Entry Type: Event - Starting with P

Pine Bluff to Arkansas Post, Expedition from

The October 13–18, 1864, Civil War expedition from Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) to Arkansas Post (Arkansas County) was undertaken by the Federals to look for Confederate troops and to seize livestock for the Union base at Pine Bluff. On October 13, 1864, Brigadier General Powell Clayton ordered Colonel Albert Erskine of the Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry take 300 men and ride to Arkansas Post to determine if any Confederate soldiers were in the area and to search for livestock to feed the thousands of troops at Pine Bluff. Erskine was to cover the prairie on the north side of the Arkansas River initially, then have some of his men cross the river at South Bend on the way back “so as …

Pine Bluff to DeValls Bluff, Scout from

aka: Skirmish at Pine Bluff (February 11, 1865)
The scouting expedition in February 1865 between Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) and DeValls Bluff (Prairie County) was typical of many such operations carried out by the Union army during the duration of the war. Facing minor organized resistance, the Federal troopers easily defeated the small guerrilla bands opposing them. Skirmishes such as this were typical in the last days of the Civil War in Arkansas. Captain John Norris of the Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry received orders to depart Pine Bluff on February 9 and proceed to DeValls Bluff. Accompanying the captain were seventy-five men, as well as a number of horses deemed unfit for active service. Although the area between the two Union posts was regularly patrolled by Confederate and guerrilla …

Pine Bluff to Douglas’ Plantation, Scout from

The Civil War scout from Pine Bluff to Douglas’ Plantation on a rainy night apparently started as a cattle raid but ended in sharp skirmishes with Confederate troops. Captain Gurnsey Davis of the Union’s Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry Regiment left Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) at the head of fifty men of his regiment, riding down the south side of the Arkansas River in an apparent search of cattle to feed the Union garrison. Rain was “falling in perfect torrents,” so when the Federal horsemen arrived at Douglas’ Plantation around 10:00 p.m. on February 21, they sought shelter in an old cotton shed. Having spotted signs of as many as sixty Confederate riders on their way down and being warned by an …

Pine Bluff to Monticello, Scout from

Shortly after Union forces drove Confederate troops out of Little Rock (Pulaski County) on September 10, 1863, a delegation of citizens from Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) requested that soldiers be stationed in their city to protect property and prevent local men from being conscripted into the Confederate army. Within a week, the Fifth Kansas and First Indiana Cavalry regiments set up a base in Pine Bluff from which they would conduct frequent scouting expeditions in search of Confederate troops and guerrillas in the region. Lieutenant Hugh D. McCarty of the Fifth Kansas led twenty men out of Pine Bluff on such an operation on January 13, 1864, and headed south. They traveled as far as two miles beyond Monticello (Drew …

Pine Bluff to Noble’s Farm, Scout from

The May 4–6, 1865, scout from Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) to Noble’s Farm was undertaken by members of a Union regiment to attack a band of bushwhackers but instead resulted in the capture of several Confederate soldiers. A pair of Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry Regiment officers led fifty-man detachments from the Federal base at Pine Bluff on May 4, 1865, with orders to capture Captain R. A. Kidd “and his lawless band of robbers.” Captain Edward Brown of Company I left at 3:00 a.m. to scout along the south side of Bayou Bartholomew, while Captain George W. Suesberry of Company L left at 6:00 a.m. to search along the north side of the bayou. Suesberry learned around 10:00 a.m. that Kidd …

Pine Bluff to Rodgers’ Plantation, Scout from

aka: Skirmish at Rodgers’ Plantation
The April 25, 1865, Union scouting expedition from Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) to Rodgers’ Plantation showed that the Civil War was far from over in Arkansas even as the Confederate armies in the east surrendered. Captain Samuel W. Mallory of the Sixty-fourth U.S. Colored Troops (USCT), who was provost marshal at the Union garrison at Pine Bluff, accompanied a small detachment of twenty-six men led by Lieutenant John C. Kennedy of Company G, Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry Regiment, that left Pine Bluff on the morning of April 25, 1865. Arriving at John Taylor’s plantation around 11:00 a.m., the Illinoisans encountered a pair of Union officers who informed them that Confederate lieutenant J. H. Dixon and seven of his men were moving …

