Entries - Time Period: Civil War through Reconstruction (1861 - 1874)

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, V. V.

aka: Volney Voltaire Smith

The last Reconstruction Republican lieutenant governor, known for attempting a coup d’état aimed at displacing a sitting governor, Volney Voltaire Smith was also the most distinguished nineteenth-century figure to have died in the state insane asylum. V. V. Smith was born in 1842, apparently in Rochester, New York. His father was Delazon Smith, a noted Democratic newspaperman and politician. Delazon Smith attended Oberlin College and then wrote an exposé on it for its support of abolition, was lost for eleven months while on a diplomatic assignment in Ecuador (thus becoming known as “Tyler’s Lost Commission”), and served less than three weeks as one of Oregon’s first U.S. senators. V. V. Smith’s mother, Eliza Volk, died in 1846. Two years later, …

Smithville, Skirmish at (June 17, 1862)

After securing Missouri for the Union by routing the Confederate Army of the West at the Battle of Pea Ridge in March 1862, the Union Army of the Southwest under General Samuel Curtis moved into northeast Arkansas and occupied Batesville (Independence County) on its mission to capture Little Rock (Pulaski County). There, Curtis divided his force in the region, and the Fifth Illinois Cavalry (US) moved into Pocahontas (Randolph County) from Doniphan, Missouri, to reinforce a Union division under General Frederick Steele. From there, a battalion of the Fifth Illinois under Major A. H. Seley was sent to the vicinity of Smithville, the seat of government for Lawrence County and a strategic location along the Military Road that connected to …

Snyder, Oliver P.

Oliver P. Snyder was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He represented the Second District of Arkansas in the Forty-Second and Forty-Third Congresses, serving from 1871 to 1875. Oliver P. Snyder was born in New Madrid County in Missouri on November 13, 1833, to Jeremiah Snyder and Elizabeth Randolph Snyder. He completed a basic course of study before moving to Arkansas in 1853. There, he continued studies in both science and literature as well as the law. He was soon admitted to the bar, opening a practice in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). As the Civil War drew to a close, Snyder, who had originally opposed secession, entered the political arena, winning election to the Arkansas House of …

Southern Memorial Association of Washington County

The Southern Memorial Association of Washington County (SMA) was formed in 1872 to care for Confederate graves in northwestern Arkansas. The result was the construction of the Confederate Cemetery at Fayetteville (Washington County), which remains under the group’s care. The Southern Memorial Association may be the oldest organization of its type in continual operation. The Southern Memorial Association of Washington County was organized on June 10, 1872, to collect scattered Confederate graves in northwestern Arkansas into one central location, the Confederate Cemetery at Fayetteville, for more effective grave stewardship. On June 10, 1873, the one-year anniversary of the group, the association dedicated the cemetery, which contained about 500 relocated graves at that time. Because soldiers from Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, and …

Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas Expedition

By late 1862, much of southern Missouri and northern Arkansas was overrun by large armies of both the Union and Confederacy. After they marched off to other campaigns outside the region, the area was left in the hands of smaller Federal and Confederate forces that were in frequent competition, both sides attempting to gain an advantage. Information-gathering incursions, such as this one initiated by Federal forces into Boone County in late 1862, were typical of the smaller military operations. On November 8, 1862, Captain Milton Burch of the Fourteenth Missouri Cavalry (Militia) was ordered to lead a detachment of Missouri militia from Ozark, Missouri, into northern Arkansas to gather information about Confederate forces in the area. The force of approximately …

Spavinaw, Skirmish at

  On May 10, 1864, Major Milton Burch led a force of forty troopers of Company M, Eighth Missouri State Militia Cavalry (US) and twenty infantrymen under captains John R. Kelso and Ozias Ruark of the Eighth from the Union base at Neosho, Missouri, on a scouting expedition down the Grand River onto the Cowskin Prairie in the Indian Territory and on to Spavinaw Creek in Arkansas. After three days, the infantry soldiers turned back to Neosho while Burch and the cavalrymen continued toward Spavinaw Creek. Around 11:00 p.m. on May 13, 1864, they spotted campfires and initially thought the fires might be from another Union contingent operating in the area but soon determined that around thirty men of Colonel …

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 …

Spring River near Smithville, Skirmish at

aka: Skirmish at Spring River (April 13, 1864)
aka: Skirmish at Smithville (April 13, 1864)

Union forces sought to solidify their control in northeast Arkansas and safeguard important supply lines after Federal troops occupied Little Rock (Pulaski County) in September 1863 and the state’s Confederates fled to establish a new capital at Washington (Hempstead County). Colonel Robert R. Livingston and his Union forces reoccupied Batesville (Independence County) on Christmas Day 1863 to establish the headquarters of the District of Northeastern Arkansas. Union forces at Batesville attempted to suppress small bands of regular and irregular Confederates in the region during the following months. Confederate bands were especially active in the vicinity of Smithville, the seat of government for Lawrence County. Union forces collided with a larger Confederate force composed of elements of Freeman’s Brigade on February …

Spring River, Action at

aka: Battle of Salem

The largest Civil War engagement in Fulton County, the Action at Spring River occurred when Union forces from Missouri ventured into north-central Arkansas in search of Confederate cavalry bands seeking to unite as a regiment. Fought over the space of four hours, the battle resulted in the temporary elimination of a Confederate presence in southern Missouri, as well as sixteen Union and well over 100 Confederate casualties. Lieutenant Colonel. Samuel N. Wood of the Sixth Missouri Cavalry Regiment led a force of 250 troopers of his regiment and 130 men of the Third Iowa Cavalry led by Major William C. Drake south from Missouri on March 10, 1862. They were in pursuit of Confederate troops commanded by Colonel W.O. Coleman, …

