OPERATIONS IN ARKANSAS IN 1864.
In January, 1864, a Convention of Delegates, representing the people of Arkansas, met at Little Rock, and remodelled the State Constitution, so as forever to abolish slavery. The Convention also elected a Provisional Government, under which efforts were made to restore quiet throughout the State. But the Confederates were still powerful in Arkansas, and the current of affairs was frequently vexed by rebel demonstrations, throughout the year. Engagements between the Unionists and roving squads of rebels were numerous, and sometimes disastrous. The organized forces of the Confederacy, stationed at various points in the State, numbered upwards of twenty-one thousand, and they were rarely idle.
Among the many minor battles which were fought at this time may be mentioned that of Cotton Plant, which happened on the twenty-second of April, and which may stand as a type of all the rest. It was incidental to the progress of an expedition, which had been sent out from Little Rock, to relieve the town of Batesville, on White river, from a threatened attack by the rebels under General McRae. The National force consisted of the Eighth Missouri cavalry, and was commanded by Colonel, afterwards General Andrews. The battle lasted four hours, and was hotly contested. The Unionists lost twenty-seven men, killed and wounded, while the rebel loss was upwards of one hundred. Colonel Andrews’s horse was shot beneath him. The expedition resulted successfully.
The most important military movement, however, which took place in Arkansas, this year, was an expedition from Little Rock, that set forth on the twenty-third of March, moving in a southwesterly direction, and designed to cooperate with General Banks, in his advance on Shreveport, Louisiana. The National force consisted of the Seventh Army Corps. The expedition was not successful in its ultimate design, but it led to one important battle, and it enabled the Unionists, in several encounters with the enemy, to display great courage and endurance and to win distinction. On the fifteenth of April, after frequent fights with detachments of the rebels, under Marmaduke, Shelby, Cabell, and Dockery, General Steele took possession of Camden, an important point on the Washita river. Here he remained eleven days, when he received intelligence of disaster to Banks, such as would preclude the proposed attack on Shreveport, and learned, also, that Kirby Smith was advancing, with eight thousand troops, to reinforce Price. Under those circumstances General Steele resolved to abandon Camden and retire towards Little Rock. This movement was begun on the night of April twenty-eighth. On the thirtieth the enemy was encountered, near Jenkins’s Ferry, on the river Sabine, where occurred the important fight which we have mentioned above. The enemy’s force was found to be large, and consisted of all his troops in southwestern Arkansas, and also some from Louisiana, and was commanded by General Smith, General Price, General Walker, and General Churchill. The forces under General Steele consisted of the commands of Generals Salomon, Rice, Thayer, Ingleman, and Colonel Benton. It was found impossible to cross the Sabine on the night when the troops reached it, in consequence of a heavy rainstorm and intense darkness, but the pontoon bridge was laid, and a small force of the Unionists crossed over. On the morning of the battle the rain poured in torrents, and in the midst of the storm the artillery trains and men were obliged to cross the river. Skirmishing had commenced in the rear with the first dawn of day, and a general and fierce engagement speedily succeeded, which continued for seven hours. The enemy fought with the wild desperation which characterized all their pitched battles, but were finally repulsed with very heavy loss. General Steele lost seven hundred men in killed and wounded, but secured a safe retreat to Little Rock, which he reached on the second day of May; and also redeemed, for the time, that portion of Arkansas and the State of Missouri from the hands of the rebels. The conduct of the troops under General Steele was of the most noble description throughout the whole campaign, as will be seen by the following address to his men:
“To you, troops of the Seventh Army Corps, who participated in the recent campaign designed to cooperate with General Banks’s movement against Shreveport, the Major-General commanding tenders his earnest and grateful thanks. Although you were compelled to fall back without seeing the main object of the expedition accomplished, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have beaten the enemy wherever he has met you in force, and extricated yourselves from the perilous position in which you were placed by the reverses of the cooperating column. This let loose upon you a superior force of the enemy, under one of their best generals, causing the loss of your trains and the total interruption of your communications, rendering it impossible for you to obtain supplies. You have fallen back over rivers and swamps, while pressed by a superior force of the enemy. This you have done successfully, punishing the enemy severely at the same time.
“The patience with which you have endured hardships and privations, and your heroic conduct on the battle-field, have been brought to the notice of the Government, and will furnish a page in the history of this war of which you may well be proud.
The rebel force subsequently became still more formidable in the State of Arkansas, owing to the failure of Banks’s Red river expedition. Large forces of Confederates, relieved from the necessity of opposing Banks, were enabled to concentrate in Arkansas, and keep General Steele at bay, in Little Rock. So completely, indeed, did the rebels overrun the State, that, by the close of the year 1864, Little Rock, Fort Smith, Pine Bluff, Duval’s Bluff, and a few other points, were all that the National arms preserved. The State was, likewise, furnished with a rebel State government; and, altogether its affairs seemed anything but promising to the hopes of the Unionists within its borders.
Having ample troops in Arkansas, and desiring to work as much mischief as possible, the rebel General Price projected an