Pine Bluff to Simpson’s Plantation, Scout from

The December 27–28, 1864, scouting expedition from Pine Bluff to Simpson’s Plantation was undertaken to find cattle to feed the soldiers and civilians at the Union base at Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) but also involved several altercations with bushwhackers. Captain Guernsey W. Davis of the Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry Regiment led 100 men from the Union garrison at Pine Bluff south from the base on December 27, 1864, “in search of beef cattle.” They soon encountered a group of bushwhackers who fled at the Federals’ approach. Davis “ascertained” that three of the guerillas were Kit Flyn, James Bloom, and John T. Brent, and that “they, with others of the same profession, make a kind of headquarters” at the home of one …

Pine Bluff, Action at

The Action at Pine Bluff was fought on October 25, 1863, when Brigadier General John Sappington Marmaduke’s Confederate cavalry division attacked the small Union garrison under Colonel Powell Clayton that had occupied Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) following the capture of Little Rock (Pulaski County) on September 10, 1863. The purpose was to return the strategic initiative to the Confederacy. Marmaduke led a force of some 2,000 Rebels out of Princeton (Dallas County) on October 24 to assault the 1,200 to 1,500 Union troopers of the Fifth Kansas Cavalry and the First Indiana Cavalry, which were posted at Pine Bluff with their six artillery pieces. Marmaduke planned for Colonel Robert C. Newton’s division to approach Pine Bluff from the southeast while …

Pine Bluff, Affair near

  The Federal army expended considerable energy in maintaining control of Jefferson County and the surrounding area after the occupation of Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) in late 1863. By 1865, patrols to discourage guerrilla bands who routinely created havoc were dispatched on a regular basis. These patrols, such as the one dispatched on March 4, 1865, were often on a mission to repair vital telegraph lines. At noon on March 4, thirty troopers of the Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry under the command of Captain John H. Norris left Pine Bluff with orders to repair the area telegraph lines. After being hampered by high water, they discovered that the telegraph wires were intact. Earlier, Norris had received information that Confederate guerrillas were …

Pine Bluff, Seizure of U.S. Subsistence Stores at

The capture of Federal army supplies at Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) marked one of the first military actions in the state during the Civil War. Occurring before Arkansas officially left the Union, this seizure of supplies was not an operation of the Confederate army but rather of volunteer troops. With the secession of South Carolina in late 1860 and other Southern states in early 1861, Arkansas called a secession convention to determine if the state would follow. The Little Rock Arsenal was seized by volunteer forces in February 1861, before the convention could meet. After the convention convened in March, the first session ended with a vote to remain in the Union and a proposal to send the question to …

Pine Bluff, Skirmish at (January 9, 1865)

aka: Pine Bluff Expedition (January 7–9, 1865)
Federal outposts across Arkansas continued, in early 1865, to send out regular patrols to ascertain the movements and intentions of the enemy in an effort to keep organized resistance to a minimum. This engagement took place on January 9, 1865, during a Federal effort to capture a number of mules held by Confederate forces near Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). On January 7, Captain John Toppass of the Seventh Missouri Cavalry (US) received orders from his superiors to launch a scouting expedition to capture mules held nearby by the enemy. Organizing a group of 150 men, including fifty troopers from the Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry and 100 from the Seventh Missouri, the patrol departed from Pine Bluff at 7:00 p.m. the same …

Pine Bluff, Skirmish at (July 22, 1864)

With the return of the Union forces to Little Rock (Pulaski County) after the Camden Expedition, Confederate forces took the initiative in southern Arkansas. While Federal units held Little Rock, Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), and other settlements along the Arkansas, White, and Mississippi rivers, Confederate units operated with ease between these settlements. Confederate forces took advantage of the relative isolation of Federal outposts to operate unchecked in the countryside between occupied cities. Union commanders responded by sending out patrols to disrupt Confederate organizational efforts. The Ninth Kansas Cavalry served in the District of the Frontier until July 2, 1864, when the unit received orders transferring it to Little Rock. The Kansans did not make a positive impression on their new …

Pine Bluff, Skirmish at (July 30, 1864)

By the summer of 1864, Federal forces held Little Rock (Pulaski County), Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), and several other posts along the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers. While most Confederate forces in the state were concentrated south of the Arkansas River, small units operated behind Union lines in an effort to disrupt and harass Federal occupiers. This skirmish is typical of the type of action fought during this period of the war in the state. Communication between Union commanders in Little Rock and the garrison at Pine Bluff relied on a telegraph line stretching between the two cities. On July 29, 1864, Second Lieutenant James Teale of the Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry led forty men from Pine Bluff to repair the telegraph …

Pine Bluff, Skirmish at (June 17, 1864)

aka: Skirmish at Monticello Road (June 17, 1864)
A brief encounter between forces near Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), this skirmish is typical of the majority of fighting in the state. Two patrols from opposing forces brushed against one another in an effort to gain intelligence, leading to a short fight. Colonel Powell Clayton of the Fifth Kansas Cavalry commanded the Union post of Pine Bluff and regularly sent out patrols to gather information about Confederate movements in the area. Three patrols returned to Pine Bluff on June 16, 1864, one of which reported a Confederate cavalry brigade camped near “Connersville” (probably Cornersville in Lincoln County) and enemy pickets watching the road to Monticello (Drew County). These were the only Confederate forces reportedly in the area. One of the …

Pitman’s Ferry, Skirmish at

On October 27, 1862, Union Colonel William Dewey surprised Confederate Colonel John Q. Burbridge’s Brigade at Pitman’s Ferry (Randolph County). Dewey’s rapid combined-arms attack temporarily won control of the ferry and allowed for the reconnoitering of the Pocahontas (Randolph County) area. This was the last major Civil War engagement in Randolph County. The location of Pitman’s Ferry on the Current River made it an important possession for the antagonists in Arkansas. Settled by William Hix about 1803, the location served as the key entry point from Missouri on the Southwest Trail (also called the Military Road, Congress Road, or the Natchitoches Trace) into northeast Arkansas. Purchased by Dr. Peyton Robinson Pitman before Arkansas statehood, Pitman’s Ferry had a strategic importance …

Plane Crash of January 14, 1936

On the evening of January 14, 1936, an American Airlines twin-engine Douglas airliner crashed into a swamp near Goodwin (St. Francis County), killing all seventeen people aboard, including Arkansas’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) state administrator, William Reynolds Dyess. Dyess and Robert H. McNair Jr., the WPA’s director of finance and reports for Arkansas, were returning to Little Rock (Pulaski County) after conferring with agency officials in Washington DC. They were among fourteen passengers on the plane, known as the Southerner, along with pilot Jerry Marshall, co-pilot Glenn Freeland, and stewardess Perla Gasparini. The plane left the Memphis, Tennessee, airport at 7:04 p.m. The last contact with Marshall was at 7:18 p.m. as the plane headed to Little Rock. At about …

Plum Bayou Project

The Plum Bayou Project was part of a New Deal plan designed to help rural residents receive federal relief and assistance during the economic crisis of the 1930s. Located approximately seventeen miles north of Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), Plum Bayou was one of several similar communities built in the Arkansas Delta. During the Great Depression, the federal Resettlement Administration—later the Farm Security Administration (FSA)—experimented with programs designed to give assistance to rural farm families. Rexford G. Tugwell, head of the Resettlement Administration, believed that sending farmers into the cities with no job prospects was an untenable situation and certainly no answer to the farmers’ desperate plight. Instead, he focused on developing resettlement projects designed to move farmers barely surviving on …

