Expedition from Helena to LaGrange (October 6–7, 1863)

A two-day Civil War expedition of Union cavalry from Helena (Phillips County) to LaGrange (Lee County) was undertaken to capture a Confederate officer, an effort that proved unsuccessful.

Major Eagleton Carmichael left Helena on the evening of October 6, 1863, with 100 men of the Fifteenth Illinois Cavalry Regiment, heading to the house of Confederate Lieutenant Joe Green of Colonel Archibald Dobbins’s Arkansas Cavalry Regiment near LaGrange.

The Federals rode through the night and captured Private John Barr Jamison of Dobbins’s regiment early the next morning. They continued on to the house of Green, “whom we found had received notice of our approach and taken to the woods.” They arrested “a negro man named Joe who had carried information of our approach to Lt. Green.”

The cavalrymen continued toward LaGrange and captured Corporal Arthur W. Robinson of Dobbins’s regiment—“the owner of the above mentioned negro”—and Privates Joel Self and Richard Porter, also of Dobbins’s command. The Federals returned to Helena by following the road along the St. Francis River, arriving at their base at 5:00 p.m. October 7, having captured four Confederates and several horses, saddles, bridles, and weapons.

While largely uneventful, the October expedition from Helena to LaGrange was typical of the routine forays of Union troops from Helena in search of Confederate soldiers and guerrillas that frequented the area near the Mississippi River base.

For additional information:
Carmichael to Captain T. C. Meatyard, October 8, 1863. National Archives and Records Administration, Records of Named Departments, 393P2E299, Box 1.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas