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Kathleen Mahon
Christine Edwards-Groves
Susanne Francisco
Mervi Kaukko
Stephen Kemmis
Kirsten Petrie Editors

Pedagogy,
Education,
and Praxis in
Critical Times
Pedagogy, Education, and Praxis in Critical Times
Kathleen Mahon · Christine Edwards-Groves ·
Susanne Francisco · Mervi Kaukko ·
Stephen Kemmis · Kirsten Petrie
Editors

Pedagogy, Education,
and Praxis in Critical Times
Editors
Kathleen Mahon Christine Edwards-Groves
Department of Educational Research School of Education
and Development Charles Sturt University
University of Borås Wagga Wagga, NSW
Borås, Sweden Australia

Susanne Francisco Mervi Kaukko

School of Education Faculty of Education and Culture
Charles Sturt University Tampere University
Wagga Wagga, NSW Tampere, Finland
Australia
Kirsten Petrie
Stephen Kemmis Te Huataki Waiora School of Health
School of Education University of Waikato, Hamilton
Charles Sturt University New Zealand
Wagga Wagga, NSW
Australia

ISBN 978-981-15-6925-8 ISBN 978-981-15-6926-5 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6926-5

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
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broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
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The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721,
Singapore
Preface

Questions about pedagogy, education, and praxis have long been faced by indi-
viduals and societies in global, national, and local contexts. This book, Pedagogy,
Education, and Praxis in Critical Times, explores critical questions about educa-
tion that have concerned researchers in the Pedagogy, Education and Praxis (PEP)
international research network for over 15 years. Such questions have provided PEP
researchers with scope, and direction, to study the conditions and possibilities of
and for education, including those associated with understanding and developing the
double purpose of education—helping people to live well in a world worth living in.
Taking this up as a core principle, this book provides a qualitative meta-analysis of
an international body of work that aimed to advance theoretical, methodological, and
practical issues and challenges concerning pedagogy, education, and praxis. Chapters
capitalise on the “practice turn” (Schatzki 2001) to theorise different dimensions of
educational research and practice—researching, leading, teaching, student learning,
and professional learning—extending its relevance across multiple fields, global
interests, disciplines, and paradigms with renewed importance in the light of current
global uncertainty, disruption, and precariousness.
In the first half of 2020, when this book was in the final stages of publication,
humankind was grappling with a global crisis, unlike anything many of us have ever
lived though. COVID-19 was something we all experienced in unique ways, both as
individuals and as members of communities whose lives were “dictated”, “disrupted”,
or “diverted” by varied, redesigned, and contextually specific historical, cultural,
economic, social, and political arrangements. Times have always been uncertain, and
education always critical, yet as the world is confronted with many uncertainties, as
for example in facing the COVID-19 pandemic, hopeful insights and new practices
have emerged as people have found ways to respond positively, respectfully, and
ethically.
In responding to the rapidly changing circumstances that such critical times bring,
researchers and educators across the globe are fearful of a return to the global capi-
talism that characterised the pre-COVID-19 world. But, in many respects, hope
prevails. In the light of the urgency that a crisis like this pandemic has thrust upon
humankind, perhaps what has emerged is a new global power to act, to build new
alliances and forms of solidarity, new expressions of agency, and a stronger sense
v
vi Preface

of social activism by which we can pull together to respond to a world impacted

by political unrest, the rise of nationalism, the globalised treatment of educational
data (e.g. literacy and numeracy testing), the eco-crisis and the climate emergency,
threats to personal security and health, rampant social injustice, and the displacement
of many groups on grounds of race, culture, gender, (dis)ability, sexual preferences,
or socio-economic status. In this light, perhaps the emergence of individual and
collective confidence to act will forge new frontiers in educational research paving
a stronger united activist way forward to address the other great crisis that throws
its shadow over our times: the climate emergency that threatens the extinction of
thousands of species in the community of life on Earth, including our own.
Education and educators were not immune to the impacts of the pandemic, and
there has subsequently been much discussion about what education is and should be
in the light of what has been (and still is) an unprecedented global event. The practices
of educators, like those of healthcare professionals for instance, have been subjected
to closer-than-regular scrutiny and exposure; COVID realities have seen educators
grappling with decisions related to “good” practice. And as veils were removed,
the practices of educators perhaps have become more appreciated as parents take
on homeschooling for example, and what counts as “essential work” is rethought.
Teachers have also been among the essential workers who went to school to teach the
children of other essential workers, in the face of controversy over the health risks
to themselves and their students, and sometimes putting their own health at risk. It
is therefore a critical time for education, but, as this book demonstrates, education
and the practices of educators are critical regardless of specific events. It is also a
timely reminder that while COVID-19 may have generated a sense of uncertainty for
those involved in education, many members of our communities—the homeless and
unemployed, many indigenous peoples, and refugees, for example—live uncertain
lives every day, and they are among the groups that have been more vulnerable to
the virus than others. In this crisis, they will be joined by more people whose lives
and livelihoods have been fractured by the economic crisis as well as the health
crisis; in many ways, the fabric of society, fraying from its core, weighs heavy on
the minds of educators. Under such conditions, our responsibilities as educators
are intensified, making more pressing, and more relevant, the explicit focus of this
book on praxis-oriented education. While we educators have been challenged to
consider what education will look like post-pandemic, and regardless of how the
world innovates in its response, it is beholden on us as professionals to recognise the
broad mandate we have as educators, and ensure that as professionals we take a lead
in our communities to help people to live well in a world worth living in.
While Pedagogy, Education, and Praxis in Critical Times does not specifically
address issues raised as a result of COVID-19, it does provide a timely oppor-
tunity to cast a critical gaze on educational research in unstable times. As PEP
researchers continue to address complex societal concerns, particularly in the after-
math of the COVID-19 crisis, the core of their work will return to understanding
the broad complex of education practices—researching, leading, teaching, student
learning, and professional learning—and what this means for individuals and soci-
eties. These domains of education, as it is argued, cannot be understood without
Preface vii

considering particular methodological imperatives and perplexities for educational

research particularly in times of uncertainty. Moreover, taking up new methodolog-
ical and practical challenges associated with researching pedagogy, education, and
praxis under rapidly changing global conditions, researchers across the globe must
wrestle, with agility and flexibility, with the complex ethical, theoretical, and prac-
tical concerns confronting individuals and societies. And they must do so, in the light
of practising new practices themselves. This tack is necessary since the conditions for
education are dynamic—new practices are moving far and fast, quickly springing up
and fading away, spanning hybrid online and offline sites, and reaching participants
experiencing considerable practical life difficulties.
The work presented here provides critical insights into theoretical and method-
ological approaches through which educators (teachers, leaders, professional devel-
opers, researchers) can make sense of the conditions that shape their decision-making
and practices, and the impact these can have on learners and communities. Critically,
it raises new challenges and new questions for education and reveals possibilities for
exploring new practices that have emerged from such times of uncertainty. Thus, the
challenge of researching educational practice in an uncertain world means asking new
questions and tackling new challenges by considering: What are the new imperatives
for education? What is the mandate for pedagogy, education, and praxis in precar-
ious times? How might practice-based research be conceived and constituted as an
activist project? How should ethical and political considerations be understood and
addressed? What methodological approaches are possible and needed, and which
kinds of research collaborations are necessary and appropriate? Which enduring
principles of pedagogy, education, and praxis should hold fast? In committing to
interrogating such questions, we envisage new directions and impetus in educational
research, directions that alert us to re-examine the double purpose of education—to
help people to live well in worlds worth living in.

Wagga Wagga, Australia Christine Edwards-Groves

Hamilton, New Zealand Kirsten Petrie
Wagga Wagga, Australia Stephen Kemmis
Borås, Sweden Kathleen Mahon
Tampere, Finland Mervi Kaukko
Wagga Wagga, Australia Susanne Francisco

Reference
Schatzki, T. (2001). Introduction: Practice theory. In T. Schatzki, K. Knorr Cetina, & E. von Savigny
(Eds.), The practice turn in contemporary theory (pp. 1–14). London: Routledge.
Acknowledgements

As editors, we warmly acknowledge the work and dedication of all who, partici-
pating in the Pedagogy, Education and Praxis (PEP) international network over the
years, have contributed to the findings reported in this book. You have made many
contributions, large and small, to the formation and transformation of the theoretical
ideas, the practical work, and the strategic aims of PEP. Finally, we pay tribute to
everyone, within and beyond PEP, who has honoured the ideas presented in these
chapters by reading and critiquing drafts as they were being prepared.

With our thanks and appreciation

Paljon kiitoksia [in Finnish]
Tack so mycket [in Swedish]
Tusen takk [in Norwegian]
Bedankt en waardering [in Dutch]
Gracias y aprecio [in Spanish]
Ngā mihi maioha [in Māori]

Kathleen Mahon
Christine Edwards-Groves
Susanne Francisco
Mervi Kaukko
Stephen Kemmis
Kirsten Petrie

ix
Contents

1 Education for a World Worth Living In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Mervi Kaukko, Susanne Francisco, and Kathleen Mahon
2 What is Educational Praxis? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Kathleen Mahon, Hannu L. T. Heikkinen, Rauno Huttunen,
Tess Boyle, and Ela Sjølie
3 Research that Facilitates Praxis and Praxis Development . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Mervi Kaukko, Jane Wilkinson, and Lill Langelotz
4 Critiquing and Cultivating the Conditions for Educational
Praxis and Praxis Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Ian Hardy, Kirsten Petrie, Anita Norlund, Ingrid Henning Loeb,
and Kiprono Langat
5 Teaching as Pedagogical Praxis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Stephen Kemmis, Christine Edwards-Groves, Rachel Jakhelln,
Sarojni Choy, Gun-Britt Wärvik, Lisbeth Gyllander Torkildsen,
and Charlotte Arkenback-Sundström
6 Leading as Shared Transformative Educational Practice . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Christine Edwards-Groves, Jane Wilkinson, and Kathleen Mahon
7 Collaborative Professional Learning for Changing Educational
Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Anette Olin, Susanne Francisco, Petri Salo, Michaela Pörn,
and Gunilla Karlberg-Granlund
8 Critical Praxis for Critical Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Kirsten Petrie, Stephen Kemmis, and Christine Edwards-Groves

Name Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

xi
Contributors

Charlotte Arkenback-Sundström University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg,

Sweden
Tess Boyle Southern Cross University, Gold Coast, Australia
Sarojni Choy Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia
Christine Edwards-Groves Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia
Susanne Francisco Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia
Lisbeth Gyllander Torkildsen Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden
Ian Hardy University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia
Hannu L. T. Heikkinen University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
Ingrid Henning Loeb University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
Rauno Huttunen University of Turku, Turku, Finland
Rachel Jakhelln Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
Gunilla Karlberg-Granlund Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa, Finland
Mervi Kaukko Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
Stephen Kemmis Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia
Kiprono Langat Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia
Lill Langelotz University of Borås, Borås, Sweden
Kathleen Mahon University of Borås, Borås, Sweden
Anita Norlund University of Borås, Borås, Sweden
Anette Olin University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
Kirsten Petrie The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
Michaela Pörn Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa, Finland
xiii
xiv Contributors

Petri Salo Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa, Finland

Ela Sjølie Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
Gun-Britt Wärvik University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
Jane Wilkinson Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Ecologies of Practices. (Adapted from Kemmis et al.,

2014b, p. 52 with permission from Springer Nature) . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Fig. 5.1 The theory of practice architectures. (Adapted from Kemmis
et al., 2014, p. 38 with permission from Springer Nature) . . . . . . . 93
Fig. 5.2 Web of conditions forming the practice architectures
of “online pedagogy”. (Adapted by Charlotte
Arkenback-Sundström, and reproduced, with permission,
from Mahon, 2014, p. 306) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Fig. 5.3 Zooming in on part of the web of practice architectures
of “online pedagogy”. (Adapted by Charlotte
Arkenback-Sundström, and reproduced, with permission,
from Mahon, 2014, p. 306) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Fig. 5.4 Teaching and learning as ecologically connected
in a pedagogical practice. (Adapted from Kemmis et al.,
2014, p. 165 with permission from Springer Nature) . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Fig. 5.5 A theory of education incorporating the theory of practice
architectures. (Adapted from Kemmis, 2013, p. 41
with permission from Stephen Kemmis and the Finnish
Education Research Association) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Fig. 7.1 Professional learning for praxis development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Fig. 8.1 Theory of education incorporating the theory of practice
architectures. (Adapted from Kemmis, 2013, p. 41
with permission from Stephen Kemmis and the Finnish
Education Research Association) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

xv
List of Tables

Table 2.1 A characterisation of educational praxis. This summary is

an attempt to distil the key ideas evident in the PEP work
(2008–2018) addressing the question, what is educational
praxis? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Table 5.1 Different kinds of interactional trouble that occur
in classrooms, prompting repair (after Edwards-Groves &
Davidson, 2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

xvii
Chapter 1
Education for a World Worth Living In

Mervi Kaukko, Susanne Francisco, and Kathleen Mahon

Abstract In a rapidly changing world, education is vital for humankind and for the
world itself. Education is a contested space. This chapter takes a view of education
as being for the good for each person and for the good for humankind. The five broad
questions that the book explores are outlined in this chapter, as are key concepts
addressed throughout the book, including pedagogy, education, bildung, practice,
and praxis. We also briefly introduce the theory of practice architectures. The chapter
concludes by providing an introduction to the chapters in the rest of the book.

Introduction

Education is a major concern for communities around the globe, not least because of
its role in the formation and transformation of societies and the human beings who
comprise them. There are important and urgent questions that researchers, educators,
and policy makers need to consider and address in order to ensure that education today
and for the future meets the needs and challenges of our times. This book asks and
attempts to respond to such questions in order to better our understanding of, and
capacity to, transform education.
Education, as Kemmis, Wilkinson, Edwards-Groves, Hardy, Grootenboer, and
Bristol (2014) have defined it, refers to the “process by which children, young people,
and adults are initiated into forms of understanding, modes of action, and ways
of relating to one another and the world that foster (respectively) individual and
collective self-expression, individual and collective self-development, and individual
and collective self-determination and that are, in these senses, oriented towards the

M. Kaukko (B)
Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
e-mail: [email protected]
S. Francisco
Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, Australia
K. Mahon
University of Borås, Borås, Sweden

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 1

K. Mahon et al. (eds.), Pedagogy, Education, and Praxis in Critical Times,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6926-5_1
2 M. Kaukko et al.

good for each person and the good for humankind” (p. 26). This calls for scrutinising
what it means to educate and study education, recognising the role of education in
today’s changing world and striving to discern what the “good” consists in.
Yet in an “era of schooling” (Kemmis, 2018), it is not always clear how teaching,
learning, researching education, and leading (in) educational institutions lead to
“good” outcomes. Indeed, what constitutes the “good” is being increasingly defined
by ideologies of neoliberalism and managerialism. It is not clear whether and how
the current trend of the systematisation of educational practices will benefit the
individual or humankind in the short or long term, or if it will result in irrational,
unreasonable, unsustainable, unjust, and undemocratic schooling practices. What is
clear is that “the good” is not a fixed construct, nor is it universally agreed upon.
Indeed, what is widely agreed upon is likely to change with time. For example, much
in our societies is built on illusions of unlimited resources and constant growth, but
we now understand that both are false hopes. Education needs to change for changed
times and conditions, as the recent coronavirus pandemic has made abundantly clear.
Considering what constitutes education for the “good”, and indeed “good” educa-
tional practices, in a time of constant change has been explored over the last decade
by the Pedagogy, Education, and Praxis (PEP) international research network.
This network, established in 2006, has brought together educational researchers
from Australia, the Caribbean, Colombia, Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand,
Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The participating researchers share a
deep concern about issues such as the bureaucratisation and deprofessionalisation of
education, and the erosion of moral, social, and political commitments that inform
educational practice and practice development (Edwards-Groves & Kemmis, 2016).
They also share a conviction that such commitments need to be revived (Edwards-
Groves & Kemmis, 2016). The PEP network has provided a collaborative cross-
institutional and cross-national platform for exploring these issues and other aspects
of education practice and practice development through a research program aimed
at investigating the nature, conditions, and traditions of pedagogy, education, and
praxis, and how they are understood in different settings.
Since its formation, the PEP network has been guided by three kinds of aims for
its research:
1. Theoretical aims concerning the exploration and critical development of key
concepts and associated understandings, from different educational and research
traditions, of pedagogy, educational science and educational studies, and social
and educational praxis and practice;
2. Practical aims concerning the quality and transformation of praxis in educational
settings, including schools, teacher education, and the continuing professional
development of teachers in relation to contemporary educational problems and
issues as they emerge in a variety of educational contexts; and
3. Strategic aims of
(a) encouraging dialogue between different traditions of theory, research, and
practice in education;
1 Education for a World Worth Living In 3

(b) enhancing awareness about the origins and formation of our own
(and others’) presuppositions and understandings as participants in such
dialogues; and
(c) fostering collaboration and the development of networks between scholars
interested in these problems and issues across traditions.
These aims have been addressed through a focus on the following five broad
questions:
1. What is educational praxis?
2. How, in different national contexts, is good professional practice (“praxis”)
being understood and experienced by teachers?
3. How, in different national contexts, is good professional development (praxis
development) being understood and experienced by teachers?
4. How, in different national contexts, are the changing cultural, social, polit-
ical, and material conditions for praxis and praxis development affecting the
educational practices of teachers?
5. What research approaches facilitate praxis and praxis development in different
international contexts?
The aim of this book is to provide a response to each of these questions based
on an integrative review (Torraco, 2005) of publications produced by the network
between 2008 and 2018. In doing this, we hope to help extend and deepen current
understandings about the most crucial challenges for education in these neoliberal
times and thus inform and stimulate forward looking discussions among and between
educators, researchers, policy makers, and educational communities about education
today, at local, national, and global levels.

A Conversation of Traditions

What has transpired within the PEP network, through endeavours to address the ques-
tions listed above, is what we might call a conversation of traditions with respect to
theory and practice in education. A conversation of traditions is not about supporting
a conservative, unchanging state of being, nor a “return to the good old days”. On
the contrary, a conversation of traditions, approached reflexively, is an opportunity to
raise awareness of how our current thinking about, our research into, and our doing of
education through everyday practice and praxis in various settings have been and are
being formed and shaped. In other words, it is a means of interrogating the origins and
formations of our own understandings, presuppositions, and traditions. When diverse
perspectives are put into conversation with each other, there is potential for greater
understanding of contemporary educational issues and about how they might be
addressed. A greater understanding of different traditions and ways of engaging with
the world arguably allows for the development of new, forward thinking approaches,
4 M. Kaukko et al.

and resources for hope that may lead to positive transformations for individuals and
for societies.
Through the network’s conversation of traditions across our diverse countries,
cultural and institutional contexts, and approaches to understanding education,
researchers participating in the network have come to appreciate how differently a
number of concepts that are central to our work are understood and used in different
contexts. Not surprisingly, given the ways concepts and language travel and evolve,
words that are commonly used across contexts, such as “pedagogy”, “education”, and
“praxis”, have sometimes turned out to mean different things in different contexts,
while different words appear to have been used across contexts to capture more or
less the same idea or phenomenon. PEP researchers from the Netherlands, Sweden,
Norway, and Finland, for instance, have drawn attention to the European intellectual
traditions (and internal debates about) concepts like praxis, pedagogy, and bildung
(in Swedish, bildning). In the following paragraphs, we briefly introduce some of
the concepts that are foundational for many discussions throughout the book.

The Theory of Practice Architectures

While a range of theories have informed the research upon which this book is
based, the theory of practice architectures features prominently. This theory was
developed by Stephen Kemmis with PEP colleagues (see Kemmis & Grootenboer,
2008; Kemmis et al., 2014) drawing particularly on Schatzki’s (2002) notion of site
ontology (related to the situatedness of practices in time and space). The theory of
practice architectures has been used as a theoretical, as well as an analytical, device in
much of the research discussed in this book, as a means to better understand practices
and the practice architectures that shape them across various educational contexts.
This understanding, as demonstrated in some empirical examples provided in the
chapters, can inform actions that ultimately lead to the transformation of educational
settings and education itself.
The theory of practice architectures is an account of what practices (such as
teaching, learning, leading, researching) are comprised of, and how they both shape
and are shaped by the arrangements (referred to as “practice architectures”) that exist
in, or are brought to, or are newly created in, a site of practice. A site can be a physical
site, such as a school or a classroom, or a site in space and time, such as the site of a
daily morning tea.1,2
According to the theory of practice architectures, practices are composed of
sayings, doings, and relatings that hang together in a distinctive project (or
end/telos). The practice architectures that are present in a site are combinations

1 See also Kemmis and Edwards-Groves (2018), Kemmis (2019), Kemmis and Rönnerman (2016),
Kemmis and Heikkinen (2012), Kemmis, Wilkinson, and Edwards-Groves (2017), and Mahon,
Kemmis, Francisco, and Lloyd (2017).
2 See Schatzki (2002) for a more detailed explanation of the site of a practice.
1 Education for a World Worth Living In 5

of the cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political arrangements that

together prefigure practices by enabling and constraining the sayings, doings, and
relatings of the practice. In the semantic dimension, cultural-discursive arrangements
in a site prefigure what is said in and about the practices (sayings). For instance, the
language used, the issues discussed, and the ideas thought about on a building site are
likely to be different to the language used, the issues discussed, and the ideas thought
about in a courtroom. In the dimension of physical space-time, material-economic
arrangements prefigure what is done in a practice (doings). The material-economic
arrangements include physical arrangements in a site (such as a lesson taking place
outside under a tree or inside in a lecture theatre); scheduling arrangements such as
a school timetable; artefacts such as an assessment task; the availability of resources
such as an electronic whiteboard; or staffing arrangements for particular classes.
In the dimension of social space, social-political arrangements prefigure the rela-
tionships in a site (relatings). Social-political arrangements are realised in relation
to issues of power and solidarity. For instance, hierarchical organisations are often
marked by the exercise of role-related power. It is important to note that the practice
architectures in a site prefigure, but do not predetermine, particular practices and
particular actions.
In addition to focusing on arrangements that enable and constrain the practices that
happen in a site of practice, the theory of practice architectures recognises the agency
of individuals and groups to make changes to pre-existing arrangements. In some
sites, like prisons and army camps, the practice architectures are such that agency
is tightly constrained. In many sites, however, this is not the case, and individuals
(and especially groups of individuals) are able to make innovative transformations.
Even in sites where pre-existing conditions are tightly constrained, changes can and
will be made—consider for instance, the French revolution (1789–1799); the present
day “Me Too” movement; or the climate change action protests. Each of these has
been started by individuals resisting the way things are arranged in their semantic
space, physical space-time, and social space. Many of the arrangements in estab-
lished, institutionalised spaces have a long history, and they effectively constrain
practices that challenge them. Yet they do not necessarily stop the change and trans-
formation of practices completely. For example, while the apparently fixed, harmful,
and somewhat hidden arrangements in societies that turned a blind eye to prac-
tices of harassment of women, the “Me Too” movement celebrated and encouraged
resistance and the overthrow of those old practices, powered by new oppositional
practices, enabled by different arrangements like social media. The “Me too” move-
ment transformed from small-scale resistance in local sites into a world-changing
practice, at the same time, changing old arrangements and establishing new ones
played out in different ways at local sites across the world. On a smaller scale and
in the context of education, individuals make changes in their educational settings
regularly. For instance, teachers can change the cultural-discursive arrangements by
implementing a syllabus differently in their everyday work; change the material-
economic arrangements by organising the desks in the classroom in a different way;
or change the social-political arrangements by facilitating discussions about school
values that include previously excluded groups.
6 M. Kaukko et al.

Theorising practices and arrangements through a practice architectures lens is

to see them as separate only in theory: in reality, practices and arrangements are
intertwined and interdependent. In relation to education, for example, it is easy
to see how the practices of (students’) learning, teachers’ professional learning and
teaching, leading, and educational researching rely on and make one another relevant.
Sometimes, the relationship between practices is more obvious and more designed
(e.g. the relationship between teaching and learning), while sometimes the relation-
ship is more implicit and more organic. Moreover, sometimes there might not be
a relationship where we expect to find one (e.g. when the student does not learn
despite the teachers’ practices of teaching). The interdependence of the practices of
learning, teaching, professional learning, leading, and educational researching has
been termed the education complex (see Kemmis et al., 2014, pp. 51–52). References
to this can be found in Chap. 3 of this volume.

Praxis and Practice

The theory of practice architectures highlights, then, that practices are not solely
dependent on the experience, intentions, and actions of individuals (or groups of
individuals). Practices are also shaped and conditioned by practice architectures and
circumstances beyond each person (Kemmis & Grootenboer, 2008). Each person
can, through their practices, shape their circumstances and act “rightly” (Kemmis
& Grootenboer, 2008). The intentional and morally committed actions taken by
individuals and collectives in an endeavour to “act rightly” within these circumstances
can be called “praxis”. Consider the climate change protests, for example. The praxis
of the children, young people, and adults involved in these protests is shaped by their
interpretation of the “good” (or what is necessary) for the survival of a habitable planet
now and in the future. Their practices are guided by their commitment to “doing the
right thing”—a conception of praxis. Their practices consist of their sayings, doings,
and relatings, based on their reasoning and knowledge of the best possible way to
act in their current situation amidst the arrangements and circumstances that they
encounter.
A detailed discussion of the origins and different interpretations of praxis, and
specifically educational praxis, will follow in the next chapter. However, here we
highlight two points. The first is the critical importance of praxis in the research we
are discussing in this book. The word “praxis” appears in each of the five research
questions. Praxis has been central to PEP work because it signals a kind of action
that is so necessary and relevant in education today: action that is informed and
morally committed rather than action that is rule-following or merely technical or
instrumental.
The second point, as will be elaborated further, is that the way praxis is interpreted
and used in the theory of practice architectures carries traces of, but is also distinct
from, the various versions of praxis found for example in the writings of Freire
(2014), Habermas (1973), and hooks (1994) and other feminist educational research
1 Education for a World Worth Living In 7

(e.g. Fine, 2016; Cahill, Quijada Cerecer, & Bradley, 2010), all of which use the
word “praxis” to highlight issues particular for their fields, but also issues shared more
broadly, such as questions about social justice. On the other hand, some research texts
and languages use practice and praxis synonymously. These dilemmas are further
discussed in Chaps. 2 and 3 in this volume.

Education, Pedagogy, and Bildung

The field of pedagogy has evolved in a centuries-long, contested intellectual history.

