General Samuel R. Curtis arrived at Rolla on December 27th, to take command of a force concentrating there and called the Army of the Southwest. One division, under the command of Colonel Jefferson C. Davis, detached from General Pope's district, added to three other divisions commanded respectively by General Sigel, General Ashboth, and Colonel E.A. Carr, made together 12,095 men and fifty pieces of artillery, including four mountain howitzers. Marching out from Rolla on January 23, 1862, with three divisions, he halted a week at Lebanon, where he was joined by Colonel Davis, completing organization and preparation. After some skirmishing with Price's outposts, Curtis entered Springfield at daylight, February 15th, to find that Price had abandoned it in the night. Curtis followed with forced marches, his advance skirmishing every day with Price's rear-guard. In Arkansas, Price was joined by McCulloch and they retired to Boston Mountains. Curtis advanced as far as Fayetteville and then fell back to await attack on ground of his own choice. The position selected was where the main road, running north from Fayetteville into Missouri, crosses Sugar Creek, and goes over a ridge or rough plateau called Pea Ridge, and was near the Missouri line. For easier subsistence the divisions were camped separately and some miles apart. Davis' division was at Sugar Creek, preparing the position for defence. Sigel, with his own and Ashboth's divisions, was at Cooper's farm, about fourteen miles west; and Carr's division, with which General Curtis had his headquarters, was twelve miles south on the main Fayetteville road, at a place called Cross Hollows. Strong detachments were sent in various directions, forty miles out, to gather in forage and subsistence. The strength of the command was somewhat diminished by the necessity of protecting the long line of communication with the base of supplies by patrols as well as stationary guards, and the aggregate present in Arkansas was 10,500 infantry and cavalry, and forty-nine pieces of artillery. To settle the continued dissension between Price and McCulloch, General A.S. Johnston, the Confederate commander in the West, appointed General Earl Van Dorn to command west of the Mississippi. Van Dorn assumed command January 29, 1862, in northeastern Arkansas, and hastened on February 22d to join McCulloch at Fayetteville, to which place Price was then retreating before Curtis. Van Dorn says that he led 14,000 men into action. All other accounts put his force at from thirty to forty thousand. Perhaps he enumerated only the seasoned regiments, and took no account of unorganized bands, or of the several thousand Indians under Albert Pike.