Entries - Entry Category: Individuals and Units - Starting with S

Salomon, Friedrich (Fred)

Friedrich Salomon was a German immigrant who became a Union general during the Civil War, playing a prominent role in several battles in Arkansas. Friedrich (or Fred) Salomon was born on April 7, 1826, in Strobeck in the Harz district of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. He was the son of Christoph Salomon—a veteran of the Napoleonic wars—and Dorothea Klussman Salomon. He was trained as a civil engineer and architect and was serving as a lieutenant of artillery when revolutions in Germany led him and his family to immigrate to the United States, settling in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, in 1848. Salomon became a surveyor and registrar of deeds and worked as an engineer in siting the Manitowoc & Wisconsin Railroad. He married Mathilde Ebel …

Second Arkansas Cavalry (CS)

The Second Arkansas Cavalry was the name of several Confederate units that served during the Civil War. These units are not to be confused with the Second Arkansas Mounted Rifles, which served for much of the war as an infantry regiment. The first unit to be organized as the Second Arkansas Cavalry was based on the Second Arkansas Cavalry Battalion. After the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee in April 1862, the battalion was created from independent companies in northern Mississippi. This unit consisted of five companies from Calhoun, Bradley, Jefferson, Dallas, and Ashley counties. In May 1862, the battalion consolidated with the Sixth Arkansas Cavalry Battalion, which consisted of four companies from Drew, Crittenden, and White counties, along with two …

Second Arkansas Cavalry (US)

Arkansas seceded from the Union in 1861, but support for the Confederacy was not universal among the population. In the mountains of north-central Arkansas, groups of men formed secret societies to resist Confederate authority (known collectively as the Arkansas Peace Society). Hundreds more fled to southern Missouri to escape persecution by secessionist forces. In other parts of the state, far from the Union lines, people were forced to bide their time and keep quiet. As a distinct minority in a state frenzied by war, many Arkansas Unionists could ill afford to have their true sympathies known. During the summer of 1862, the Union army made its way to Helena (Phillips County) after an abortive attempt to capture Little Rock (Pulaski …

Second Arkansas Infantry (African Descent) (US)

aka: Fifty-fourth U.S. Colored Infantry

The Second Arkansas Infantry (African Descent) was one of the many African-American units formed following the Emancipation Proclamation. The regiment was raised under the commands of Lieutenant Colonel George W. De Costa and Major George W. Burchard in early 1863 and was composed primarily of freed slaves in the Arkansas River Valley. Before the unit could officially report for muster as part of the District of Eastern Arkansas, it found itself engaged in the Battle of Helena. On the morning of July 4, 1863, Confederate forces under the command of Lieutenant General Theophilus Holmes organized a three-pronged attack on the fortified Union position at Helena (Phillips County). The attack would ultimately fail, securing eastern Arkansas as a Union supply stronghold …

Second Arkansas Infantry (CS)

The Second Arkansas Infantry was a Confederate regiment that saw service in the Western Theater during the Civil War. It is not to be confused with the Second Arkansas Infantry Battalion, which fought in the Eastern Theater. The Second Arkansas was formed in the summer of 1861. Former congressman Thomas Hindman of Helena (Phillips County) obtained permission from Confederate secretary of war LeRoy Walker to recruit an infantry regiment. The state was responsible for providing the arms for the unit. Ten companies were raised by June 1, with six at Helena and four at Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). The companies were from Phillips, Jefferson, Bradley, and Saline counties. Support from state authorities never materialized, and Hindman personally provided the funds …

Second Arkansas Infantry (US)

The Second Arkansas Infantry Regiment served in the Federal army during the Civil War. Comprised of white Unionists, the unit served almost exclusively within Arkansas. Efforts were made to organize units of white Unionists in the state with the arrival of Federal forces in 1862. The Second Arkansas began recruitment in September 1863 in Springfield, Missouri. The unit recruited Unionists who fled Arkansas, as well as pro-Union men who remained in the northwestern corner of the state. Recruiting for the regiment was slow, and when the organized companies met in Fort Smith (Sebastian County) in January 1864, only four companies were able to meet the minimum number of men required. Even before these units moved to Fort Smith, the regiment …

Second Arkansas Infantry Battalion (CS)

The Second Arkansas Infantry Battalion was a Confederate unit that served in the Eastern Theater during the American Civil War. It was one of only three Arkansas units to serve in Virginia, along with the First and Third Arkansas Infantry regiments. Decimated during the Seven Days Battles, it saw its survivors discharged or transferred into the Third Arkansas Infantry. In September 1861, three independent companies organized at Hot Springs (Garland County), Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), and El Dorado (Union County). On the recommendation of recruiting officers for the First Arkansas Infantry, they journeyed to Virginia to join that regiment. When the three companies arrived, the First Arkansas had the required ten companies. On October 29, 1861, the three new companies …

