Entry Category: Military Science

Batesville to Elgin, Expedition from

The expedition from Batesville (Independence County) to Elgin (Jackson County) in mid-January 1864 was conducted primarily to round up cattle to help feed the Union garrison at Batesville. The First Nebraska Cavalry occupied Batesville on Christmas Day 1863, joined soon after by elements of the Eleventh Missouri Cavalry Regiment (US) and Fourth Arkansas Mounted Infantry (US). While much of the garrison’s time would be spent in anti-guerrilla patrolling, the troops also needed supplies for their remote outpost, leading to foraging expeditions through the region. Second Lieutenant Almeron N. Harris of Company K, Eleventh Missouri Cavalry, led forty troopers out of Batesville on such an expedition on January 15, 1864, seeking “possession of a herd of beef-cattle said to be grazing …

Batesville to near Searcy Landing, Expedition from

The Expedition from Batesville to near Searcy Landing was one of a series of operations conducted by Union forces based in Batesville (Independence County) to locate and fight Confederate troops and guerrillas in the region. After occupying Batesville on Christmas Day 1863, Union commander Colonel Robert Livingston began sending detachments of his troops on search-and-destroy operations throughout the region. On January 30, 1864, Captain Albert B. Kauffman of the Eleventh Missouri Cavalry (US) led a party of seventy-five troopers from his regiment out of Batesville in search of Confederate brigadier general Dandridge McRae, who was recruiting troops in the area. They took the Jacksonport Road east, turning south on Dupartee Creek and eventually reaching Grand Glaize (Jackson County) around sundown …

Batesville to West Point, Grand Glaize, Searcy Landing, etc., Scout from

The wide-ranging scouting expedition of the Eleventh Missouri Cavalry Regiment (US) that left the Union base at Batesville (Independence County) on March 15, 1864, was one of an almost continuous series of sorties seeking information on the location of Confederate troops and guerrillas in the region. Major Lewis C. Pace led 200 Eleventh Missouri troopers out of Batesville on March 15, sending half of them under Captain James A. Collier to head toward the Little Red River by way of Fair View (White County) and West Point (White County), while Pace took the remainder down the White River to Oil Trough Bottom (Independence County), where they made camp. On March 17, Pace’s column headed to Grand Glaise (Jackson County), then …

Batesville, Skirmish at (February 4, 1863)

On December 31, 1862, General John S. Marmaduke and 8,000 cavalry launched a raid into Missouri from near Lewisburg (Conway County) in the Arkansas River Valley, only to meet defeat at Hartsville, Missouri. The Confederate retreat back into Arkansas took them to Independence County, retracing the steps of Brigadier General Samuel Curtis’s army eight months earlier. Gen. Marmaduke established his troops at Oil Trough (Independence County), and Colonel Joseph O. Shelby set up camp at the farm of Franklin Desha. Both bivouacs were south of the White River, but Marmaduke’s headquarters were at the Cox house in Batesville (Independence County). Union forces in Missouri gathered at West Plains, Missouri, on January 29, 1863. The next day, Brigadier General John Davidson …

Batesville, Skirmish at (May 3, 1862)

On March 6–8, 1862, one of the most important Civil War battles west of the Mississippi River was fought at Pea Ridge (Benton County) in northwest Arkansas. The Army of the Southwest under Brigadier General Samuel R. Curtis defeated the Confederate army of Major General Earl Van Dorn, with the result that Missouri remained in the Union and the path into Arkansas was open to the Union army, hampered only by Confederate units who were trying to block the paths south and east of Pea Ridge. Gen. Curtis was following his orders to take his large army of more than 20,000 and seize Little Rock (Pulaski County), thus securing Arkansas for the Union. His Army of the Southwest contained regiments from …

Batteries A, B, C, and D (Battle of Helena)

Batteries A, B, C, and D are fortifications used by the Federal army during the Civil War to protect the city of Helena (Phillips County) from enemy attack. Along with Fort Curtis, these fortifications formed the core of the Helena defenses, most notably during the July 4, 1863, Battle of Helena. When the Army of the Southwest arrived in Helena after the Battle of Pea Ridge, Major General Samuel Ryan Curtis immediately began to fortify the approaches to the city. As Helena was deep in Confederate territory, the forts were necessary to prevent the destruction of the Union army in the town. The batteries were named A, B, C, and D, with A at the northern edge of the line …

Battery E, Second U.S. Colored Artillery (Light)

Battery E, Second U.S. Colored Artillery (Light) 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 Third Louisiana Light Artillery Battery (African Descent), recruited at Helena (Phillips County), and the First Arkansas Light Artillery Battery (African Descent), raised at Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). The Third Louisiana Light Artillery Battery (African Descent) was organized at Helena on …

