Arkansas Civil War

HELENA-WEST HELENA – The reenactment of the Battle of Helena was held a few weeks ago, but plans are underway to observe the 150th anniversary on the actual date of the battle, July 4. Activities will take place at several sites around town.

The day’s activities will begin with a first light viewing from Confederate Memorial Park at 4:30 a.m. The event will commemorate the beginning of the Battle of Helena, which was plagued with confusion that resulted in hundreds of Confederate casualties. The confusion centered around different interpretations of the order to attack at “daylight.” The park is located just south of the Moore-Hornor House on Beech Street. Participants are asked to bring their own seating and flashlights.

Civil War reenactors will be on site at Fort Curtis and the Moore-Hornor House from 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. to talk about the battle. They will also demonstrate how to load a cannon on the grounds of the Moore-Hornor House. In addition, a slideshow of the Battle of Helena reenactment will be showing at the Moore-Hornor House and tours of the house will be conducted.

From 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. the reenactors will conduct hands-on activities for youngsters at the DCC Visitors Center. These will include a demonstration on how to make a bullet. Coffee will be used instead of gunpowder!

The inspirational family film, “The Light of Freedom,” will be shown in the Delta Sounds room of the Visitors Center from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. The film focuses on the Underground Railroad, and promises to educate and entertain as it encourages the audience to stand for the freedom of every person. More information about the movie can be found at http://thelightoffreedommovie.com

The DCC Depot and Visitors Center will be open for visitors from 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Visitors are reminded of the Civil War exhibit on the upper floor at the Depot.

All events are free and open to the public.

For more information, interested persons can call the Delta Cultural Center at (870) 338-4350 or toll free at (800) 358-0972 or visit the DCC online at www.deltaculturalcenter.com.

The Delta Cultural Center shares the vision of all seven agencies of the Department of Arkansas Heritage – to preserve and promote Arkansas heritage as a source of pride and satisfaction. Other agencies within the department are the Historic Arkansas Museum, the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, the Old State House Museum, the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, the Arkansas Arts Council, and the Natural Heritage Commission.

LITTLE ROCK—The Civil War Helena Tour and Battle of Pine Bluff Audio Tour have been added to the National Park Service’s Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission Chairman Tom Dupree announced today.

“We’re excited that two more Arkansas sites have been added to the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom just weeks before the Network holds its annual conference in Arkansas,” Dupree said. “These sites help highlight the African American experience during the Civil War in Arkansas.”

The Civil War Helena Tour, located in various sites around Helena-West Helena, tells the story of freedom seekers who followed the Union army to the Mississippi River, received jobs and education, and in many cases joined the army to fight for their freedom.

The Battle of Pine Bluff Audio Tour highlights the October 25, 1863, battle in which Confederate troops attacked a small Union garrison at Pine Bluff. The Union soldiers fought off the attack with the assistance of African American civilians who helped fortify the courthouse square, fight fires, and fight off a Confederate attempt to cut off the Federal soldiers. The audio tour sign is adjacent to the Jefferson County Courthouse, or can be accessed athttp://www.arkansascivilwar150.com/civil-war-sites/audio/.

Other Arkansas sites on the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom include Freedom Park in Helena-West Helena and Poison Spring State Park in Ouachita County.

The Network’s annual conference, “The War for Freedom: The Underground Railroad During the Civil War,” will be held in Little Rock June 19-22. More information on the conference is available athttp://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/annual-conference.htm.

The National Park Service’s national Underground Railroad program seeks to coordinate preservation and education efforts nationwide and integrate local historical places, museums, and interpretive programs associated with the Underground Railroad into a mosaic of community, regional, and national stories. The NPS project builds upon and is supported by community initiatives around the country as well as legislation passed in 1990 and the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Act of 1998. Historic places and educational or interpretive programs associated with the Underground Railroad will become part of a network, eligible to use or display a uniform network logo, receive technical assistance and participate in program workshops.

The Network also helps facilitate communication and networking between researchers and interested parties, and aid in the development of statewide organizations for preserving and researching Underground Railroad sites.

For more information on Arkansas Civil War sesquicentennial plans, visit http://www.arkansascivilwar150.com/or e-mailacwsc@arkansasheritage.org.

The Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission is housed within the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. The AHPP is the Department of Arkansas Heritage agency responsible for identifying, evaluating, registering and preserving the state’s cultural resources. Other agencies are the Arkansas Arts Council, the Delta Cultural Center in Helena, the Old State House Museum, the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission and the Historic Arkansas Museum.

The Delta Cultural Center has several events planned in February in observance of Black History Month. A new exhibit, “African American Artists in the Arkansas Delta”, will be on display at the DCC Visitors Center from February 5 through March 30. The exhibit is a collection of artworks of several different media by African American artists, living and deceased, who have worked in the Arkansas Delta. The exhibit includes drawing, acrylic and oil painting, watercolor, sculpture, ceramic, and photography and mixed media pieces, created by ten artists with different levels of training, different career paths, and different amounts of exposure of their works.

Artists included are Dewitt Jordan, 1932-1977, paintings and drawings; Isaac Scott Hathaway, 1874-1976, sculpture and ceramics; Ed Wade, watercolor; Henri Linton, acrylic painting; George Hunt, painting; Ernest Jefferson Davidson, Jr., 1946-2006, sculpture; Alonzo Ford, drawing; Juanita Eldridge, textile; J. C. “Ratt” Smith, mixed media; James “Super Chickan” Johnson, mixed media; and Rogerline Johnson and Steve Johnson, photography.

The exhibit features some pieces that are graciously loaned from private local collectors, and will provide an opportunity to see paintings rarely placed on public view. The exhibit will also be a collaboration with our sister museum, Mosaic Templars Cultural Center in Little Rock, Arkansas.

An opening reception is planned for Friday, February 15, at 5:30 p.m.

Pine Bluff historian John Mitchell will present a program entitled, “The Freedom Process – From Field to Freedom,” at the next meeting of the Civil War Roundtable of the Delta on Thursday, February 14. The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Beth El Heritage Hall. The Roundtable meets the second Thursday of each month and features a program about the Civil War in the Delta.

The story of the Hoxie School desegregation will be presented on Thursday, February 21, at the DCC Visitors Center beginning at 5:30 p.m. The presenter will be Fayth Hill Washington who was one of the African Americans students, known as the Hoxie 21, who integrated with the previously all-white Hoxie School. The Hoxie School desegregation is significant because it was the first integration of grades K-12 in the Delta, taking place two years before the more well-known desegregation of Little Rock’s Central High School.

The dedication of Freedom Park, Helena’s newest site in the Civil War Helena project, will take place on Saturday, February 23, at noon. Freedom Park is the first site in Arkansas to be designated a Network to Freedom site by the National Park Service. A Contraband camp, it was one of several places in Helena where tents and makeshift shelters served as temporary homes for the refugee slaves—freedom seekers—who came to Helena. They came because Union-controlled Helena was the only place in Confederate Arkansas where freedom was possible.
Continuing our observance of Black History Month will be Rhonda Stewart, genealogist with the Butler Center. She will present a program entitled, “The Legacy of Richard Toombs,” on Thursday, February 28, at 5:30 p.m. at the DCC Visitors Center. Toombs was Stewart’s ancestor who was with the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War.
All events are free and open to the public.

Delta Cultural Center shares the vision of all seven agencies of the Department of Arkansas Heritage – to preserve and promote Arkansas heritage as a source of pride and satisfaction. Other agencies within the department are the Historic Arkansas Museum, the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, the Old State House Museum, the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, the Arkansas Arts Council, and the Natural Heritage Commission.

For more information contact:
Paula Oliver (870) 338-4350 or (800) 358-0972
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, February 7, 2013

The session featuring Dan Sutherland and Jerry Thompson from the “An Empire in Extent: The Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi” seminar held in Fayetteville in August will air on C-SPAN 3 on Saturday at 6pm & 10pm ET and on Sunday @ 11am ET. For anyone who does not get C-SPAN 3, it streams live over the weekends at http://www.c-span.org/History/. And if you want the entire seminar on DVD, you can email ccoester@uark.edu to find out how. Enjoy!

Mark Christ
Community Outreach Director
Arkansas Historic Preservation Program
323 Center Street, Suite 1500
Little Rock, AR 72201
(501) 324-9886
FAX (501) 324-9184

WASHINGTON – The Friends of Jenkins Ferry Battlefield group has received a grant of $40,000 from the National Parks Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program (ABPP) to fund a preservation plan for the Civil War Jenkins Ferry Battlefield in Arkansas.

“We are proud to support projects like this that safeguard and preserve American battlefields,” said Jon Jarvis, Director of the National Park Service. “These places are symbols of individual sacrifice and national heritage that we must protect so that this and future generations can understand the struggles that define us as a nation.”

This grant is one of 27 National Park Service grants totaling $135 million to preserve and protect significant park sites from all wars fought on American soil. Funded projects preserve battlefields from the Colonial-Indian Wars through World War I) and include site mapping (GPS GIS data collection), archeological studies, National Register of Historic Places nominations, preservation and management plans.

Federal, state, local, and Tribal governments, nonprofit organizations, and educational institutions are eligible for National Park Service battlefield grants which are awarded annually. Since 1996 more than $14 million has been awarded by ABPP to help preserve significant historic battlefields associated with wars on American soil. Additional information is online at www.nps.gov/history/hps/abpp.