This highly partisan letter was printed in "The Daily Dispatch," Richmond, Virginia, on August 20, 1861. This guy would have been a great Razorback fan.

Note: The writer incorrectly identified DeRosey Carroll's mounted men as an infantry regiment.

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Richmond, August 17, 1861.

To the Editors of the Richmond Dispatch: The dispatches of the enemy leave no doubt but that our forces have achieved, after one of the hardest-fought battles of this war, a signal and brilliant victory, near Springfield, Missouri. The same dispatches show that the enemy has also fallen into the prevailing fashion of ignoring the young State of Arkansas. Although represented here by Fagan’s regiment, which led the march of Holmes’s brigade to reinforce the left, through a heavy fire for a mile and a half, and running in front of the foe, when they were ordered not to fire, answering each discharge of Walker’s artillery, which they supported with cheers, which the enemy compared to the war-whoop of savages, the State, by your papers here, has even been denied her share in the glory of Manassas.

The Northern reports of the battle of Springfield mention Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Texas, and Cherokee half-breeds, but, as all our friends here, even the ladies at the Exchange remark, make no mention of Arkansas. Now, your correspondent well knows, and states on his personal responsibility, that McCulloch’s command contained previous to the 21st of July, with the exception of one regiment from Louisiana, (the noble 3d,) Arkansas troops alone, and that he had with him just previous to the march towards Springfield one regiment of well-armed cavalry, under Col. Churchill, in which your correspondent has relatives; one regiment of infantry, well armed and of the best material in the South, under Col. Gratiot; one regiment of infantry, under Col. De Rosey Carroll, besides a regiment of infantry and a regiment and several independent companies of cavalry from the Northwestern part of the State, the names of all of whose commanders your correspondent will not venture to give correctly.

It is impossible that McCulloch, notwithstanding the enemy’s reports, could have had under his command over six thousand men, unless he had been reinforced by a regiment of cavalry which he expected from Texas. What Price’s addition was I cannot learn.

Arkansas, with a voting population of only sixty thousand, has now, besides independent companies, twenty-seven regiments in the field, eleven thousand of which force only are properly armed. Pocahontas, Arkansas, near the terminus of the St. Louis and Iron Mountain R. R., in the line of defence of Hardee’s column, having been deemed a point of danger from invasion by the Hessians of St. Louis, a large proportion of the Arkansas forces had marched thither, and by the enemy’s account did not arrive at Springfield in time to share the dangers and horrors of the battle. It is stated in the words of the report received here through the North that, “The Confederates, in overwhelming force, charged Totten’s battery three times but were each time repulsed with great slaughter.” If repulsed at all, I well know they were repulsed with great slaughter. The bones of Totten’s father lie buried at Little Rock, his relatives live there, and he has received great kindness at the hands of the citizens of Arkansas. He was in charge of the Little Rock Arsenal when eight hundred citizens marched to seize it for the State, and it was surrendered upon the demand of Governor Rector. Six of the pieces, (Braggs’ battery then taken with the arsenal,) were against him at Springfield, in charge of a company who first styled themselves the “Totten Artillery,” in his honor, concurring that the Secessionists had done wrong in dislodging him; but after the confirmation of his treason to the State of his adoption, (he was born at the North.) changed their name, and marched into Missouri, anxious to prove to him that corruption, though coupled with professional skill, would be no match against Southern devotion to the cause of homes and firesides, maintained with pure motives and stout hearts. Capt. Woodruff, of Little Rock, Arkansas, commanded this battery, and with his men, the pick of the city, was resolved to die by his guns rather than surrender them to Totten. Most gloriously have they triumphed in driving back the miscreant to his Black Republican kennel in St. Louis, loathesome with runaway negroes, Dutch and sour kraut. J. M. H.