Expedition from Helena to Desha County (April 29–May 2, 1864)

A wide-ranging April 29–May 2, 1864, Union expedition from Helena (Phillips County) to Desha County during the Civil War resulted in the capture of several Confederate soldiers.

On April 29, 1864, Brigadier General Napoleon Bonaparte Buford ordered Major Eagleton Carmichael of the Fifteenth Illinois Cavalry to take 100 of his men “and make a raid on the island between the mouths of White and Arkansas Rivers. You will make a careful search for enemies, guerrillas, negro stealers and horse thieves. You will capture or destroy all who are found in arms of giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” To accomplish this, Buford wrote, “I furnish you the steam-boat Dove, and a colored guard of 40 men, 80 infantry and 10 artillerists.” The “colored guard” for the steamboat was likely composed of men from the Fifty-sixth U.S. Colored Troops since their commander, Colonel William S. Brooks, took part in the expedition.

The soldiers boarded the Dove on April 29 and steamed south on the Mississippi River, stopping by Fort Pinney and Islands 63 and 66 before reaching the mouth of the White River, where Carmichael conferred with Lieutenant Commander James M. Pritchett of the USS Tyler. They disembarked there and camped for the night.

Having found guides familiar with the area south of the Arkansas River, the Federals returned to the Dove at 8:00 a.m. on April 30, 1864, and proceeded to the Arkansas via the White River cut-off. They got off the steamboat at Dr. Rollins’ Landing on the south bank of the river and found “a detail of Capt. Thompsons rebel Cavalry guarding some Cotton.” The Confederates fled (one man was captured), and the Federals learned that the cotton had been baled and brought to the river “by a rebel command under a Capt Roberts—who has a small Co. in that neighborhood.” Thompson’s men seized the cotton from their smaller band of allies, and Carmichael turned the seventeen bales over to a U.S. Treasury agent. “Being detained a short time on account of pressing teams and trying to ascertain the whereabouts of those Companies, gave the rebels so much the start of us, that they had time to get away,” he wrote.

The Federals then proceeded to “a Bayou called Red Fork,” where they arrested a man named Ayers, who “was a Capt in a Texas Rebel Regt, but [who] has married a very rich widow by the name of Watson,” on whose farm he was apprehended. They also captured Colonel Thomas H. Turner and Captain W. H. Thomas of the Ninth Missouri Infantry Regiment (CS), as well as Private William D. Richmond of Wright’s Arkansas Cavalry Regiment (CS), “who was with Col Turner and tried to make his escape at the same time.”

They also made a prisoner of Captain S. J. Brandenburgh, “who has commanded a notorious Co known as the Desha County Partisan Rangers….I learned from a man who was recommended to me, that he is a very bad man.” The Union troops met the Dove at the mouth of the Red Fork and traveled downriver to a Dr. Rawlins’s place, where they camped for the night.

At 6:00 a.m. on May 1, the Illinois horsemen rode south to Napoleon (Desha County)—Carmichael wrote that “we found nothing on the way”—where they again boarded the Dove, which under Major Samuel B. Sherer of the Fifteenth Illinois had been ordered “to proceed down the Ark river and carefully examine the shores for any kind of boats, that might be used in crossing to the Islands.” Buford had ordered all such boats destroyed. Returning to the mouth of the White River, Carmichael met a man named Porter, who reported that he ran a wood yard on Island 68 and that, on the night of April 30, he “had been robbed by some rebels, he could not tell me…who they were, but believing they were from the Laconia neighborhood.” The Dove steamed toward Laconia (Desha County), and the horsemen went ashore around midnight.

While scouting the area, the Federals—led by Sherer, as Carmichael had fallen ill—captured Captain James Blackburn of Cocke’s Arkansas Infantry Regiment and Lieutenant William P. Warfield of the Second Arkansas Infantry Regiment (CS). They “also wounded a Mr Miller, who was one of the robbers, who had robbed Porter.” Carmichael wrote that it was Colonel Brooks who “severely wounded the robber Miller [and] he received a shot through his coat skirt.” Miller apparently escaped capture, only to be mortally wounded during the May 27–29, 1864, scout from Helena to Laconia.

Carmichael, meanwhile, sent a squad from the Dove to patrol inland for three miles; they captured Private Henry Myers of the Ninth Texas Cavalry Regiment.

Sherer’s troops reunited with the Dove at around 2:00 p.m. on May 2. The horsemen patrolled over the area until it was almost dark. Carmichael wrote that some of the company commanders “thought it would be almost impossible for the men to ride that night. they were greatly fatigued,” so the expedition returned to Helena. In addition to the prisoners, the major wrote that “we captured and seized during the trip eleven horses, one mule, eleven guns and five Revolvers.”

The April 29–May 2, 1864, expedition from Helena was typical of the frequent forays made from the Union’s Mississippi River base in search of Confederate soldiers, guerrillas and sympathizers operating in the area.

For additional information:
Carmichael to Captain T. C. Meatyard, May 4, 1864. National Archives and Records Administration, Records of Named Departments, 393P2E299, Box 1.

The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series 1, Vol. 34, part 3. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1891, p. 344.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas