First Arkansas Light Artillery Battery (African Descent) (US)

The First Arkansas Light Artillery Battery (African Descent) was one of two artillery units raised in Arkansas during the Civil War that were manned by formerly enslaved men.

The recruiting of African American military units to serve in the Union army was approved with the creation of the U.S. War Department’s Bureau of Colored Troops on May 22, 1863. At least seven regiments of Black troops were raised in Arkansas, but only two artillery batteries were recruited in the state: the First Arkansas Light Artillery Battery (African Descent), raised at Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), and the Third Louisiana Light Artillery Battery (African Descent), raised at Helena (Phillips County).

The First Arkansas Light Artillery Battery (African Descent) was organized at Pine Bluff on June 4, 1864, and would spend its entire term of service there. As with other African American units, the First Arkansas Battery had white officers, though Black men could serve as non-commissioned officers. The battery’s designation was changed to Battery H, Second U.S. Colored Artillery (Light) on December 13, 1864.

The battery ventured out of the Pine Bluff area only once, when it participated in an expedition to Mount Elba (Cleveland County) along with troops of the First Iowa, First Missouri (US), and Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry Regiments; the Thirty-Third Iowa, Twenty-Eighth Wisconsin, Fiftieth Indiana, and Forty-Third, 106th, and 126th Illinois Infantry Regiments; and the Twenty-Fifth Ohio Artillery Battery and the pontoon corps. Led by Brigadier General Eugene Carr, the expedition started on January 22, 1865, and ended on February 4, losing one cavalryman in skirmishing on the Saline River.

Almost all of the battery’s horses were turned over to the quartermaster and ordnance master in Pine Bluff in March and April 1865, and Battery H moved from its camp in the field to man the fortifications at Pine Bluff in May and June. Battery H, Second U.S. Colored Artillery (Light) mustered out on September 15, 1865.

For additional information:
Dyer, Frederick. A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. Des Moines, IA: Dyer Publishing Co., 1908.

Hewett, Janet B., et al., eds. Supplement to the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Vol. 77. Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot Publishing Co., 1998.

The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Vol. 48, part 1, section 1, pp. 60–61. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1896.

Weidman, Budge. Introduction to National Archives Microfilm Publications M1818—Compiled Military Service Records of Volunteer Union Soldiers Who Served with the United States Colored Troops: Artillery Organizations. Washington DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1998.

Mark K. Christ
Central Arkansas Library System