In earlier times, classical notions of pedagogy invoked the “cultivation” (or “civili-
sation”) of the individual person imagined as a person who would play an active role
in the life of a society or state. In later times, the elitist connotations of “cultivation”
were recognised and extirpated, and pedagogy was conceptualised in more demo-
cratic terms, as the formation of individual persons who could play active roles in
the cultural, economic, social, and political life of their communities and the state. In
both conceptualisations, the notion of “cultivation” or “formation” invoked in peda-
gogy applied to the upbringing of the child and also the child’s continuing education
as a young person and adult.
With roots in the nineteenth century, and into the twentieth, the more conservative
conception of pedagogy as “cultivation” contested with the more social-democratic
conception of pedagogy as “formation”, both in relation to the individual person and
to the nature of the community and society being envisaged. Pedagogy emerged as
a distinct discipline, separate from philosophy in general (where it stood alongside
the field of politics) in the very late nineteenth century, following the enactment
of mass elementary education in most Western countries. The separation of peda-
gogy from philosophy was largely the consequence of its establishment in university
departments for the education of teachers; the newly invigorated field of pedagogy
was intended to provide the justification for what and how teachers should teach.
After mass elementary education was enacted in European countries, gradually from
the seventeenth century to the nineteenth, states had the problem of finding and
preparing teachers to staff the rapidly expanding numbers of schools. Thus, at the
very end of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth, the first
professors of pedagogy (in the Anglophone world, “education”) were appointed in
European universities, with the task of providing practical answers—in the form of
the content of a teacher education curriculum—to the problem of what knowledge,
skills, and values teachers need in order to teach. And thus, faculties or departments
of pedagogy (or education) emerged as separate from philosophy departments.
Although the discipline of education in Anglophone countries has essentially the
same history as the discipline of pedagogy, the word “education” has a “high” and
a “low” meaning in English. In English, the high meaning of education is similar to
what is meant by pedagogy, but the discipline of education (using the high meaning)
is often described as “education(al) studies” or “education(al) science” or (in some
meanings of) “philosophy of education” to indicate that it is the discipline that is being
8 M. Kaukko et al.

referred to. The low meaning of “education” is similar to the notion of schooling, as
in “I sent my daughter to X school to get an education”. The widespread use of the
low meaning of education is often confusing to European listeners, who realise that
it refers to schooling, rather than to education as a discipline. For those listeners, the
low use of the term begins to function as a kind of screen that obscures the more
specialist, high meaning of the term as, for example, in the discipline of education
studies.
In the United Kingdom, the United States, and a variety of other Anglophone coun-
tries around the world (including Australia, Canada, and New Zealand), the discipline
of education also emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with
the rise of teacher education through teachers’ colleges and universities. Since the
late nineteenth century, there has also been contestation about how education, as
a discipline, should be defined. In general, however, it is described in terms of a
double purpose for education, aimed on the one hand at the individual, and on the
other towards the society. In the PEP network, we have come to highlight this double
purpose as the aim of education to help children, young people, and adults to live
well in a world worth living in (see Kemmis et al., 2014).
The intellectual debates within the disciplines of pedagogy and education in
Europe and the Anglophone countries have been similar at a very broad level. Both
involve contestation over the extent to which pedagogy or education aims to repro-
duce or transform society, and whether it should function to retain existing social
hierarchies (principally in the interests of the aristocracy or the wealthy as opposed
to the mass of people, for example) or to transform them (e.g. to produce more
democratic conditions in a society). In Europe, the evolution of the discipline of
pedagogy has produced very elaborate pedagogical theories of each kind, with a
general trend through the twentieth century towards more socially democratic forms
of education. In the Anglophone countries, by contrast, the elaboration of “educa-
tional” theories was often “exported” to other so-called foundational disciplines—
educational psychology, sociology of education, history of education, philosophy
of education—with the consequence that these “foundational” disciplines became
unmoored from overarching educational (pedagogical) theory, and frequently subju-
gated, as inferior sub-specialisms, to those other disciplines (psychology, sociology,
history, philosophy).
In the Nordic countries in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, ideas of peda-
gogy have been sustained by the long-standing Nordic ideals and traditions of bildung
and folk enlightenment (or folk bildning). Although in most parts, these traditions
share a common focus on an organic and evolving relationship between the indi-
vidual, the community, and the whole of humanity, there are also differences. The
folk enlightenment movement has been, from its origin in the late nineteenth century,
oriented towards education of the masses and education for citizenship, but its roots
in the rationalistic idea of enlightenment (eighteenth century) highlight a set of
commonly agreed, more or less universal virtues which individuals should have
(Breznika, 2017). The “folk”-addition means that the possibility to be “enlightened”
should be available for all, not just an (educated) elite. Bildung, especially allge-
meinbildung, also refers to a basic overall education for all but highlights the need
1 Education for a World Worth Living In 9

to strengthen each individual’s own skills and capacities. Both bildung and folk
enlightenment aim at providing not only knowledge but education for “sentimental
attitudes, fundamental ways of valuing and basic aesthetics, moral and political atti-
tudes” (Breznika, 2017, p. 72). The ideals of bildung and folk bildning have been
fruitful in furthering the relationship between the needs of individuals and collec-
tive interests (Rönnerman, Salo, & Moksnes Furu, 2008, p. 23). We acknowledge
that both have also been criticised to some extent. In particular, conversations about
bildung have been criticised for the lack of clarity about what basic education should
cover and whose values should be followed. Folk enlightenment has also been criti-
cised, for example, for its exclusive messages: if we educate for citizenship, should
we exclude those who cannot, for a range of reasons, live up to the expectations of
(contributing) citizens?
Traditions of bilding include collaborative practices for learning (study circles,
for instance) to support the growth of individuals. As well as supporting the develop-
ment of relationships of trust between those involved, they also support trust in the
state and its institutions (including schools and teachers). The ideals and practices
of participation and democracy (Larsson, 2001), characteristic of the arrangements
of study circles (horizontal relations, recognition of diverse identities, deliberative
communication and action, internal democratic decision-making) are somewhat re-
invented in communities of practice (e.g. Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, McDermott,
& Snyder, 2002) and professional learning communities (Stoll, Bolam, McMahon,
Wallace, & Thomas, 2006). It has been argued that these traditions and the practices
established within them reflect a trustful attitude towards, and relationship to, human
growth and education, schools as institutions, and teachers as professionals (Salo &
Sandén, 2016; see Chap. 7, this book).
It would be possible to sketch a somewhat similar story from nineteenth century
Britain, Canada, the US, Australia, and New Zealand about the rise of adult, commu-
nity, workers’, and popular education through various political parties, unions, and
workers’ associations. These organisations had their roots in powerful political
commitments to the education of workers for participation in the political life of
their countries. Certainly, adult, community, and popular education developed under
the influence of various kinds of progressive and critical pedagogies (Dewey in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; Freire in the mid- and late twentieth),
but—in Australia, for example—they were frequently more various and contested,
and less securely anchored in institutions supported by the state (by comparison with
the Nordic local government departments of bildung, responsible for libraries, art
museums and adult education, as well as for schools). It is thus less clear that the
Anglophone countries developed a shared practice tradition of adult, community,
workers’, and popular education, parallel to the Nordic traditions of bildung and
folk enlightenment. It must be said, however, that university departments of adult,
continuing, popular, and community education in the Anglophone world frequently
aimed to nurture and sustain more coherent practice traditions in these fields.
10 M. Kaukko et al.

Chapters of the Book

We referred earlier to the work of the PEP network as “a conversation of traditions”.

This book is itself a conversation of traditions—it describes how different ideas (like
“pedagogy”, “education”, and “praxis”) are differently understood from the perspec-
tives of the authors’ different intellectual traditions, and it is also a reflexive product
of those conversations, aiming to reach beyond our individual horizons towards
a larger collective perspective. This includes intellectual, philosophical, cultural,
methodological, and educational traditions, both existing and emerging. The book
draws on a body of work produced by more than seventy PEP researchers dedicated
to examining pedagogy, education, and praxis in eight countries. After more than a
decade of researching and conversing in relation to pedagogy, education, and praxis,
we felt that the time was ripe to take stock of what had been achieved, to critically
reflect on what we have been doing, and to look into the future and consider where
our focus should be for the next decade. In other words, this book pulls together the
research findings of the various projects comprising the PEP research program and
invites new voices to enrich the future conversation.
The discussions presented in the subsequent chapters, as alluded to above, are
based on an integrative review (Torraco, 2005) of over 200 publications (including
articles, books, doctoral theses, and published conference papers). The analytical
process involved a group of twenty-three PEP researchers working in small cross-
national teams, with each team reviewing work on one of the five research questions
above, collaboratively and systematically analysing the publications relevant to their
respective question over a two-year period. Along the way, authorial teams shared
their analyses with one another and the wider family of PEP researchers, all of whom
provided critical feedback. Each chapter represents a culmination of this work; each
offers a synthesis of key findings and ideas generated through/in the corpus of PEP
research in relation to a specific research question (sometimes going beyond the
question), and a discussion of any interesting tensions and new insights and questions
that emerged in the collaborative review process. We acknowledge that in any attempt
to synthesise ideas and insights across so many studies, it is difficult, try as we might,
to avoid glossing over nuanced differences, divergent thinking, and tensions across
and within contexts.
The next chapter, Chap. 2, lays the groundwork for the book by addressing the
first research question, namely, “What is Educational Praxis?” The chapter high-
lights the importance of the moral-political dimension of educational activity and,
taking a phronēsis-praxis perspective, introduces “educational praxis” as a way of
understanding and responding to this. Among other things, the chapter explores the
forming, self-forming, and transforming nature of educational praxis and calls for
attention to social justice issues in educators’ daily work.
After conceptualising educational praxis, the focus of the book shifts to the
various theoretical and methodological underpinnings of research approaches that
have been used to not only understand but also facilitate educational praxis. These
are discussed in Chap. 3, Research that Facilitates Praxis and Praxis Development.
1 Education for a World Worth Living In 11

Chapter 4, Critiquing and Cultivating the Conditions for Educational Praxis and
Praxis Development, examines the underlying conditions that impact on praxis and
its development. Some of these conditions are general and global, like the impact
of neoliberalism, immigration, and responses to climate change, while others are
more explicitly educational, such as the impact of educational policy on teachers’
possibilities for praxis. The remaining chapters “zoom in” (Nicolini, 2013, pp. 219–
223) on specific practices in the field of education. Because research related to both
teaching and leading has been undertaken in response to the research question, “How
in different national contexts is good professional practice (praxis) being understood
and experienced by teachers?”, our review findings on these two aspects of good
professional practice are presented separately. Chapter 5, Teaching as Pedagogical
Praxis, relates to student learning and teaching practices in early childhood, primary,
secondary, tertiary, and vocational education sectors. Chapter 6 addresses Leading
as Shared Transformative Educational Practice in its exploration of the multidi-
mensionality of leading in and for education. Chapter 7 discusses Collaborative
Professional Learning for Changing Educational Practices, highlighting the crucial
role of collaboration for transforming education in professional learning. The chapter
concludes with a discussion of a framework for the development of such professional
learning.
Finally, Chap. 8, Critical Praxis for Critical Times, provides a provocative reflec-
tion on the conditions facing education and educational praxis in contemporary times.
Drawing on the key ideas presented across the chapters reviewing the work of the
PEP network, it comments critically on local, national, and global conditions that
challenge educational practice. It concludes by advocating for critical educational
praxis as foundational for living well in a world worth living in.
Although all of these chapters are based on an integrative literature review, this
book is not a literature review: it can be seen as a story of the exploration of the five
research questions listed above, of what is important within these, and of what still
remains to be explored. It sheds light on and responds to the present state of affairs
regarding education, highlighting both the challenges and possibilities. It shows what
praxis, good educational practice, and good professional learning may look like in
contemporary times.
In light of the constant state of societal change (which has been acutely highlighted
for us in the present time of the coronavirus pandemic), it is difficult to imagine what
education might look like one hundred years from now. Will there be robots in
classrooms? Will there be classrooms at all (during the coronavirus pandemic, many
classrooms already look very different from the way they looked even a few months
ago)? Will there be equal opportunity for future learners, and will our current choices
expand or diminish their opportunities? Will education continue to be mainly aimed
at the “good” for humankind, or will the aims be extended to better address the
non-human world? Reading the predictions made by futurists years later shows the
futility of trying to predict the future. Although we may not be able to answer these
questions, we seem to be at the crossroads, metaphorically speaking, in terms of the
direction that contemporary societies are taking. We believe and hope that a hundred
12 M. Kaukko et al.

years from now, education will still aim for “good” for the individual as well as
for the world (human and non-human) at large, and that the next generations keep
questioning the meaning of “good” and “good for humankind”.

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Chapter 2
What is Educational Praxis?

Kathleen Mahon, Hannu L. T. Heikkinen, Rauno Huttunen, Tess Boyle,

and Ela Sjølie

Abstract This chapter explores the question “What is educational praxis?” based on
a review of theoretical and empirical research undertaken by the Pedagogy, Education
and Praxis (PEP) international research network over the past decade. A book series
produced by the network in 2008 explored this very question in relation to a range
of educational sites and national contexts. Six key themes emerging from this work
were outlined in the first of the books in the series, Enabling Praxis: Challenges for
Education. In short, the themes concerned agents and agency; particularity; connect-
edness; history; morality and justice; and praxis as doing (Kemmis and Smith in
Enabling praxis: challenges for education. Sense, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2008b).
Using these six themes as a point of departure, we present a view of educational
praxis as a kind of educational practice that is informed, reflective, self-consciously
moral and political, and oriented towards making positive educational and societal
change; it is context-dependent and can therefore take many forms. We also explore
the forming, self-forming, and transforming nature of educational praxis and explain
its relevance at a time when instrumental, managerialist, and neoliberal rationalities
continue to dominate global and local education narratives.

K. Mahon (B)
University of Borås, Borås, Sweden
e-mail: [email protected]
H. L. T. Heikkinen
University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
R. Huttunen
University of Turku, Turku, Finland
T. Boyle
Southern Cross University, Gold Coast, Australia
E. Sjølie
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 15

K. Mahon et al. (eds.), Pedagogy, Education, and Praxis in Critical Times,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6926-5_2
16 K. Mahon et al.

Introduction

This chapter addresses the question “What is educational praxis?” by exploring what
makes it distinctive as a kind of educational practice. We do this by drawing on a
review of publications by the Pedagogy, Education and Praxis [PEP] international
research network1 (2008–2018) that have explicitly theorised educational praxis as
a phenomenon and as a concept. Our aim in doing this is to contribute to ongoing
contemporary debate about important moral and political dimensions of education
and educational practice that appear almost to be sidelined in the contemporary
world.
The notion of “educational praxis” is complex. This is partly because of the
varied understandings of the word “praxis” and its relationship to “practice”. Both
“praxis” and “practice” are widely understood in terms of human action or activity.
And in some languages and contexts today, praxis and practice mean the same, or
almost the same, thing in everyday usage. However, in some contexts, “praxis” has
come to be understood as a distinctive or special kind of practice that amounts to
more than, for instance, habitual practice and routine action in everyday human
activity. Understandings of praxis along these alternative “special-kind-of-practice”
lines acknowledge the consequential and thus moral dimensions of human social
activity. These genealogical lines lead us back, via such authors as MacIntyre, Freire,
Arendt, Marx, and Hegel, in various intellectual traditions, to Ancient Greece and the
work of Aristotle. Such understandings have been absorbed into different educational
discourses, especially in recent times, among those attempting to recapture or evoke
a sense of education as a moral, social, and political activity.
This has certainly been an ambition of the PEP network. Since the establishment of
the network in 2006, the notion of praxis has been central to its research endeavours.
The reason for this is twofold. On the one hand, there have been, and continue to be,
shared concerns amongst PEP researchers with the direction that formal education has
been taking across the globe. These concerns relate especially to de-professionalising
and bureaucratising influences within educational institutions (Edwards-Groves &
Kemmis, 2015), which have been associated by PEP researchers with instrumental
and functional rationality, managerialism, and neoliberalism, among other things.
These ideologies or rationalities are highly complex, and we can do only scant justice
to them here. For the purposes of our discussion in this chapter, instrumental ratio-
nality is regarded as a concern with “finding the most efficient means by which to
achieve given ends but unconcerned about the substance of those ends” (Knight, 1998,
p. 6). Managerialism is viewed as an ideology bound up with the notion that “efficient

1 The PEP international research network includes researchers from Australia, the Caribbean,
Colombia, Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
It was established in order to bring scholars together from different national contexts to “engage
in dialogues and research that seek to uncover, challenge, extend, understand and study the condi-
tions which enable and constrain the conduct and development of education” (Edwards-Groves &
Kemmis, 2015, p. 2). See Chap. 1 this volume for more information about the network.
2 What is Educational Praxis? 17

management can solve any problem” (Rees, 1995, as cited in Sachs, 2001). Neoliber-
alism is treated as a “market-centred policy logic” (Connell, 2013); an ideology that
foregrounds market-based values and ideals in social relations (Ball, 2012; Giroux,
2010). Concerns also relate to the societal injustices that are often perpetuated by
educational systems and practices (e.g. marginalisation of refugee students; discrim-
ination on the basis of cultural, political, or other differences). Chapter 4 in this book
explores such conditions in detail.
On the other hand, PEP researchers share a belief that the notion of praxis, which
captures the moral-political dimension of human activity, is potentially useful for
interrogating and rethinking education and educational work and signals alternative
possibilities for education. The PEP network has thus been committed to both (a)
empirically investigating the nature of educational praxis, from multiple perspectives,
and in range of educational contexts, and (b) reviving and reconstructing the classical
Aristotelian concept of “praxis” (Smith, Edwards-Groves, & Brennan Kemmis, 2010;
Smith, Salo, & Grootenboer, 2010). The aim has been to further our understanding
of education in ways that can inform and guide educational actions and decisions,
as well as re-focus educational debate on matters of moral, social, and political
importance for contemporary society. In this respect, PEP has striven to build on the
work of others similarly trying to understand and address contemporary educational
and societal concerns (e.g. Apple, 2013; hooks, 1994). “What is educational praxis?”
has been an important philosophical and empirical question for the network in terms
of these ambitions and commitments.2
The chapter is divided into three main parts. In the first, we contextualise our
exploration of educational praxis by discussing various understandings of praxis. In
the second, we discuss six themes that emerged from some of the earliest PEP work
(see Enabling Praxis: Challenges for Education, Kemmis & Smith, 2008c). The
themes are agents and agency, particularity, connectedness, history, morality and
justice, and praxis as doing (Kemmis & Smith, 2008b, pp. 7–9). Together they provide
a useful framework for tracing how thinking and knowledge about educational praxis
has been represented, shifted, and extended by the PEP research over time. In the
third part, we attempt to reconceptualise some of the main ideas arising from the
publications we have reviewed in a discussion of educational praxis as forming, self-
forming, and transforming. The importance of the “critical” in educational praxis is
highlighted in this discussion. We also consider what educational praxis is not. This
is followed by a summarising argument that educational praxis is practice that takes
many forms, but it is, generally speaking, morally-politically informed and oriented,
reflective, agentic, context-specific, and transformative; it involves taking a moral
stand in educational work, and working towards positive change. Consideration is
also given in this part of the chapter to what is yet to be done to further knowledge
about educational praxis.
The discussion across this chapter, and our response to the question, “What is
educational praxis?” forms a foundation for the chapters that follow in this book.

