Arkansas Civil War

On May 5, 1862 the US War Department created the Department of Kansas, and appointed 35 year old Brigadier Gen James G Blunt Commander. He migrated to KN from OH during the 1850’s and assisted John Brown in sending escaped slaves to Canada while practicing medicine in Greely KN. He didn’t have much to recommend militarily speaking except for a bulldog disposition similar to that of Gen Grant’s. His greatest asset was consistent good luck.

Gen Curtis crossed into AR northwest of Batesville approximately May 1 and felt somewhat relieved at the cessation of the rainy season with improved road conditions. The officers and men he led were all Midwesterners, mostly from IL with the smallest contingents from KN, WI and OH. Their world had been rolling prairies with prosperous farms and bustling towns and cities.

They were mostly young men in their twenties and away from home for the first time. Their encounter with the Ozark highlands at the beginning of their odyssey through MO and AR was at first a fascinating experience through an alien environment. Frequent descriptions of the beauty of the highlands filled diaries and letters to home and into prominent newspapers. It was, wrote a cavalryman “a wonderful change of scenery to the boys from the IL prairies.” One soldier observed; “The green pines and cedars look very pretty on the barren stony hills.”

Initially they acted like tourists in any day and age. One trooper from the wide open spaces of KN amused himself by pushing large rocks over steep cliffs “to see and hear them fall in the abyss below.” Another Kansan informed his brother that Arkansas (Benton CO) “is one remarkable country (sic) for fine streams of pure running water.”

But after a few weeks ,the Army of the Southwest became tired tourists and the excitement of the march began to wane. The bloody battle of Pea Ridge, the onset of torrential rains and the rigors of the eastward slog across the Ozark Plateau eroded morale and inspired contempt. “We are in a perfect wilderness, where not anything is to be seen but trees, stumps, hills and rivulets”, whined one officer. With harsh negative sentiment an Iowan described the landscape as “the roughest, meanest country God ever made (I think).” One infantryman ranted to the Indianapolis (IN) Dailey Journal, that the army of the Southwest was lost somewhere in “one of the most rantankerous, half-manufactured sections of the country you ever saw.”

What was so undesirable and repulsive to what had been a mountainous wonderland, was nothing compared to the disparagement of the inhabitants. “You have no idea how miserably poor the inhabitants of this section (Benton CO ) of the country are,” wrote one man to his mother. “They have barely enough to keep body and soul together which I suppose they make by hunting and I do think they are not fit for anything else.” The list of derogatory comments was endless. One soldier wrote the New York Tribune that Arkansas was a “semi-savage State.” Finally a WI soldier gave expression to his derision by declaring; “I have often heard and read of the ignorance of Southern people, but I have never been so convinced of the fact until I have had the opportunity of conversing with them.”

When the Army of the Southwest arrived in Batesville on May 5, the accolades were enormous. Not enough good could have been said for such a refined and pleasant appearing town and most spent an entire day walking around staring at the houses. But no amount of praise was redemptive enough to diminish the states tarnished reputation.

Before the war, AR already had an unfortunate reputation as a rugged wilderness populated by crude backwoodsmen. The disparaging descriptions given by the invaders reinforced this negative image and gave it widespread circulation among hundreds of thousands of Americans through newspapers from the Midwest to the east coast—-an image that plagues the state to this day. (William L Shea, A Semi-Savage State: The Image of Arkansas in the Civil War, AHQ, Winter 1989.)

On May 5, Governor Rector issued an inflammatory proclamation threatening to secede from the Confederacy. Abandonment of AR had cast a deep feeling of despair, but newspapers responded with an uproar of protest. The Gazette, True Democrat and Washington Telegraph claimed the governor only spoke for himself, and not for the vast majority of the people in the state. They also refrained from making derogatory remarks about the governor, but out-of-state newspapers were hostile and sometimes vicious in attacking him.

Many veterans of the battle of Shiloh were now on convalescent leave. In AR County, Sergeants Andrew J Gunnell, Daniel Brown and Private Frederick Foster would recuperate from their wounds to serve again. “Fred” Foster of Casscoe had farmed a small portion of a 40 acre strip one-half mile west of Cook’s Lake and would survive the conflict for his final homecoming.

One hundred and fifty years ago in Arkansas, the inevitable was taking place: people were taking advantage of a bad situation and creating a worse condition for fellow Arkansawyers. Throughout American history, people have always taken advantage of others in difficult and distressing times. Entitled “Extortion”, an article found in an 1862 Little Rock newspaper tells of price gouging, “Between the shopkeepers, who skin us all, including the country people; and the latter, who, to get even, run their produce up to the highest price, the people of towns and cities are plundered without sting.”

What could have caused such economic behavior in Arkansas? Lincoln’s illegal blockade had all but strangled the life from the Southern people making it difficult to obtain needed supplies from Europe and the rest of the world. One also cannot discount the dwindling morale of the South amid news of the reports of the high casualties from the Battle of Shiloh less than a month previous. One cannot also not discount the fall of New Orleans, thus shutting the Mississippi River off from the rest of civilization: “Upon the news of the fall of New Orleans, certain of our patriotic dealers ran sugar up from five and six to ten and twelve cents a pound, and molasses rose fifty or a hundred per cent. They pile on the price, and their plea is that they cannot replace their goods for a less price.”

The article continued, “Poor men are ground to the very dust, and the necessaries of life placed beyond their reach by the exactions of heartless spectators. When greed so fills the heart of a man as to lead him to such extortion, he is not fit to live among a free people. He is a Lincolnite in heart. Such a man would sell his country and his soul, if he had any, for ‘hard money.’ Dead to all the nobler impulses of humanity and the honest feelings of a patriot, he seeks to grow fat upon the life-blood of the poor. They may do so with impunity.”

