Entry Category: Civil War - Starting with U

Confederate guerrillas fired on the U.S. transport Marmora as it was steaming up the White River taking the Fifty-Third U.S. Colored Troops to St. Charles (Arkansas County) on October 22, 1864, killing three men and wounding up to eighteen others. On October 14, 1864, Major General Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana ordered six Union regiments, including the Fifty-Third U.S. Colored Troops, to bolster Federal forces based at the mouth of the White River. The Fifty-Third boarded the steamboat Bart Able at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and headed north, arriving at its destination on October 18. Four days later, the regiment was traveling up the White River to occupy St. Charles. While the Marmora approached Prairie Landing, Confederate guerrillas concealed in the trees along …

The USS Queen City was captured and sunk during an engagement on the White River in June 1864. It is the only example of a warship’s being captured by land forces in Arkansas. The Union stationed the Queen City on the White River in eastern Arkansas to protect barges going up the river to DeValls Bluff (Prairie County) and to combat any Confederate troops in the area. DeValls Bluff was vital to the Union forces in occupied Little Rock (Pulaski County) at the time, because much of their supplies were brought up the White from the Mississippi River and placed on a railroad in DeValls Bluff that then carried the goods to Little Rock. If the White were closed to …