Despite being a Union victory, however, this action may have drawn enough Federal troops from their posts to allow several hundred other, newly-recruited Confederate troops safe passage through Union lines. Poindexter continued his work, and later states that he rejoined Price, and his 5th Regiment, in the Boston Mountains, again near the Missouri-Arksansas border. Colonel J. A. Poindexter next appears in March 1862 at the battle of Pea Ridge, or Elkhorn Tavern, Arkansas. Here he led the consolidated 4th and 5th Regiments of the Third Division Missouri State Guard, Colonel John B. Clark, Jr. commanding. Brigadier General Sterling Price then had leadership of the overall contingent of Missouri State Guardsmen, with Major General Earl Van Dorn as commander of the army.
Official reports say little of the abysmal circumstances of that fight.
Scarce a word is found of the exhausted Southern army being driven at a breakneck pace through blizzard conditions and icy roads, finally reaching the fight already depleted by one-quarter of their strength. Yet it was those neglected details which would shape the battle's outcome. According to those reports, John Poindexter's part of the battle went as follows. With the light complement of just 500 men, the Third Division began a sweep at Bentonville, Arkansas on March 3 of 1862, where Union troops were found in retreat. They followed with no contact until reaching a place near Elkhorn Tavern, on March 6.