Skirmish at Pitman’s Ferry (April 1, 1862)

The April 1, 1862, Skirmish at Pitman’s Ferry took place as Brigadier General Frederick Steele moved his division of the Union army from southeastern Missouri to join Major General Samuel Curtis’s Army of the Southwest in Arkansas.

On March 19, 1862, Steele ordered Colonel William P. Carlin to establish a base at Doniphan, Missouri, or Pitman’s Ferry on the Current River to gather supplies for his division as it moved into Arkansas. Pitman’s Ferry, located on the Southwest Trail, was a major route for travel between Arkansas and Missouri and would be the site of four skirmishes in 1862—on April 1, July 20, October 27, and November 25.

Carlin led his own Thirty-eighth Illinois Infantry along with the Twenty-first Illinois Infantry Regiment, the Fifth Illinois Cavalry Regiment, and the Sixteenth Ohio Battery toward Doniphan on March 31, 1862. The next morning, the Fifth Illinois began skirmishing with pickets from Captain Timothy Reeves’ Company of Independent Scouts when they were about four miles east of Doniphan. The Illinois troopers pursued the Confederates through Doniphan, eventually forcing them across the Current River into Arkansas.

Reeves’s men began shooting at the horsemen, and Colonel Hall Wilson ordered Companies B and C to cross the Current, but a barricade of trees and brush blocked the ford at Pitman’s Ferry, stopping their advance—but not before two troopers were thrown from their skittish horses. Wilson found a second ford about 300 yards upriver and led Companies C and G into the rushing water, while Company B provided covering fire from the Missouri shore.

Reeves was wounded, falling from his horse, but his men grabbed him and rode to safety, with the Illinois cavalrymen chasing them for a few hundred yards before abandoning their pursuit in deference to their exhausted horses. The Sixteenth Ohio Battery reached the river in time to shoot a few shells toward the retreating rebels.

While the Federals sustained no casualties, a Confederate lieutenant was killed, several men—including Reeves—were wounded, and five men were captured, along with “camp equipage, horses, mules, forage, and a number of small-arms.”

Carlin’s command, along with the rest of Steele’s division, joined Curtis’s army in Helena (Phillips County) in mid-July. The April 1 Skirmish at Pitman’s Ferry was the first combat experienced by the Fifth Illinois Cavalry, but they would soon see action in several fights in eastern Arkansas, including the June 17, 1862, Skirmish at Smithville; the September 26, 1862, Expedition from Helena; and the May 11, 1863, Skirmishes at Taylor’s Creek and Mount Vernon.

For additional information:
Kohl, Rhonda M. The Prairie Boys Go to War: The Fifth Illinois Cavalry, 1861–1865. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013.

The War of the Rebellion: A compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Vol. 8, pp. 627, 651, 657. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1883.

Mark K. Christ
Central Arkansas Library System