Plum Point Bend, Engagement at

The Engagement at Plum Point Bend was fought on May 10, 1862, as the rams of the Confederate River Defense Service attacked the U.S. Mississippi Flotilla, whose vessels were shelling the Confederate fortifications at Fort Pillow, Tennessee. Two U.S. gunboats were sunk during the spirited engagement. Following the capture of Island No. 10 on the Mississippi River on April 8, 1862, the U.S. Mississippi Flotilla continued downstream to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and then to an area between Plum Point on the Tennessee side of the river and Craighead Point near Osceola (Mississippi River) on the Arkansas side, from which the fleet’s mortar boats could pound the extensive Confederate works at Fort Pillow. The USS Cincinnati towed Mortar Boat No. 16 …

Plumerville Conflict of 1886–1892

During the late 1880s, electoral politics in Conway County turned violent, resulting in serious injuries and several deaths. In the Plumerville (Conway County) community, actions such as voter intimidation and the theft of ballot boxes were flagrant and seemingly condoned by public officials. The violence became widely known and was the subject of a federal investigation after the assassination of a congressional candidate, John Clayton. A pattern of local political affiliations and latent hostilities toward other factions developed and remained well into the twentieth century. While the political conflict renewed itself after the 1884 election, the underlying causes date back to the pre–Civil War days. Conway County was a small version of Arkansas in terms of geographic culture and economics. …

Pocahontas Expedition

The Pocahontas Expedition was an attempt to gather intelligence regarding the location of Confederates in northeastern Arkansas. During the expedition, Union soldiers conducted a raid in Pocahontas (Randolph County) on August 24, 1863, that resulted in the capture of Brigadier General Meriwether “Jeff” Thompson of the Missouri State Guard, thus temporarily hampering Confederate actions in the region. While the Union army struggled to win control of the northern half of Arkansas during the Arkansas Expedition (Little Rock Campaign) from mid-July to August 1863, Confederate regulars and guerrillas continually struck targets and occupied cities in northeastern Arkansas and southeastern Missouri. Consequently, Union forces in Missouri raided Arkansas to disrupt guerrilla activities and challenge invading Confederate commands. In August 1863, Union Brigadier …

Poe, Harry (Trial and Execution of)

Harry Poe was the first person legally executed in Garland County, Arkansas. On January 18, 1910, Harry Poe, an African American teenager, allegedly raped Lena Adams, a younger white girl. A Garland County court convicted Poe of rape on March 1, 1910, and sentenced him to death. Several residents of the county believed that Poe was innocent and attempted to save his life. On September 2, 1910, Harry Poe was executed.   The details of Poe’s life before the alleged rape are unclear. Available newspapers variously listed his age as seventeen, eighteen, or nineteen, and provided no details about his life before the incident. Census records do not provide any likely matches for Harry Poe. A writer for the Arkansas Democrat described him in overtly racist language as “a thick-lipped, low-browed, bestial type of negro.”  On January 18, …

Poison Spring, Engagement at

The Engagement at Poison Spring was an April 18, 1864, battle in which Confederate troops ambushed and destroyed a Union foraging expedition. After black Union troops had surrendered, many were killed by the Confederate troops. After capturing Little Rock (Pulaski County) and Fort Smith (Sebastian County) in September 1863, Federal forces held effective control of the Arkansas River, and both Confederate troops and government were concentrated in the southwestern part of the state. In the spring of 1864, many of the Union troops were involved in the Arkansas leg of a two-pronged attack to gain control of northwest Louisiana and east Texas. Union Major General Frederick Steele moved his troops south from Little Rock on March 23, 1864, for what …

Polio

The poliovirus terrorized the United States for many years, and Arkansas was no exception. Infection with the virus either went unnoticed or caused poliomyelitis, commonly called polio, which resulted in paralysis that sometimes ended in death but more often left its victims permanently handicapped. As the disease often affected children, it was also called infantile paralysis. While the large urban centers of the country dealt with polio epidemics early in the twentieth century, Arkansas had only a few intermittent cases. The Arkansas Gazette, however, reported frequently on the disease, keeping its readers informed of efforts to combat, cure, and curtail its devastating effects in other areas. After the first significant numbers were reported in the state, Arkansans reacted to the …

Polk Brothers (Lynching of)

On September 6, 1885, two white men popularly dubbed the “Polk boys”—brothers Henry and Sylvester Polk—were burned alive in the city jail at Murfreesboro (Pike County) after two previous unsuccessful attempts had been made to lynch them. They were in jail for the murder of a peddler named Frank Ward (variously described as either German or Irish), but the event that incited the violence was their success in obtaining a new trial.  Henry and Sylvester Polk, along with alleged accomplice Monroe Kuykendall, were originally indicted for murder in Howard County in September 1884 but obtained a change of venue and had their trial relocated to Pike County. Kuykendall’s case was later separated from that of the brothers. According to a summation of the affair in the April 22, 1885, Arkansas Gazette, Ward’s older brother, living in Prescott (Nevada County), had equipped Ward “for a …

Polk County Draft War

The Polk County Draft War was the first of five documented episodes of armed resistance to the draft in Arkansas during World War I (four of which were violent). The Selective Service Act of 1917 introduced forced conscription to Arkansas, but efforts to apprehend and/or punish draft evaders did not begin in earnest until the spring of 1918, likely due to a greater demand for military manpower. The ensuing crackdown on draft evasion sparked a series of so-called draft wars, brief episodes of armed defiance by close-knit family groups against authorities. These acts of resistance often occurred in isolated, mountainous regions of the state, where socialism and/or organized labor had found purchase. On May 25, 1918, Sheriff H. W. Finger …

Polk County Possum Club

The Polk County Possum Club (PCPC) began with a challenge issued to local hunters of opossums (commonly called “possums”) in 1913 and henceforth hosted yearly banquets of opossum meat and side dishes until 1947, though it was active again for five years in the 1990s. The PCPC began when attorney J. I. Alley wrote a letter, dated December 11, 1913, to Mena (Polk County) mayor John H. Hamilton that read, in part: “The undersigned has recently seen and heard of much of your boastful conduct and self praise with reference to possum hunting. In fact I learned from reliable sources that you claim great credit to yourself as chief of all such sportsmen in these parts. Therefore believing that others …

Polk County Race War of 1896

In early August 1896, a “race war” broke out between white and black workers who were working on the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railway (later the Kansas City Southern) in both Polk County and near Horatio (Sevier County) to the south. As a result, three African Americans were killed and eight wounded. Although reports place some of the events near Horatio, accounts clearly stated that the purpose of the attack was to keep African Americans out of Polk County, and so it was generally referred to as the Polk County Race War. This was part of a pattern of labor-related racial intimidation that was sweeping Arkansas at the time. Other incidents during that period included unrest at the Hawthorne …

Polk’s Plantation, Skirmish at

  On May 25, 1863, Confederate and Union forces engaged in a skirmish on and near Polk’s plantation, roughly six miles west of Helena (Phillips County). The fighting was part of the Federal army’s ultimately successful campaign to hold Helena for the Union. Union troops had occupied Helena since summer 1862, but Ulysses S. Grant’s need for men in his campaign against Vicksburg, Mississippi, in the spring of 1863 weakened the town’s garrison. Confederates under the command of General Theophilus Holmes, aware of Grant’s actions, wanted to retake Helena. A Federal scouting mission departed from Helena on the morning of May 25 and clashed with Confederate pickets along Little Rock Road. The Union forces consisted of roughly 150 cavalrymen from …