Baucum, George Franklin

George F. Baucum was a Confederate officer and a Little Rock (Pulaski County) businessman. He served in many major battles of the Civil War’s western theater, including at Murfreesboro in Tennessee and Chickamauga and Atlanta in Georgia. After the war, he became a prominent grocer, cotton broker, and banker who owned plantations in central Arkansas. George Franklin Baucum was born on February 1, 1837, in St. Charles, Missouri. He was the son of Daniel Baucum and Kathryn Baucum, both of whom were natives of Mississippi. The family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1851. Two years later, the Baucums settled in Searcy (White County). At the outbreak of the Civil War, Baucum was working as a grocer in Searcy. He joined …

Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Bay of Pigs is the location on the southern coast of the island nation of Cuba that is now associated with a failed invasion that was part of a covert plan to overthrow the Cuban government. The military force composed of Cuban exiles was trained by American military units, including elements of the Arkansas Air National Guard. During the Cuban Revolution, from 1953 until early 1959, fighting erupted and persisted between the government of President Fulgencio Batista and revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro and others. The war ended with a victory for the revolutionaries as Batista fled the country. Castro took the position of prime minister and began to nationalize various industries and redistribute the land. Much of the …

Bayou Fourche, Engagement at

aka: Battle of Little Rock
The Engagement at Bayou Fourche, also known as the Battle of Little Rock, was a Civil War battle fought on September 10, 1863, as Confederate troops sought to stop Major General Frederick Steele’s Union army from capturing Little Rock (Pulaski County). Steele had advanced steadily across eastern Arkansas during August with a combined force of infantry from Helena (Phillips County) and cavalry that had come down Crowley’s Ridge from Missouri. With the exception of the short Action at Bayou Meto (or Reed’s Bridge) on August 27, the Union approach to Little Rock had seen relatively light resistance. As the Union army prepared for its final assault on the Arkansas capital, Steele had some 10,477 men present for duty and fifty-seven …

Bayou Meto, Action at

aka: Action at Reed's Bridge
The Action at Bayou Meto, also known as the Action at Reed’s Bridge, was a Civil War battle fought on August 27, 1863, as Confederate troops sought to hinder the advance of Major General Frederick Steele’s Union army toward Little Rock (Pulaski County). Steele had advanced steadily across eastern Arkansas during August with a combined force of infantry from Helena (Phillips County) and cavalry that had come down Crowley’s Ridge from Missouri. Though they were harassed by Confederate cavalry and partisans, the Union troops had encountered little opposition, with the exception of a sharp clash around Brownsville (north of present-day Lonoke) on August 25. A Union probe toward the Confederate works on Bayou Meto (at present-day Jacksonville) was turned back …

Bayou Meto, Skirmish at (February 24, 1865)

By 1863, guerrilla activity had become so prevalent in the territory surrounding Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) that local citizens requested that Federal forces move into the area to reduce the threat of violence. Later that year, forces under the command of Colonel Powell Clayton were ordered to Jefferson County. The city remained occupied for the remainder of the war. To secure the area, scouting patrols were regularly sent out to assess enemy activity. On February 22, 1865, Captain George W. Suesberry took a detachment of eighty troopers of the Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry Volunteers to the north side of the Arkansas River to monitor enemy movements. Only sixty-five troopers crossed the river but were shortly joined by twenty-five additional men. As …

Bayou Meto, Skirmish near (February 17, 1865)

  On February 16, 1865, a seventy-five-man scout detachment of the Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry (US) was sent out from its headquarters at Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). The scout detachment, commanded by Captain John H. Norris (US), was sent to search for Confederate troops along Bayou Meto. Early in the morning of February 17, the scout detachment, fifty miles downriver from Pine Bluff, began crossing Bayou Meto. After one platoon had successfully crossed the bayou, Capt. Norris ordered Lieutenant Z. P. Curlee to take the platoon and search an area two miles surrounding the bayou. Lt. Curlee was instructed to engage any Confederate force he encountered and report to Norris no later than noon. During the scout detachment’s search of the …

Beall, William Nelson Rector

William Nelson Rector Beall served as a Confederate brigadier general from Arkansas during the Civil War. He most notably served as an agent for the Confederate government to raise funds to purchase supplies for Confederate troops held in Federal prisons. William Beall was born on March 20, 1825, in Bardstown, Kentucky, the son of Samuel Beall and Sally Rector Beall. Sally Beall was a member of the Rector family, which was prominent in Arkansas politics. The Bealls moved to Arkansas in 1840, settling in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Both of Beall’s parents died soon thereafter, orphaning him and his four siblings. Beall graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1848, ranking thirtieth in a class of …