Seventeenth Arkansas Infantry (CS)

The Seventeenth Arkansas was a unit that served in the Confederate army during the American Civil War. The unit saw service in Arkansas and in the Western Theater of the war. Another unit was also known as the Seventeenth Arkansas Infantry for a period. The regiment organized on November 17, 1861, with eight companies from Washington, Sebastian, Madison, and Hempstead counties. The unit never gained two more companies to grow to full strength. Frank Rector was elected as the first colonel of the regiment. Assigned to Brigadier General Benjamin McCulloch’s division in the Army of the West, the regiment served in a brigade under the command of Colonel Louis Herbert. The regiment’s first action came on February 18, 1862, at …

Seventh Arkansas Infantry (CS)

The Seventh Arkansas Infantry was a regiment that served in the Confederate army during the American Civil War. Spending most of its service in the Western Theater, the regiment served for the duration of the war. After Arkansas seceded from the Union on May 6, 1861, military units began to organize across the state. Companies organized in communities and moved to a number of camps to create larger units. Ten companies from northeastern Arkansas organized at Smithville (Lawrence County) into the Seventh Arkansas on June 16, 1861. The companies in the new regiment were from Jackson, Independence, Marion, Izard, Fulton, White, and Randolph counties. The first colonel of the regiment was Robert Shaver, an attorney from Lawrence County. The unit …

Shaver, Robert Glenn

Robert Glenn Shaver was a former Confederate officer who raised Arkansas troops for the war, a commander who was wounded in battle, and a former outlaw who once fled the United States to escape punishment. Robert Shaver was born on April 18, 1831, in Sullivan County, Tennessee, exactly on the line between Virginia and Tennessee. He was the third of four children born to David and Martha (May) Shaver. He attended school at home, and from 1846 to 1850, he attended Emory and Henry College in Virginia. Shaver and his parents moved to Arkansas in 1850, settling east of Batesville (Independence County) in Lawrence County (now Sharp County). On June 10, 1856, Shaver married Adelaide Louise Ringgold. Before she died …

Shelby, Joseph Orville

aka: Jo Shelby
aka: J. O. Shelby
aka: Joseph O. Shelby

Joseph Orville Shelby was a Confederate major general from Missouri who is recognized as perhaps the most accomplished Confederate cavalryman in the Trans-Mississippi Theater. He was involved in most of the Civil War campaigns that took place in Arkansas. Joseph Orville Shelby was born on December 12, 1830, in Lexington, Kentucky, to a wealthy, aristocratic family that boasted veterans of the American Revolution. In 1852, he moved to Waverly, Missouri, and established a rope-making operation that soon made him a wealthy man. The slave-owning Shelby was actively embroiled in the border war with abolitionist Kansans, taking part in cross-border raids in the late 1850s. As civil war became imminent, Shelby raised a company of troops, the Lafayette County Cavalry, at …

Shoup, Francis Asbury

Francis Asbury Shoup was a Confederate general in the American Civil War who commanded a division at the 1862 Battle of Prairie Grove and created a unique set of fortifications during the 1864 Atlanta Campaign. Francis Asbury Shoup was born on March 22, 1834, in Laurel, Indiana, the oldest of seven children of Jane Conwell Shoup and wealthy merchant George G. Shoup. He attended Asbury College, which later became DePauw University, before graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1855. After serving as an officer in the First U.S. Artillery during the Third Seminole War, he resigned his commission and practiced law in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1860 before moving to St. Augustine, Florida. When the …

Sisler, George Kenton

George Kenton Sisler was a 1964 graduate of Arkansas State University (ASU) who received a Medal of Honor for his heroic actions while serving with a Special Forces unit in Vietnam in 1967. George Kenton Sisler was born on September 19, 1937, in Dexter, Missouri, to George R. Sisler and Grace Fransada Sisler. Sisler attended what is now Arkansas State University in Jonesboro (Craighead County), where he distinguished himself by winning the 1963 National Collegiate Skydiving Championship while his leg was in a cast. He graduated in 1964 with a BS in education. He enlisted in the U.S. Army on August 20, 1964. Sisler went to Vietnam as a first lieutenant and intelligence officer with the Headquarters Company of the …

Sixth Arkansas Volunteer Infantry (CS)

aka: Capital Guards

The Sixth Arkansas Infantry was a military unit that served in the Confederate army from 1861 until its surrender in 1865. The Sixth served almost exclusively in the western theater and became known as one of the finest units in the Confederate Army of Tennessee. Formed from ten companies on June 10, 1861, in Little Rock (Pulaski County), the Sixth Arkansas Infantry consisted of units from Pulaski, Arkansas, Dallas, Calhoun, Ouachita, Lafayette, Columbia, and Union counties. The original field officers were Colonel Richard Lyon, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander T. Hawthorn, and Major Dawson L. Kilgore. On June 19, 1861, the regiment marched to Pocahontas (Randolph County), where its training commenced. In July 1861, the regiment joined the Second, Fifth, Seventh, and …

Sixtieth U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment

aka: First Regiment Iowa African Infantry

The Sixtieth U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment was formed in 1863 from companies raised in Iowa and Missouri; it saw most of its service in Arkansas. The recruiting of African American men for 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 and two artillery batteries manned by Black soldiers were raised in Arkansas; the unit that became the Sixtieth U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment was raised out of state but served most of its time in Arkansas. The U.S. War Department issued special orders on July 27, 1863, authorizing Colonel William A. Pile to organize a Black …

Sixty-Ninth Regiment, United States Colored Troops (US)

The Sixty-Ninth U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) was a regiment recruited largely of formerly enslaved men that was organized late in the Civil War, primarily in Arkansas. 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 and two artillery batteries manned by Black soldiers were raised in Arkansas, with the Sixty-Ninth USCT being the last of them. The Sixty-Ninth USCT consisted of five companies that were organized at Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), DeValls Bluff (Prairie County), Helena (Phillips County), and Memphis Tennessee, between mid-1864, and March 17, 1865. The companies served in …

Smith, Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson Smith was a Union major general during the Civil War, commanding a division during the capture of Fort Hindman at Arkansas Post and during numerous other campaigns. Born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on April 28, 1815, Andrew Jackson Smith was the son of Samuel Smith and Anne Lacey Wilkinson Smith. Entering the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1834, Smith graduated four years later and received a commission as a second lieutenant and served with the First Dragoons. Smith slowly rose through the ranks over the next two decades, serving on the western frontier and in the Mexican War, including with the Mormon Battalion. Smith married Ann Mason Simpson on October 17, 1844, in St. Louis, Missouri. …

Smith, Edmund Kirby

Edmund Kirby Smith was a Confederate general during the Civil War. Seeing service in both the Eastern and Western Theaters of the war, he is best remembered for serving as the commander of the Confederate Department of the Trans-Mississippi, which included Arkansas. Edmund Kirby Smith was born on May 16, 1824, in St. Augustine, Florida, the son of Joseph Lee Smith and Frances Kirby Smith. His father, a lawyer by training, served as an army officer during the War of 1812 and for several years after the conflict before resigning his commission in 1821. He became the judge for the eastern district of the Florida Territory the same year. Edmund was the youngest child in the family, with an older …

Smith, Sarah Jane

An enigmatic figure who left few documentable details of her life or wartime experiences, Sarah Jane Smith was a Confederate sympathizer who sabotaged Union military telegraph wires and poles on two known occasions near Springfield and Rolla, Missouri, in 1864. The known details of Smith’s life are limited to information gleaned from court documents, due to her illiteracy (she signed her statement to the provost marshal with an “x”) and lack of a fixed residence. Although several secondary sources describe Smith as a smuggler and saboteur of two years’ duration, there is no documentation of her involvement in any smuggling activity or in any sabotage activities other than the two incidents chronicled in her trial records. Born in approximately 1846, …

Smith, William Young

William Young Smith was a four-star general in the U.S. Air Force who fought in the Korean War before rising to the highest levels of the service. His career culminated with his appointment as the deputy commander of American forces in Europe. William Young Smith was born on August 13, 1925, in Hot Springs (Garland County), the second of three children of Elizabeth Young Smith and building loan manager Ray S. Smith. (His brother, Ray Sammons Smith Jr., became a noteworthy Arkansas politician.) After graduating from high school in 1943, Smith attended Washington and Lee University for a year before going to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. After his graduation from West Point in 1948, Smith …

Somervell, Brehon Burke

General Brehon Somervell was a major factor in the success of American military forces during World War II. He oversaw the construction of troop-training facilities and the supply of all American military forces. As construction division chief of the Army Quartermaster Corps, he was a major influence in the planning and construction of the Pentagon. Brehon Burke Somervell was born on May 9, 1892, in Little Rock (Pulaski County), the only child of Dr. William Taylor Somervell and teacher Mary S. Burke. In 1906, his family moved to Washington DC. In 1910, Somervell received an appointment to West Point upon the recommendation of Representative Charles C. Reid of Arkansas and, in 1914, graduated sixth in a class of 107. Upon …

Sprague, Charles Leslie

Charles Leslie Sprague was a Little Rock (Pulaski County) native who died while serving on the crew in a test run of the Confederate naval H.L. Hunley, the first combat submarine to sink an enemy warship. Charles Leslie Sprague was born in Little Rock on February 6, 1842, the youngest of four sons of Dr. Alden Sprague and Sophronia Stores Eldridge Sprague. Alden Sprague died on April 26, 1847, and Charles and his mother moved back to her native New Hampshire to live with her sister, Lucinda Eldridge Billings, and her family. Sophronia Sprague died on December 5, 1853, and it is possible that young Charles moved to Tennessee to live with relatives, as her brother lived there. Charles enlisted …

Sprague, John Wilson

John Wilson Sprague was a general in the Union army during the Civil War and served as the assistant commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau in the District of Arkansas immediately following the end of the conflict. John W. Sprague was born on April 4, 1817, in White Creek, New York, to Otis and Polly Sprague; he had several siblings. He attended local schools and, at the age of thirteen, began attending the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Sprague left the college without receiving a degree and worked in the grocery business in Troy, New York, before moving to Ohio in 1845. Living in several towns over the course of his time in Erie County, Sprague worked in the shipping industry and served …

Steele, Frederick

Frederick Steele was a United States Volunteers major general and the commander of the Department of Arkansas in the Civil War. Union forces under his command took military control of the northern half of the state in September 1863. Faced with immense military and political problems as a result of the continuing war, however, Steele failed in his larger mission of politically and militarily stabilizing the state. Frederick Steele was born on January 14, 1819, in Delhi, New York, the son of Nathaniel Steele III and his second wife, Dameras Johnson. Frederick Steele never married or had children. Little is known of Steele’s early years. He entered West Point in 1839. A friend and classmate of Ulysses S. Grant, he …

Steiner, Christian

Christian Steiner was a soldier who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his gallantry during an 1869 battle against Apache Indians in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona. He died in Hot Springs (Garland County) and is buried there. Christian Steiner was born in Wurttemberg, Germany, in 1843. By 1860, he had immigrated to the United States and was living with saloon keeper Philip Steiner, then twenty-seven, who was presumably his brother, and his brother’s wife, Louisa (twenty-one), in the Third Ward of St. Louis, Missouri. Seventeen-year-old Christian Steiner’s occupation was listed as saddler in the 1860 census. As the Civil War broke out, Steiner joined many of St. Louis’s citizens of German descent in enlisting in the Union army. …

Stirman, Erasmus Irving

Arkansas native Erasmus Irving Stirman was a Confederate colonel during the Civil War who, after the hostilities, became a successful politician and lawyer. Erasmus Irving Stirman was born in Benton County on April 16, 1839, soon after his parents, Alfred Addison Stirman and Pauline Fry Stirman, had crossed the state line, moving from Palmyra, Missouri, to Fayetteville (Washington County), where they would establish a mercantile business. Ras Stirman was orphaned at a young age but attended Arkansas College in Fayetteville and worked as a store clerk as he studied to prepare to attend the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. Those plans ended when Arkansas seceded from the Union, and he enlisted as a sergeant in the “Pike Guards,” which …

Stone, James Lamar

James Lamar Stone, born in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), was a career U.S. Army officer who received a Medal of Honor for his actions in opposing an overwhelming attack by Chinese troops during the Korean War. James Lamar Stone was born on December 27, 1922, in Pine Bluff, the son of firefighter Lamar L. Stone and Idell Stone. He grew up in Hot Springs (Garland County) and graduated from the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) in 1947, after which he went to work at a General Electric plant in Houston, Texas. Stone was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1948. He was serving as a first lieutenant in Company E, Eighth Cavalry Regiment, First Cavalry Division, when …

Strong, Erastus Burton

Arkansas native Erastus Burton Strong was a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point who served in the U.S. Army until his death at the Battle of Molino del Rey during the Mexican War. Erastus Burton Strong was born on December 2, 1823, to William Strong and Mourning Cooper Strong, most likely in the part of Phillips County that would become St. Francis County four years later. His father was a prominent pioneer and politician in the area who helped build the Memphis to Little Rock Road and operated an inn and a ferry at the St. Francis River. William Strong was the first sheriff of St. Francis County, a delegate to the 1836 constitutional convention, and …

Sutherland, James W., Jr.

James William “Jock” Sutherland Jr. was an ROTC student at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) who rose to command the U.S. Army’s XXIV Corps in the Vietnam War and retired as a lieutenant general. James W. Sutherland was born on February 8, 1918, in Bentonville (Benton County) to James William Sutherland Sr. and Lena McSpadden Sutherland. After growing up in Rogers (Benton County), he attended UA, where he was in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). After graduating in 1940, he was inducted into the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant through the Thompson Act, which provided regular army commissions to outstanding ROTC participants. Sutherland fought with the First Armored Division in Africa and Italy during …