As the Spring of 1862 warms up, the condition of Arkansas and its people worsens and a quick and easy fix to the economic problem becomes impossible as Arkansawyers dig in for the duration of the war.

As Editor of the Arkansas Toothpick, I must say that helping Joe Walker write Harvest of Death- The Battle of Jenkins’ Ferry, Arkansas was an honor. It was not until last summer that I began my journey to that horrific ordeal that transpired exactly 148 years ago as I compose this post. As the Battle of Guess’ Creek wound down and the Federal Army began crossing the Saline River at Jenkins’ Ferry, the rain began making life miserable for all trapped in the Saline River bottoms. What happened tomorrow 148 years ago is the subject of this book. No Arkansas historian’s bookshelf is complete without it, as it features never before published maps and documents that shed new light on this battle. Orders yours by clicking HERE!

Gen George B McClellan was placed in charge of Federal armies in the eastern theatre after Joseph E Johnston’s (no kin to A S Johnston who died at Shiloh) victory at first Bull Run. The 35 year old PA native did a superb job of restoring order to a chaotic army and accelerating troop morale. He was however anti-Republican—-the party of Lincoln. The opposing capitals of Washington and Richmond would continue to be the poles around which both armies shaped their strategies.

Disregarding a land route to Richmond, McClellan moved his massive army of over 100000 men from Washington and down the Potomac before taking steam transportation on Chesapeake Bay to Fort Monroe on the tip of the VA Peninsula. He planned to move from the east against the Confederate capital and its defenders which turned out to be a thin line of 17000 troops. After probing carefully the enemy works, McClellan amazingly declared them too strong to carry with a single thrust. He occupied this time in April with laying siege to what became known as the Yorktown Line, situated a few miles east of Fort Monroe.

After Shiloh, the Commander of the Department of MO, Major Gen Henry W Halleck, arrived and began preparations to capture Corinth. He had relieved his subordinate Gen Grant from the job because he disliked Grant and his job performance. Halleck’s gargantuan invasion force was composed of Grant’s Army of the TN, and Buell’s Army of the OH.

Gen Beauregard had been fortifying Corinth with a slow influx of infantry and artillery units from where the Richmond government could spare them. With the redeployment of Van Dorn’s Army of the West, he could look at a total force of about 65000 with some assurance. They also compensated for losses suffered at Shiloh, but the abandonment of MO and AR released twice its number of Federal troops in MO and KN for service in the east.

Halleck began a cautious advance on April 29, entrenching at the end of each day. He wasn’t going to be caught unaware like Generals Grant and Sherman at Shiloh. But a plodding advance of 1.5 miles a day didn’t inspire confidence or intimate the enemy.

Reacting to Van Dorn’s movement eastward, Gen Samuel Curtis had trekked back up into MO. The twisting highland roads or tracks through the Ozark wilderness were difficult and sometimes dangerous. Adding to the discomfiture were flooded stream crossings and short rations. Throughout the exhausting march supplies of every type were in demand.

At last on April 27, West Plains in south central MO was reached and much friendlier terrain seemed to suddenly open up. Halleck had recently directed Curtis and Brigadier Gen Frederick Steele to push their separate columns into northeastern AR and meet near Jacksonport. Satisfied that Price and Van Dorn had moved to Memphis, Halleck considered MO safe from invasion. He then left St Louis and took personal charge of Grants battered but victorious army.

New Orleans fell from naval operations initiated by Captain David G Farragut and Commander David D Porter . The city surrendered on the 25th. With the loss of Island NO. 10 and New Madrid MO, the MS River was open to the Confederacy as far as Memphis. After a year time would tell if the new nation could survive.

One hundred and fifty years ago the stark realization of war has hitting home in Arkansas. The past several columns have identified a grave problem of an overwhelmed medical infrastructure in the state in 1862 as thousands of sick and wounded soldiers lie convalescing in the homes of total strangers whose patriotic duty it was to nurse and care for the men of the Confederate Army.

Newspapers across Arkansas were steadily pounding out notices and announcements regarding the recovering soldiers and the work that must be done. Washington, Arkansas had its own newspaper. The Washington Telegraph, in fact, was the only newspaper that remained in print throughout the duration of the Civil War and remains to this day one of the best sources of information about Arkansas during the War.

Among the articles printed 150 years ago in Washington was one outlining the work done to prepare a wagon full of supplies to be sent to the capitol city in Little Rock to the sick and wounded soldiers in need. Among the items of most use solicited from the people of South Arkansas were in the article were basic:

“It may not be generally known that half worn clothes, such as shirts, drawers, socks, underclothes of all sorts, sheets, pillow cases, &c., are very much needed, and also large quantities of soap for washing. Soldiers are brought into the hospital in heavy woolen clothes, generally much soiled. They have mostly no change of garments, and are utterly unfit to be comfortably nursed. The hospital requires large stores to be kept constantly clean for frequent change. Life often depends on it, to say nothing of the comfort of the poor fellow, who lies many a weary day, thinking of home. Any food or herbs suitable for the sick or convalescent will also be acceptable.”

Among the more unpleasant things in print 150 years ago was how to prepare the dead for transportation back home for burial, as it “will, in a great degree, prevent the offensive odor from corpses, and while the remains of so many of our deceased soldiers are being transported from the camps homeward, it may be of service to publish it. Take two pounds of common salt, two pounds of alum, one pound of saltpeter–dissolve in six gallons of water, and keep the shrouding wet with the solution.”