Bean’s Rangers

Captain Jesse Bean’s Ranger Company was one of six companies of mounted militia authorized by Congress in 1832. Led by a member of a prominent Arkansas family, the company formed a part of the first mounted battalion in the U.S. Army for seventeen years. Its actions are representative of the militarization of Arkansas’s western border and the area beyond during the territorial period. Influenced in 1815 by a need for economy and a deep-rooted fear of standing armies, Congress had eliminated cavalry, considered by some to be a uniformed elite, from the army. However, the Black Hawk War in Illinois and Wisconsin reminded legislators of the utility of cavalry, and, on June 15, 1832, Congress authorized President Andrew Jackson to raise …

Beatty’s Mill, Skirmish at

  By 1864, much of Conway County and the surrounding area was routinely overrun by marauding bands of Confederate guerrillas. In April 1864, Colonel Abraham Ryan and the recently formed Third Arkansas Cavalry were dispatched to Conway County to help secure the area. Col. Ryan established his base of operations at Lewisburg (Conway County). The regiment remained on almost constant watch, as it had been engaged in several skirmishes during scouting missions. On September 1, 1864, Colonel David Hamilton and a force of sixty-five troopers were dispatched upon a short scout into Yell County. On that same day, Col. Hamilton engaged an estimated force of 160 Confederates led by John A. Conly. Upon seeing the approaching enemy, Hamilton immediately ordered …

Bellefonte, Scouts from

The scouts from Bellefonte were conducted by troopers of the Second Arkansas Cavalry Regiment (US) from their base in the field as they conducted search-and-destroy missions against Confederate guerrillas operating in north-central Arkansas. Elements of the Second Arkansas Cavalry were ordered into northern Arkansas from their base in Cassville, Missouri, on March 9, 1864. After moving initially to Yellville (Marion County), they transferred to Rolling Prairie (Boone County), after which they moved periodically “for foraging purposes.” By the end of March, Companies F, I, and K were based at Bellefonte (Boone County), while Company G was stationed at nearby Clepper’s Mill. On March 29, 1864, Captain Martin E. O’Brien set out toward Searcy County with fifty men. They rode to …

Belmont (Pulaski County)

Belmont was a small entertainment hub that developed just outside of the World War I U.S. Army training center at Camp Pike in North Little Rock (Pulaski County). This short-lived boomtown was active between 1917 and 1922, although the exact dates surrounding the final business closures are unknown. The history of Belmont is interwoven with the story of the St. Joseph’s Home and farm in Levy (Pulaski County), and the city of Belmont became a physical representation of the social reform movements and how they intersected with America’s involvement in World War I. Belmont was created specifically to provide “clean and wholesome” entertainment venues for the estimated 65,000 incoming soldiers training at Camp Pike and their visiting families. Military training …

Bennett, Harold George

Perry County native Harold George Bennett was a Green Beret serving in Vietnam in 1964 when he was captured in South Vietnam and held as a prisoner of war. He was executed on June 25, 1965—the first American prisoner of war to be executed during the Vietnam War. He was honored with a posthumous Silver Star in 2010. Harold George Bennett was born on October 16, 1940, in Thornburg (Perry County), one of nine children of Pauline Bennett and World War I veteran Garland Bennett. He was set on a military career from a young age, and on his seventeenth birthday in 1957 he quit school and went to Little Rock (Pulaski County) to enlist in the U.S. Army. Bennett …

Bennett’s Bayou and Tolbert’s Mill, Operations about

The operations around Bennett’s Bayou and Tolbert’s Mill were typical of Union maneuvers in the Ozarks region during the winter of 1864 and 1865, when much of the activity centered around hunting the guerrilla bands that roamed the region. Lieutenant William N. Alsup led a detachment of forty-eight men of the Forty-Sixth Missouri Infantry from their base in Ozark County, Missouri, on February 16, 1865, and marched to Bennett’s Bayou in Fulton County, near present-day Gamaliel (Baxter County). The next day, they marched east to Bennett’s River, where they encountered and killed a bushwhacker at Tolbert’s Mill. Alsup reported, “Being satisfied that the mill was a resort for rebels and guerrillas, I ordered it burned.” The Missourians killed another guerrilla …