2 This question is the first of five guiding research questions for the PEP network. See Chap. 1, this

volume, for the other four questions.

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 This was about three o’clock. General McCall, with his staff, had
arrived on the ground only to hear of a victory won. Knowing that an
advance would be fatal, he ordered a recall, and with the wounded
and dead, and the trophies of war, the troops returned from the field.
The brave and victorious band arrived at Langley’s about nine
o’clock in the evening, where they were met by thousands of their
shouting and exultant comrades.
The rebel troops engaged in this battle were on the same errand.
Two hundred wagons had been sent out by General Stuart, their
commander, under the care of a foraging party, escorted by the
Eleventh Virginia, Colonel Garland; the Sixth South Carolina, under
Lieutenant-Colonel A. J. Secrest; the Tenth Alabama, Colonel John
H. Forney; the First Kentucky, Colonel Sam. Taylor; the Sumter
Flying Artillery, Captain Cutts, and detachments from Ransom’s and
Radford’s Cavalry. The rebel troops fought well, and did honor to
themselves as soldiers, whose nerve and bravery would have been
worthy of triumph in a sacred cause. Their loss was seventy-five
killed, one hundred and fifty wounded, and thirty prisoners. Of the
Federals, seven were killed and sixty-one wounded.
 EXPEDITION TO SHIP ISLAND.

December, 1861.

General B. F. Butler, after having been stationed for a short time at

Fortress Monroe, was assigned to the North-Eastern Department,
and located his headquarters at Boston, where he superintended the
organization of the New England troops, and the fitting out of an
expedition intended to make a demonstration at some point on the
Southern coast. A portion of his troops sailed from Boston on the
23d of November, in the steam transport Constitution, which arrived
at Fortress Monroe on the 26th, with the Twenty-sixth
Massachusetts, and the Ninth Connecticut regiments, and Captain
Manning’s battery—making a total of one thousand nine hundred
men. Brigadier-General J. W. Phelps here took the command, and
reached Ship Island harbor, in Mississippi Sound, December 3.
On the west end of this island there was a partly-finished fort,
occupied by Lieutenant Buchanan and one hundred and seventy
sailors and marines, with several ship guns in position. The rebels
had evacuated the island in September, destroying what they could
not carry away with them.
General Phelps, on assuming the command of Ship Island,
published a proclamation “To the loyal citizens of the South-west,” in
which he defined the political “motives and principles” by which his
command would be governed. He then at the very opening of his
address, declared that every slave State admitted into the Union
since the adoption of the Constitution, had been admitted in direct
violation of that instrument. That every slave State that existed as
such at the adoption of the Constitution, was by that act placed
under the “highest obligation of honor and morality to abolish
slavery.” The rest of the “proclamation” was in harmony with these
statements. General Phelps made an official report of his expedition
to General Butler, who reported the facts to the Adjutant-General of
the United States. General Phelps was commended for the successful
manner in which he had performed his military duties, but his
proclamation was pronounced superfluous and uncalled for.
The occupancy of Ship Island being secured, the forces remained
in undisturbed possession, awaiting the future movements of the
commander of the expedition.
 ENGAGEMENT AT MOUNT ZION.

December 28, 1861.

On the 23d of December, General Prentiss, commanding the army

of Northern Missouri, having his headquarters at Palmyra, received
orders to disperse a body of the enemy’s forces that had concentrated
in Boone County. In pursuance of his instructions he started on the
following morning with two hundred of the Third Missouri Cavalry,
Colonel John Glover, and five companies of Sharpshooters, under
Colonel Birge, and arrived at Sturgeon on the evening of the 26th.
During the following day, having learned that there was a
concentration of rebels near the village of Hallsville, in Boone
County, General Prentiss sent forward one company of cavalry,
commanded by Captain Howland, to reconnoitre in that vicinity.
Captain Howland proceeded to Hallsville, but found no rebels. After
proceeding about two miles beyond, his advance guard encountered
the rebels in force, commanded by Colonel Dorsey. Captain Howland
endeavored to draw off his company, having taken nine prisoners,
but was overpowered. Being wounded, and having lost his horse, he
was taken prisoner, with one private of his company. The remainder
of his men made good their retreat, arriving at Sturgeon at nine
o’clock, P. M.
Having learned the position of the enemy, General Prentiss
ordered his command, numbering in all four hundred and seventy, to
march at two o’clock, A. M., at which hour he started, and after
marching a distance of sixteen miles, at eight o’clock A. M. of the 28th
inst. found one company of rebels, commanded by Captain Johnson,
in position to the left of the road leading from Hallsville to Mount
Zion. General Prentiss ordered two companies of sharpshooters to
pass to the rear of the enemy, and one of cavalry to dismount and
engage them in the front.
Colonel Glover opened fire, and succeeded in killing five and
capturing seven prisoners, from whom was ascertained the number
and position of the main force—the enemy being posted at a church,
known as Mount Zion, in Boone County, one mile and a half in
advance, numbering near nine hundred men. General Prentiss
ordered the cavalry under Colonel Glover forward, accompanied by
two companies of Birge’s sharpshooters. Colonel Birge, arriving near
the encampment, ordered one troop of cavalry to dismount and
engage the enemy. The sharpshooters were afterward ordered
through a field on the right to skirmish with the enemy’s left, and if
possible drive them from the woods.
The firing being heavy, and these three companies proving unable
to drive the enemy from his cover, Colonel Glover, with his available
force, moved in double-quick to their aid, and for half an hour longer
the battle raged and became a hand-to-hand fight. Captain Boyd’s
company of sharpshooters were in the midst of the rebel camp. Also,
Major Carrick, with Company C of the Cavalry. When Colonel Glover
arrived, the enemy retreated, leaving in the Federal hands 90 horses
and 105 stand of arms. The battle was brought to a close about 11 A.
M.
The reserve of two companies coming into action at the moment
the enemy gave way, the victory was complete. After collecting the
wounded, the Federals proceeded to care for those of the enemy,
placing them in the church, and sent for farmers and friends in the
vicinity to render assistance, when they returned to Sturgeon, where
they arrived at 9, P. M. The loss in the battle of Mount Zion, and in the
engagement of the evening previous, was: Killed, 3; slightly
wounded, 46; severely wounded, 17. Rebel loss: Killed, 25; wounded,
150.
 ARKANSAS, AND THE INDIANS.

The prominent and active men in the State of Arkansas, and

particularly all who held official positions, were allied politically with
the South Carolina conspirators, while the majority of the people, in
the early stages of the insurrection, were loyal. Hence, the leaders
were slow in their movements to carry the State out of the Union; but
when the Confederate government had become organized, and
transferred to Richmond, and the rebellion had been fully
inaugurated by the attack on Fort Sumter, followed by the
proclamation of President Lincoln, they deemed that the time had
come for the development of their plans. The Governor of the State,
Henry M. Rector, on the 22d of April, 1861, directed the seizure by
State troops of the United States stores at Napoleon; followed on the
24th by the capture of Fort Smith by the forces under Colonel
Borland.
The Legislature being convened at Little Rock, an unconditional
ordinance of Secession was passed on the 6th of May, and on the
18th the Confederate Congress at Richmond declared the admission
of Arkansas to the Southern Confederacy.
It was the misfortune of the loyal men of the State that they did not
number in their ranks any citizens of power and influence, who had
energy sufficient to organize the Unionists, and oppose a barrier to
the acts of the enemies of the Federal Government. Unarmed and
unorganized, while the conspirators were in a state of preparation for
any resistance that might be made, protest and opposition were of no
avail, and the loyal men of the State were compelled to submit, and
endure the persecutions and depredations of the more numerous
secessionists.
A great deal of excitement was occasioned during the month of
November by the discovery that the Union men of Izard, Fulton,
Independent and Searcey counties had secret organizations and
societies for mutual protection and co-operation. This accidental
disclosure exasperated the conspirators, who adopted the most
violent measures to disperse the Unionists, and break up their
associations. Many were taken to Little Rock and hanged, while
others were arrested in the woods, attempting to escape beyond the
State, and shared the same fate. Large numbers of refugees, however,
succeeded in reaching Missouri, where they remained, and
subsequently, under Captain Ware, a member of the Arkansas
Legislature, organized as a military body at Rolla, Missouri, and
entered the service under General Curtis, receiving large accessions
on the marching of Curtis’ expedition into the State.
Impressed with the importance of securing the services of the
Indian tribes within the limits of Arkansas, as well as the adjoining
territory, the agents of the Richmond government were instructed to
negotiate with the Cherokees and Creeks on the borders of Arkansas,
promising the payment of the United States annuities by the
Confederacy in case of their allegiance. On the 24th of August an
agreement was entered into by some of the Cherokee chiefs, and the
two tribes raised 2,000 men for the war. The nations were divided on
the question, the most intelligent being convinced that loyalty to the
Federal Government was their true policy not less than their duty.
The Choctaws, Chickasaws, and other tribes were treated in a similar
manner, and with the same results—secession having the effect of
dividing the Red Men of the forest as it had divided the pale faces of
the east.
From authentic sources it was learned from the Seminole agency
that Opothleyoholo, a loyal chief, had collected together four or five
thousand Indians, and about thirteen hundred negroes, who had
gone to him with the hope of being rendered free. When General
Cooper (rebel,) at the head of the Creek, Choctaw and Chickasaw
regiments, with other Indians, amounting to near five thousand,
advanced upon Opothleyoholo’s camp, his followers fled, leaving all
behind. Opothleyoholo left with a few adherents for the south-west.
Most of his followers were reported to be with Colonel Cooper, who
was said to have a very large Indian force with him.
 BOMBARDMENT AT FORT PICKENS.

On the 1st of January, 1862, Fort Pickens with the rebel forts and
batteries on the Bay of Pensacola again awoke the thunders of their
heavy artillery, whose tremendous explosions reverberated for thirty
miles along the Florida coast.
The loyal garrison at the fort had been long chafing under the
restraints of continued inaction. The commander, Colonel Harvey
Brown, Fifth United States Artillery, had been anxiously awaiting the
time when a sufficient force would be at his command to drive the
unwelcome foe from his position near the fort.
Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer, of Pennsylvania, of the First United
States Artillery, the former brave commander, who saved the fort by
his courage and loyalty, on the 12th of January, 1861, had been
relieved, on account of ill-health. He received a Major’s commission
in the Sixteenth United States Infantry, May 14th, 1861.
On the first day of the year a small steamer was seen from Fort
Pickens making her way toward the Navy Yard. She was a saucy,
defiant looking craft, and some one on board waved a secession flag
ostentatiously in sight, as if challenging a fire. This was an
exasperating insult to the restive men shut up in the fort. Colonel
Brown had frequently warned General Bragg against forcing the
presence of these insolent steamers upon him, and when this
presumptuous little craft approached Fort Pickens, with its flag in
commotion, he opened fire upon her. She drew in her flag and
retreated instantly with a crestfallen, retrograde movement, in
amusing contrast with her first approach.
The fire from Fort Pickens was directly answered by all the rebel
batteries, and in a brief time the engagement became general. The
firing on both sides was kept up through the entire day, and at night
Pickens maintained a slow fire from her thirteen-inch mortars, which
was promptly returned by the rebels.
About midnight a conflagration broke out in the Navy Yard. It
flamed up furiously, consuming the buildings of the Yard, and
spreading to the town of Woolsey, adjoining the Navy Yard on the
north, where it raged all night.
The scene during the night was wonderfully magnificent. Every
shell could be tracked in its course through the air from the moment
it left the gun until it exploded, scattering destruction all around.
These shells, rising up against a cloud of surging flame, which sent
its red light in a continued glare landward and seaward, formed an
appalling spectacle. The minutest outline of the grim fort seemed
sketched on a back-ground of fire, rendering the light which Colonel
Brown hung out from its walls, in scornful bravado, offering a sure
mark to the enemy, scarcely more than one of the ten thousand
sparks that filled the atmosphere with gleams of gold. Far off over
the beautiful land the light of that conflagration spread, filling the
inhabitants with alarm; and so brightly did it flame over the ocean,
that the United States steamer Mercedita floated in the glow of its
ruddy light when over twenty miles at sea.
Through the heat of this conflagration the guns kept up their slow
booming thunder, adding to the sublime interest of the scene. The
firing on both sides was remarkable for its extreme accuracy. Shells
in countless numbers fell inside of Fort Pickens, and were returned
with double vigor by its guns.
All the batteries were engaged, and did their work admirably. Fort
McRae, which had been so roughly handled by the Federal squadron
at the last engagement, resumed its accustomed vigor, and Battery
Scott kept up a constant fire throughout the engagement.
Several ships of the squadron were present, but took no part in the
fight. It was well they did not, for nothing could have been gained,
and probably much would have been lost had they attempted to
oppose their wooden sides to stone walls and earthworks.
The bombardment was the old story of fort against fort, at a
distance too great for any decisive result. The Unionists gained
nothing, yet expended a large amount of powder, shot and shell, and
the enemy had no greater advantage. Apart from the burning of
Warrington, the Navy Yard and Woolsey, no injury worth speaking of
was sustained. The next day Fort Pickens stood out against the sky
grim and strong as it was before the bombardment. There were but
few if any casualties worth recording during this affair. Even Colonel
Brown’s lantern, hung out to guide the rebel shot, failed to invite any
real injury; and except that it left a wide field of devastation behind,
the bombardment of Fort Pickens had few important results.
 ROUT OF GENERAL MARSHALL AT
PAINTSVILLE, KY.

January 7, 1862.

On the 7th of January, Colonel Garfield, who had his encampment

on Muddy Creek, in Eastern Kentucky, marched to attack the rebel
General Marshall, who with a large force of men and a battery of four
pieces, was known to have an entrenched camp at Paintsville, the
capital of Johnson county. Colonel Garfield’s command, composed of
the Forty-second Ohio, the Fourteenth Kentucky, and Major
McLaughlin’s squadron of Ohio cavalry, making an effective force of
about fifteen hundred men, broke up their camp on Muddy Creek,
and moved toward Paintsville. While on the march they were
reinforced by a battalion of the First Virginia cavalry, under Colonel
Bolles, and by three hundred of the Twenty-second Kentucky, raising
the force to about twenty-two hundred men. The enemy, under
Humphrey Marshall, numbering three thousand five hundred men,
and having a battery of four pieces, learned of the approach, and also
that of the Fortieth Ohio and of four hundred of Colonel Wolford’s
cavalry by the way of Mount Sterling and the valley of the Paint
Creek. They had, two days previously, after burning large quantities
of grain, broken up their intrenched camp, and effected a retreat to
the heights on Middle Creek, two miles distant from Prestonburg.
They had left a corps of observation at the mouth of Jennie Creek,
three miles west from Paintsville, of three hundred cavalry, and a
large force of infantry about seven miles up Jennie Creek, to protect
and facilitate the passage of their trains.
Immediately on arriving Colonel Garfield, learning the position of
this cavalry, but unaware of the whereabouts of the other divisions of
the rebel force, immediately commenced the erection of a pontoon or
floating bridge across the Paint Lick Creek, at Paintsville. At four P. M.
he crossed with eight companies of the Forty-second Ohio, and two
companies of the Fourteenth Kentucky, with a view of making an
armed reconnoissance, and if possible of cutting off and capturing
the cavalry. At two P. M. he had dispatched Colonel Bolles’ cavalry and
one company of the Forty-second, under the command of Captain S.
M. Barber, with orders to give a good account of the cavalry. But later
in the day, on learning the possibility of cutting them off, he had sent
orders to Colonel Bolles not to attack them until he had obtained
time to get in their rear. Not receiving the last orders, and indeed
before they were issued, Colonel Bolles, in obedience to his first
directions, crossed the Paint by fording, and vigorously assaulting
the enemy, soon put them to flight up the valley of Jennie. In their
haste, followed as they were by the cavalry, they strewed the road
with their equipments, while here and there a dead or wounded
soldier gave proof that they were losing men also. The pursuit was
kept up for seven miles, right into the infantry division which was
guarding the train. Stationed on either side of the road, that did not
permit more than two to ride abreast, it opened a heavy cross-fire on
the Union cavalry, compelling them to fall back, and finally to
retreat, which they did in good order, having inflicted a loss of
twenty-five in killed and wounded, according to rebel account, and
losing but two killed and one wounded. Fifteen rebels were taken
prisoners. Meanwhile Colonel Garfield, with his command, having
remained a short time to fully explore the enemy’s deserted
fortifications, (consisting of lunettes, breastworks, rifle-pits and a
fort situated on the top of a conical hill,) and wholly unaware of what
had taken place, pressed forward to the hoped for consummation of
the march. But few miles had been traversed, however, when the
evidences of a hasty retreat became so apparent that all were
convinced that the enemy had flown. The object of the march having
been thus thwarted, an early return to Paintsville became desirable,
and it was accomplished at the dawn.
 BATTLE OF MIDDLE CREEK, KY.

January 10, 1862.

