John L. Logan (1833–1871)

Confederate colonel John Leroy Logan, a pharmacist and merchant from Camden (Ouachita County), served during the Civil War as a company and regimental commander in the Eleventh Arkansas Infantry and Eleventh and Seventeenth Consolidated Arkansas Mounted Infantry. He later commanded cavalry brigades in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas until the surrender of the Trans-Mississippi Department in May 1865.

John Logan was born on February 14, 1833, in Greenwood, South Carolina, the third child of Tyler Logan and Nancy Davis Logan. In 1839, the family migrated to Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Logan attended school, becoming a pharmacist and establishing his practice at Holly Springs, Mississippi. In 1854, he married Mary Jane Danforth, moving to Arkansas and settling in Camden.

After the secession of Arkansas, Logan enlisted in July 1861 and was elected captain of the Second Company of the Camden Knights, which became Company G, Eleventh Arkansas Infantry. The regiment served in defense of the Mississippi River above Memphis, Tennessee. Logan received permission to raise a regiment and succeeded but was defeated at the election to colonel by James M. Gee. Logan returned to his company at New Madrid, Missouri, serving during the March battles before being captured with the entire Confederate force at Tiptonville, Tennessee, on April 8, 1862. He spent the summer in military prison at Camp Chase and Johnson’s Island, Ohio, until exchanged in September.

At the reorganization of the regiment, Logan was elected colonel, relocating it to the Port Hudson, Louisiana, defenses on the Mississippi River. In March 1863, the Eleventh Arkansas was consolidated with the Seventeenth Arkansas Infantry and mounted, with Logan, being senior colonel, retained as commander. Logan was then assigned as a cavalry brigade commander, with Colonel John Griffith of the Seventeenth taking over the Eleventh and Seventeenth Consolidated Arkansas Mounted Infantry.

In April, Logan was sent outside the works of Port Hudson in defense against the Grierson raid and thus was not present when Port Hudson was surrounded. From April to July 1863, Logan’s brigade participated in numerous battles in the Port Hudson campaign at Plains Store, Bayou Sara, and Clinton, Louisiana. He planned the raid and capture of Brigadier General Neil Dow, who was used to gain the release of General Robert E. Lee’s son, Brigadier General W. H. F. “Rooney” Lee, from prison. After the capitulation of Port Hudson on July 9, 1863, Logan’s brigade successfully routed a Union command at the battle of Jackson, Louisiana. In October, Logan’s force operated in central Mississippi against a major Union expedition out of Vicksburg. From October 16 to October 18, Logan’s brigade fought in the battles of Brownsville, Mississippi; Catlett’s and Treadwell’s Plantations along Bogue Chitto Creek; and Robinson’s Mills at Lexington, Mississippi.

Logan transferred back to Arkansas in November and was assigned to the Eleventh Arkansas Cavalry, previously designated as Poe’s Battalion, Arkansas Cavalry. In August, Major General Sterling Price took almost all the cavalry in Arkansas on his Missouri Raid, leaving Logan behind commanding a skeleton cavalry force screening the infantry in southern Arkansas. Logan’s scattered commands fought numerous small battles, with the largest being the skirmish at Hurricane Creek in Saline County on October 23, 1864. After the return of Price, Logan’s command spent the duration of the war in southwestern Arkansas in the vicinity of Darby’s Ferry on the Red River, where he furloughed the men home on May 22, 1865, before the official surrender of the Trans-Mississippi.

Upon his parole at Marshall, Texas, on June 23, 1865, Logan returned to Camden before moving to New Orleans in 1869, opening a wholesale dry goods mercantile. Two years later, Logan contracted yellow fever and died on November 1, 1871, survived by his wife and three children. He was interred in the Girod Street Cemetery in New Orleans.

For additional information:
“Col. John Leroy Logan.” Find a Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/136304413/john_leroy-logan (accessed June 5, 2026).

Rushing, Anthony C. Ranks of Honor: A Regimental History of the Eleventh Arkansas Infantry Regiment and Poe’s Cavalry Battalion, C.S.A., 1861–1865. Little Rock: Eagle Press, 1990.

Willis, James. Arkansas Confederates in the Western Theater. Dayton, OH: Morningside Press, 1998.

Anthony Rushing
Benton, Arkansas