Benton Road, Skirmish at (July 19, 1864)

aka: Skirmish at Little Rock (July 19, 1864)
  After the Engagement at Jenkins’ Ferry, Federal forces under the command of Major General Frederick Steele retreated to Little Rock (Pulaski County) and rejoined the defenses of that city. Confederate forces, flush with their success in the Camden Expedition, began to probe the Union positions in a prelude to a large-scale offensive. This skirmish was one such action. After returning to Little Rock from the Camden Expedition on May 7, 1864, the Third Missouri Cavalry was stationed about four miles southwest of the city on the road to Benton (Saline County). The unit was tasked with outpost duty, and half of the regiment was on duty every day. This routine continued until July 13, when an eight-man patrol of …

Benton Road, Skirmish at (March 23–24, 1864)

  In the spring of 1864, Major General Frederick Steele, commander of Federal forces occupying Little Rock (Pulaski County), was ordered to work in conjunction with Major General Nathaniel Banks in Louisiana to capture Shreveport and move into Texas. Steele was reluctant to participate in the scheme and departed Little Rock only after receiving direct orders to support Banks. This action was the first contact between Steele’s forces and the enemy after the march from Little Rock began. The Federal army departed Little Rock on March 23 and marched to the southwest. Cavalry units were placed at the front of the army to warn the following units if the enemy approached. The Third Arkansas Cavalry and the Second Missouri Cavalry …

Benton Road, Skirmish on the (January 22, 1865)

Confederate forces attacked a Union cavalry picket post on the Benton Road outside of Little Rock (Pulaski County) on January 22, 1865, leading Federal leaders to question the use of patrols along the road. On January 5, 1865, Brigadier General Joseph R. West, commander of the Seventh Army Corps’s Cavalry Division, sent an order to Second Brigade head Brigadier General Cyrus Bussey for “the main road to be patrolled daily by a cavalry force of such strength…as you see expedient, and to a point from ten to fifteen miles distant from Fort Steele,” the major bastion of the Little Rock fortifications guarding the road toward Benton (Saline County). The patrols apparently started immediately, but Brigadier General Frederick Salomon, commanding the …

Benton, Affair at

In this extremely brief exchange, a brigadier general in the Arkansas State Militia was killed, with the Union soldier who killed him earning the Medal of Honor for it. With the failure of the Camden Expedition in the spring of 1864, Union forces retreated to Little Rock (Pulaski County) while Confederate units in southwestern Arkansas began to push northward. Major General Frederick Steele, the Federal commander of Little Rock, watched these movements with trepidation and pushed his troops to patrol the approaches to the city on a regular basis. Located southwest of Little Rock, Benton (Saline County) was the scene of numerous engagements during the war and—with its location along the Saline River—served as a dividing line between the opposing …

Benton, Skirmish at (August 18, 1864)

  After the Camden Expedition, Confederate forces were concentrated in the southern part of the state and lacked the strength to launch a full-scale assault on Union positions in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Rather, Southern units engaged in a campaign of harassment and quick strikes of little military value. The units occupied positions near the Federal lines to engage the enemy when the opportunity arose, and this skirmish is one such action. The Federal position after the Camden Expedition did not extend far outside of the Little Rock city limits. Confederate forces operated outside of the Federal lines, especially south of the city. Benton (Saline County) was an important city for both sides, as it lay near the Saline River …

Benton, Skirmish at (December 1, 1863)

After the fall of Little Rock (Pulaski County) in September 1863, Federal forces established defensive lines around the capital city but sent patrols and forage trains into nearby communities to gather both information and supplies. One city temporarily occupied by the Union troops was Benton (Saline County). A small engagement, the inconsequential Skirmish at Benton was a Confederate attack on one such patrol. On December 1, 1863, Colonel Cyrus Bussey dispatched a patrol of forty men to scout the road between Benton and Hot Springs (Garland County). Departing at 3:00 a.m., the patrol was commanded by Lieutenant Alexander D. Mills of the First Missouri Cavalry (US). Moving out from Benton, the patrol rode about twenty-five miles before beginning its return …

Benton, Skirmish at (July 6, 1864)

  With the conclusion of the Camden Expedition, some Confederate forces in Arkansas became emboldened and began preparations for an invasion of Missouri. Other Confederate units continued to probe Federal lines around Little Rock (Pulaski County), to which Union forces responded by continuing patrols into the nearby countryside to break up possible enemy gatherings. The Skirmish at Benton resulted from one such patrol to disrupt Confederate preparations. The Fourth Arkansas Cavalry (US) was ordered on July 4, 1864, to embark on a scouting mission. Ordered to move from Little Rock to Caddo Gap by Brigadier General Frederick Salomon, the unit moved out at once. Every man in the unit was required to accompany the scout. Moving quickly through the countryside, …