Pine Bluff was recently witness to a historical event. On Saturday, April 4, 2009, the Arkansas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans held the only known Confederate memorial on the campus of a historically black university. The memorial service included libations to 4 Confederate markers and recognition of 37 unknown slaves’ markers. Of the nearly one hundred in attendance, not a one left without a better and more comprehensive understanding of the importance of Pine Bluff and the surrounding area during key battles and campaigns during the Civil War.
Noted local historian, Doyle Taylor, was the keynote speaker at the memorial service. Taylor noted that Pine Bluff, and specifically the area in which the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff is currently situated, played an important role in the Vicksburg Campaign. Terry Winchel, Vicksburg National Park historian, along with the Director of Ft. Donelson National Park, the Director of Shiloh National Battlefield, the Director of Arkansas Post National Park, and the District Manager of National Parks in Denver, Colorado, surveyed several areas of interest that played an important role in the Vicksburg Campaign.
Among the various historical sites surveyed,Camp Wright, the area in which the stadium now sits, may have been home to as many as 2000-3000 Confederate soldiers in Walker’s Texas Division. General Walker’s Headquarters was located at the Bell Mansion, recently destroyed by fire. Camp Wright was located at the Wright Plantation, in which the current enclosed small cemetery located on the north edge of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff’s football stadium parking lot now sits. The small cemetery is all that remains of the Wright Plantation.
It was on this land that twenty-nine slaves lived and worked. These slaves were part of the 150 slaves from the Pine Bluff area that assisted in the construction of Ft. Pleasant, a heavily fortified wood and earthen fort situated on the south shore of the Arkansas River. One of the cannons garrisoned at Ft. Pleasant now rests on the front lawn of the Old State House in Little Rock.
In 2002, while preparing the ground for the construction of the football stadium, construction workers discovered that where the stadium and parking lot was to be erected was a cemetery. Thirty-seven unknown slaves were moved to the Jane Oliver Cemetery, located only a few hundred yards from the Wright Cemetery.
These two cemeteries remained inconspicuous, largely, until Edgar Colvin, member of the local Sons of Confederate Veterans, began restoring and preserving them. Colvin, through his preservation efforts, marked the area that the thirty-seven slaves were reinterred in the Jane Oliver Cemetery and four Confederate markers in the Wright Cemetery.
Of the four Confederate markers dedicated, one was for a soldier in Patrick R. Cleburne’s 15th Arkansas Company B, also known as The Jefferson Guard. Another marker represents a soldier in the 18th Arkansas Infantry, another marker was for a soldier in Walker’s Texas Division, while the 4th marker dedicated represented the unknown soldiers who are currently interred in unknown graves throughout the vicinity, possibly numbering into the hundreds.
Local Son of Confederate Veterans Ron Kelley noted, “We come in Peace. We are far from a racist group, as our job is to restore and preserve our history. Today we not only pay tribute to fallen Confederate soldiers but also to the slaves that called the Wright Plantation home. Today is a very important day in our history as both Confederates and slaves alike are recognized. We come in peace.”