Pope County Militia War

The Pope County Militia War was a conflict between the Reconstruction government of the state and county partisans, some of them former Confederates, who opposed Reconstruction. It entailed the assassination of many local officials and is often seen as a prelude to the Brooks-Baxter War of 1874. Pope County, lacking a large slave economy, had been divided in terms of loyalty during the Civil War, and those divisions ran high even after the formal end of hostilities. In 1865, Governor Isaac Murphy appointed Archibald Dodson Napier, a former Federal officer, as sheriff of Pope County. On October 25, 1865, he and his deputy, Albert M. Parks, were both shot from ambush as they rode horseback along the old Springfield road …

Pope-Noland Duel

The Pope-Noland Duel took place in Arkansas Territory in 1831 between William Fontaine Pope and Charles Fenton Mercer (Fent) Noland. Little is known about Pope other than that he was the nephew and secretary of territorial governor John Pope, who was a member of the Democratic Party during his tenure in Arkansas. Fent Noland originally hailed from Virginia and was the son of politician and plantation owner William Noland, who drafted Virginia’s anti-dueling law. As a young lawyer, Fent Noland was mentored by James Woodson Bates, who was the first Arkansas territorial representative to the U.S. Congress, and went on to become a well-known writer who regularly published in the New York–based Spirit of the Times. The political scene in …

Pott’s Hill, Action at

aka: Skirmish at Big Sugar Creek
The Action at Pott’s Hill, also known as the Skirmish at Big Sugar Creek, on February 16, 1862, was the first engagement between Union and Confederate armies in Arkansas during the Civil War. The action was a precursor to the Battle of Pea Ridge on March 7–8, 1862. As Brigadier General Samuel Curtis’s Union Army of the Southwest marched south toward Arkansas in February, pursuing Major General Sterling Price’s Confederate Army of the West, the Union front met the Confederate rear guard just across the Arkansas border, north of Pea Ridge (Benton County). Curtis, who had sent his men on a forced march south in search of the fleeing Confederates, was determined to engage Price’s army as soon as possible. …

Pounds, Winston (Lynching of)

Winston Pounds, accused of breaking into a white man’s house and assaulting his wife, was hanged by a mob near Wilmot (Ashley County) on August 25, 1927. Census records indicate that Winston Pounds Jr., born around 1906, was the son of farmer Winston Pounds and his wife, Florence Pounds. As sometimes happens, published accounts of the lynching vary significantly, especially between white-owned and African-American-owned newspapers. According to the Arkansas Gazette, Pounds, described as a “Negro farmhand,” entered the J. W. McGarry home while he and his wife were sleeping and assaulted Mrs. McGarry. She screamed, and he fled. Some accounts say that J. W. McGarry was actually in Little Rock (Pulaski County), and that Mrs. McGarry’s sister was staying with …

Powell, Charles (Lynching of)

On August 11, 1926, an African-American man named Charles Powell was lynched near Lewisville (Lafayette County) for allegedly murdering sheriff’s deputy James Dooley. According to the Shreveport Times, a warrant was issued for railroad worker Charles Powell on charges of beating his wife. On Wednesday morning, August 11, Deputy Dooley was sent to serve a warrant on Powell at the railway car on a side track of the Cotton Belt Railroad where he was living. Dooley was described by the Arkansas Gazette as “one of the most popular officers of the county,” while Powell was referred to as “a powerful negro…known as a bad actor” who had previously resisted arrest. When Dooley approached, Powell drew a pistol and shot Dooley …

Powell, Sam (Lynching of)

On July 6, 1910, an African-American man named Sam Powell was lynched near Huttig (Union County) for allegedly robbing A. E. Lucas and setting his house on fire. The Nashville Tennessean reported that Powell was only eighteen years old at the time. He may have been assisted in the crime by another African-American man named Claude Holmes. There is no record of a young African American named Sam Powell living in Arkansas in either 1900 or 1910. However, in 1900, an eight-year-old African American named Sam Powell was living in Lincoln Parish in northern Louisiana with his parents and eight siblings, and news stories about the lynching reported that Powell initially escaped to a lumber town named Rochelle in Grant …