated by Confederate General Hindman. Hindman recorded in his report on the battle that he had determined the force of the Union to be anywhere from 16,000 to 20,000 strong. There was an analogous discrepancy between the measurement of the Confederate force as well, with Hindman writing that his troop count was no more than 10,000, while Union General Curtis estimated the Confederate force to be composed of as many as 25,000 soldiers.1 As is further expanded on in later sections, this led the generals of both the Union and Confederacy to plan for the Battle of Prairie Grove as if they were at a significant manpower disadvantage, rather than from the reality that the Union was slightly outnumbered.
It should be noted, however, that after the minor skirmishes and tactical movements that led up to the battle proper, approximately 3,500 Confederate troops were entirely unable to participate.2 Naturally, this left the Confederacy at a numbers disadvantage to the Union in the battle proper, as opposed to what raw troop count would suggest, though not insurmountably so.
1United States War Department, Robert N Scott, H. M Lazelle, George B Davis, Leslie J Perry, Joseph W Kirkley, Fred C Ainsworth, et al. The War of the Rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies. Washington, Govt. Print. Off., to 1901, 1880.
2Shea, William L. (2000). "Prairie Grove, Battle of". In Heidler, David S.; Heidler, Jeanne T. (eds.). Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 1558–1559. ISBN 978-0-393-04758-5.