Having recruited his men by a night’s rest at Paintsville, Colonel

Garfield was preparing to start in immediate pursuit on the morning
of the 8th, but receiving information of the superior force of the
enemy, he awaited the arrival of the Fortieth Ohio regiment, and
Wolford’s Kentucky cavalry, by way of Mount Sterling. These troops
joined him on that day, raising his effective force to about two
thousand four hundred men, after deducting Colonel Bolle’s Virginia
cavalry, which, in obedience to orders, had returned to Guyandotte
in that State. On the 9th, Colonel Garfield detailed from the Forty-
second and Fortieth Ohio, and Fourteenth Kentucky each three
hundred men, and from the Twenty-second Kentucky two hundred
men, and taking the immediate command, supported, however, by
Colonel Craner of the Fortieth, and Major Burke of the Fourteenth.
After detaching Colonel Wolford’s and Major McLaughlin’s cavalry
up Jennie’s Creek, he marched up the river road leading to
Prestonburg. Early on the morning of the 10th, Colonel Sheldon of
the Forty-second Ohio, in command at the camp, received a dispatch
from Colonel Garfield, stating that he had found the enemy, and
asking reinforcements. In compliance with the order, at six A. M. on
the tenth, Colonel Sheldon marched with eight hundred men, who
eagerly pressed forward on their way to the scene of action. As
Colonel Garfield had stated, he had found the enemy two miles from
Prestonburg, on Middle Creek, in a chosen position among the hills,
with between four and five thousand men and four pieces of artillery.
The Fifth Virginia regiment, Colonel Trigg, Colonel John S. Williams’
Kentucky regiment, Colonel Moore’s Kentucky regiment, Markham
and Wicher’s cavalry, and the Fourth Virginia infantry, lay in full
strength on the hills at the forks of the creek, while their battery
seemed to forbid all approach. Nothing deterred by the formidable
position and number of the enemy, Colonel Garfield, not fully aware
of their exact locality, sent skirmishers forward with a view of
drawing the enemy’s fire, and thus ascertaining his whereabouts. Not
succeeding in this, about noon he sent forward his escort of cavalry,
some twenty strong, in a headlong charge. This accomplished the
object, for the enemy, thinking the whole Union force upon them,
opened with musketry, shot and shell upon the cavalry, and a small
party of the skirmishers under Adjutant Olds of the Forty-second,
then in a cornfield immediately in front of the position of Colonel
Williams’ Kentucky regiment, and flanked on the left by the artillery
and Trigg’s Virginia regiment. The cavalry made a hasty retreat, and
the enemy concentrated their whole fire on Adjutant Olds and his
party, but without effect. After replying with some fifteen rounds of
musketry, and observing a large force thrown out on his right, with
intent to cut him off, he fell back upon the main body. The position
of the enemy thus disclosed was as follows: Colonel Williams’
regiment was behind a ridge at the head of the gorge, and on the
right of the road, so that his fire commanded the gorge and road for a
half-mile. Colonel Trigg’s regiment, the Fourth Virginia, was on the
crest of the crescent-shaped hill on the left of the road, commanding
it by their flanking fire. The artillery was between the two at the forks
of the creek and the turn in the road and gorge. The evident design of
the enemy was to draw the Unionists up the road in front of their
cannon and between the cross-fire of the three regiments, but this
well-formed plan failed in its execution, as in their impotence or
nervousness they neglected to reserve their fire for the approach of
the main body. The remainder of their force were in the rear of their
cannon, in a strong supporting position. Occupying Graveyard Point,
the end of a high ridge on the right of the creek north of his main
body, Colonel Garfield dispatched a hundred men across the creek to
ascend the horn of the crescent farthest up the gorge. The ascent was
most difficult, the men being compelled to creep on their hands and
knees most of the way. On attaining the summit, they were greeted
with the whole fire of Trigg’s regiment, stationed at the base, and
deployed along the other horn; also by a fire from the artillery and
the reserve in the rear. On the top of the ridge, and at points nearly
equi-distant from each other, were three piles of stone, the
possession of which was eagerly sought for by the contending parties.
The small band on the summit of the ridge were now reinforced by
two hundred men, and assisted by the reserve at Graveyard Point,
who poured a galling fire on the deployed right flank of the enemy,
they soon drove him from the first stone pile, and took possession of
it.
A force of two hundred men was then thrown out by Colonel
Garfield for the ascent of the lower horn of the crescent. These soon
reached the summit, where being reinforced by Colonel Craner of the
Fortieth with three hundred men, they captured the third stone pile,
while the rebels were thus confined to the second or central one. The
fire was now exceedingly heavy. Both parties betook themselves to
the shelter of the rocks and trees, and the battle raged furiously, the
shots tearing through the branches and surging up the defiles of the
mountains in a wild tumult of sounds.
About half-past four a burst of loud cheering heralded in
reinforcements for the Union troops. A detachment of brave soldiers
came in simultaneously with the shouts that welcomed them,
panting, and almost breathless from the fatigue of a long march; for
fifteen miles they had struggled through the mud of a broken road
without breakfast, and at a tiresome pace. Excited by the sound of
the conflict, they had marched the last two miles on the double-
quick, and came in bathed with perspiration, bespattered with mud,
and half the men carrying their coats on their arms.
Though fatigued with the forced march, and faint with hunger,
these noble fellows demanded only to be led at once into battle. After
a short rest, they were thrown across the creek to ascend the right
horn of the crescent, but were finally ordered back, as it had now
become too dark to advance with safety, and the storm of battle, by
mutual consent, ceased. Resting upon their arms, determined to
renew the battle in the morning, the Union troops spent the night;
but when morning dawned, the enemy, it was found, had vanished.
Under cover of the darkness he had burned his heavy baggage and
retreated. He left twenty-seven dead on the field, and it is definitely
ascertained had some one hundred and twenty-five wounded, of
whom forty-two subsequently died. The Federals lost two killed and
twenty-five wounded.
 The Richmond papers claimed a brilliant Confederate victory on
this occasion, estimating the Federal forces at 8,000 men, and their
loss at 400 killed and wounded.
 BATTLE OF SILVER CREEK, MO.

January 8, 1862.

It was the misfortune of Missouri, more than any other State, to be

a battle-ground for the guerrilla forces of the rebels, and for the
skirmishing engagements of the war. These minor battles, while they
had but little effect on the great result, inflicted untold horrors on the
people dwelling there.
At the opening of the year 1862, General Pope had command of the
North-western District of the State, with his headquarters at
Otterville, Cooper county.
Having heard that the enemy was busily engaged in recruiting men
in Roanoke and adjoining counties, Major W. M. G. Torrence of the
First Iowa Cavalry was ordered to concentrate and take command of
several small bodies of Federal troops, then guarding important
points in the district, and to break up the rebel encampments.
From Booneville, Major Torrence proceeded to Fayette, Howard
county, and for several days was actively engaged in scouring the
country and endeavoring to ascertain the position and strength of the
rebel forces. He found that Colonel Poindexter was recruiting in
various places in the county, and that he was encamped with his
principal force, of from five to seven hundred men, on Silver Creek,
and had other camps to reinforce him when ready to move, to the
number of from twelve to fifteen hundred men.
They further reported that he had pledged himself to his men that
he would clean out the Federals in the county of Howard in a very
few days. Night after night was selected to surprise the Union camp
with his whole force, but through some mishap they never appeared.
On the morning of January 8th, all was in motion in the Federal
camp, under orders from Major Torrence to hold themselves in
readiness to move with all their able-bodied men at an early hour.
They took up their line of march for Roanoke, and, after moving a
few miles, were joined by Major Hubbard’s command. The forces
now comprised a portion of Merrill’s horse, under Major Hunt, one
company of the Fourth Ohio, under Captain Foster, a part of the
Missouri First, under Major Hubbard, and four companies of the
First Iowa, under Major Torrence. After passing the town of
Roanoke, the whole column moved rapidly about five miles, and
halted to have position and duties assigned to the several commands.
Learning that the enemy were in a strong position on the Creek,
where it probably would be impossible to charge them with mounted
men, it was determined to dismount and fight as infantry.
Captain Foster was assigned the advance, followed by Merrill’s
Horse and the Missouri First, all armed with carbines. The First Iowa
were to make a descent upon the camp with drawn sabers, and if
impossible to make a charge mounted, they were to dismount and
move on foot. Lieutenant Dustin, of the First Iowa, with ten men,
formed the advance guard. All being in readiness, they moved
forward very rapidly, and followed the tortuous windings of a road
leading through narrow lanes and thick timber, till the sharp crack of
a rifle warned them that they were upon the rebel pickets. This was
the signal to rush forward, which was done. On, on they pushed,
through underbrush and defiles, till the advanced guard rushed to
the entrance of their camp, and found the enemy drawn up in line of
battle. It was now found that the thick timber and underbrush
forbade a charge upon the camp. The order to dismount passed along
the lines, and a column of armed infantry emerged from the lines on
the roadside, ready for the onset. The battle now commenced in
earnest, and volley after volley of musketry told that the work of
death had begun.
The enemy rushed from their line of battle, after their second
volley, into the intrenchment formed by the creek, and behind trees,
logs, etc., opened fire upon the Union lines, which was promptly
answered by their forces, armed with carbines, by a continued fire.
Major Torrence now ordered his men forward with revolver and
sabre, to make a charge on the camp; and with a yell running wildly
along their lines they advanced, in the face of the enemy’s fire, and
rushed into their camp. So great was the eagerness to move forward,
that three companies claimed the honor of being first in camp.
The enemy now gave way tumultuously, and ran from their camp,
leaving guns, horses, camp equipage, powder, and a large quantity of
new clothing for men in Price’s army. It was a complete rout, as the
appearance of the camp fully attested. It was now nearly dark, with a
heavy fog, and fearing that the enemy had only retired as a ruse to
rally and come to the attack again, the order was given to destroy the
whole camp and equipage. The work of destruction was soon
complete—wagons, saddles, tents, blankets, clothing, etc., were
gathered up, flung on the fires, and soon became one heap of burning
ruins. The Federals now looked up their dead and wounded, and
cared for them. The enemy’s dead lay in all portions of the camp, and
the groans of their dying mingled with the exultant shouts of the
victors. It was a fearful struggle, as the soldiers all knew that they
never could retreat, and it was victory or death to them. The cool
courage and gallant bearing of the officers in command, were worthy
of Americans.
The loss of the enemy was 12 killed, 22 wounded and 15 prisoners.
That of the Federals 3 killed and 10 wounded.