Hindman then sent a force under Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke to Cane Hill, which was also known as Boonsboro, to collect supplies.

Cloud's men led the Union advance and made contact with Colonel Joseph O. Shelby's Confederate troopers on the morning of November 28.

Shelby conducted a rear-guard action by having a series of small forces confront the Union before falling back and allowing the next line to engage.

While the outcome of the fighting was inconclusive, Hindman withdrew from the field and the Union retained control of Missouri and northwestern Arkansas.

[4] After the defeat, Van Dorn abandoned Arkansas and took most of the Confederate soldiers and military supplies in the state with him across the Mississippi River into Tennessee.

As a result, he was removed from district command by the Confederate government and replaced by Major General Theophilus Holmes.

In early November, the other two divisions of the Army of the Frontier fell back to the vicinity of Springfield, Missouri, while Hindman's Confederates occupied Van Buren, Arkansas.

[16] Blunt learned of this movement, and on November 7, sent Colonel William F. Cloud with 500 men and an artillery battery to attack the Confederates.

[21] Wanting to stop the Confederates' supply-gathering in the Cane Hill area and believing himself abandoned by Schofield, Blunt decided to go on the offensive.

Blunt believed that an attack brought the best odds of success,[22] and he was still smarting from an earlier incident in which he assumed a defensive position in the face of a Confederate assault that had never occurred.

Logistics was difficult in the Ozark Mountains and played a major role in the operation and timing of campaigns in the region.

Both historian William L. Shea and a journal article written by Kim Allen Scott and Stephen Burgess side with the Confederate claim to have opened the artillery duel.

[41] Cloud attacked with 1,500 men, and the fighting soon passed through town, although the Cane Hill College was damaged by artillery fire.

[43] Positioned beyond Cane Hill at a location known as Kidd's Mill was Colonel Charles A. Carroll's Confederate brigade.

Shea and historian Henry F. Hartsell state that Marmaduke's decision to withdraw was at least partially informed by the fact that his artillery was much less effective than that of the Union.

[50] During the Confederate retreat towards Reed's Mountain was reached,[52] Shelby responded with defensive tactics that Scott and Burgess refer to as "brilliant".

Shea attributes the decision to defend the mountain to a fear that continuing the retreat at the current pace would allow the Union troops to catch up to the wagons.

[50] However, Scott and Burgess state that the wagons would already have been safe by that point, and that Marmaduke was instead trying to create an opportunity for Hindman to advance with the main Confederate force and attack Blunt.

Blunt decided to attack the Reed's Mountain position, and the men he had with him, who were joined by the 11th Kansas Infantry not long after, advanced against the Confederate line.

Blunt brought up artillery, including four mountain howitzers that fired on the Confederate lines at very short range.

Carroll ordered his men to form a line and then fire a single volley at the advancing Union troops before withdrawing.

[57] At around 5:00 pm, the pursuit reached a house owned by John Morrow where the Confederate retreat turned to the south.

[59] In a hollow that was wider than the portion of the valley to the north, Carroll aligned men from Shelby's command and Monroe's Arkansas Cavalry Regiment.

[57] Blunt had aggressively pushed ahead with only a small force from the 6th Kansas Cavalry, hoping to capture the Confederate cannons.

Cloud had arrived on the scene with parts or all of three artillery batteries, as well as portions of the 3rd Indian Home Guard and the 11th Kansas Infantry.

[69] Historian Stephen B. Oates has Blunt's loss at eight men killed and thirty-two wounded and similar Confederate casualties.

[63][64] Scott and Burgess suggest that the reasons for this include weapons that were ineffective except at close range, terrain difficulties, poor aim, the tactics the Confederates used, and the fact that only portions of each army were engaged at any one time.

Marmaduke withdrew his men to Lee Creek, and then fell back to Dripping Springs,[73] which was north of Van Buren.

The divisions near Springfield were commanded by Brigadier General Francis J. Herron, who after receipt of the message from Blunt, moved his men 110 miles (180 km) south on foot in three and a half days.

[77] The Arkansas Civil War Centennial Commission erected a highway marker near the battle site to interpret the fighting.