Springfield, Missouri, into Northern Arkansas, Scout from

aka: Skirmish at Bennett’s Bayou
aka: Skirmish near Buffalo City

The scouting expedition from Springfield, Missouri, into northern Arkansas, lasting from February 23 to March 9, 1864, was typical of Union operations in the Ozark Mountains in 1864 during which Federal troops sought to locate and destroy guerrilla bands in the region. Captain Eli Hughes of the Sixth Missouri State Militia Cavalry (US) left Springfield, with 111 men of the regiment, on February 23, 1864, “with orders to proceed south into Arkansas.” They crossed the White River on February 25, and while riding south of Sugar Loaf Prairie in modern-day Boone County, they encountered a group of guerrillas, part of a band led by Major Louis M. Gunning. They killed two of this band and reached Yellville (Marion County) a …

Springfield, Missouri, toward Fayetteville, Scout from

As the guerrilla war intensified in the Ozarks region in the spring of 1864, it became an increasing challenge to maintain telegraphic communications between the Union stronghold at Springfield, Missouri, and Fayetteville (Washington County). On April 28, 1864, Major John Cosgrove of the Eighth Missouri State Militia Cavalry led eighty men and two officers out of Springfield to restore the telegraph line between the two posts. On arriving at Cross Hollow in Benton County, however, the Missourians encountered a detachment of the First Arkansas Cavalry (US) already guarding a repairman as he fixed the downed telegraph line, so Cosgrove and his men moved toward Bentonville (Benton County), near where Colonel William Penn Adair was reported to be with around 200 …

St. Charles, Capture of

A bloodless engagement, the January 13, 1863, capture of St. Charles (Arkansas County) was part of a larger Federal movement up the White River after the capture of Fort Hindman earlier that month. St. Charles served as an important Confederate stronghold before its abandonment and subsequent capture. Located on high ground on the west bank of the White River, St. Charles is the first defensible location north of the junction of the White and the Arkansas rivers. Fortified by Confederate forces in June 1862, St. Charles was attacked by Federal forces the same month. While Union troops did take St. Charles, it was only after a substantial engagement that saw massive casualties among the Federal sailors in the expedition. With …

St. Charles, Engagement at

After the fall of Memphis, Tennessee, during the Civil War, the Confederate navy was on the defense. Three Confederate war ships made their way up Arkansas’s White River to save themselves and also to defend the White River from invasion by the Union troops. Union major general Samuel R. Curtis and his Army of the Southwest advanced from Pea Ridge (Benton County) through the Ozark Mountains to Batesville (Independence County). Curtis later set up headquarters at Jacksonport (Jackson County), where the White and Black rivers converged. Confederate major general Thomas C. Hindman, the “Lion of the South,” was in charge of the defense of Arkansas. Hindman’s main objective was to slow the Union side’s movement so that the Confederates could …

St. Francis Road, Skirmish at

This brief engagement in Phillips County occurred in relation to some of the earliest Federal operations against Vicksburg, Mississippi. Brigadier General Willis A. Gorman, commander of the District of Eastern Arkansas headquartered at Helena (Phillips County), reported that an unspecified unit of Texas cavalry had attacked a Federal outpost of pickets on the St. Francis Road near Helena on December 23, 1862. Casualties at the outpost included two Federal soldiers killed and sixteen wounded, with no report of Confederate losses. Federal cavalry vigorously pursued the Texans and forced them to scatter in order to make their final escape through a patch of woods. Although unidentified in the official reports, the attack may have been conducted by Captain Alfred Johnson’s Company …

Star City Confederate Memorial

The Star City Confederate Memorial is a commemorative sculpture erected in Star City (Lincoln County) in 1926 by the Captain J. Martin Meroney Chapter No. 1831 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) to remember local men who had served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. Though Lincoln County was not formed until 1871, portions of two Confederate infantry and two cavalry companies, as well as a company of Home Guards, were raised in the area that would later encompass the Reconstruction-era county. In the early twentieth century, the members of the Captain J. Martin Meroney Chapter No. 1831 of the UDC decided to emulate other chapters around Arkansas and erect a statue in memory of local Confederates. …

Steamboats (Civil War)

Steamboats during the Civil War won little glamour but played a critical role. With rivers serving as the lifeblood of the Confederacy, steamboats permitted the rapid movement of heavy cargo up and down the waterways. Both Union and Confederate forces in Arkansas relied on steamboats to move troops and supplies, with Little Rock (Pulaski County), Helena (Phillips County), Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), and DeValls Bluff (Prairie County) serving as supply centers and shipping hubs. Essentially, steamboats made the war effort possible. By the start of the Civil War, the great majority of Arkansas’s commerce traveled by steamboat. Flatboats and keelboats had once moved agricultural products downriver to New Orleans, Louisiana, but neither type of boat could easily make the return …

Steamer Alamo, Attack on

As the Civil War in Arkansas progressed and Federal forces advanced farther into the interior of the state, the rivers became important byways for the transportation of soldiers and supplies. The steamboat Alamo was one of the many steamers put into service on the Arkansas River by Federal authorities. In November 1864, on a routine supply trip to Fort Smith (Sebastian County), the steamer was attacked by Confederate forces. Such attacks along the rivers were common. On November 29, 1864, a detachment of thirty soldiers of the Fortieth Iowa Volunteers under the command of Second Lieutenant John T. S. Fry boarded the steamer Alamo at Dardanelle (Yell County). The detachment was to guard the steamer on a supply run to …

Steamer Miller, Capture of

The capture and destruction of the Union stern-wheel steamer J. H. Miller illustrates the ongoing battle for control of significant interior rivers in the Trans-Mississippi Department, almost a year after the fall of Little Rock (Pulaski County) to the Union. In February 1864, the J. H. Miller, displacing 130 tons of water, joined the Union navy’s Mississippi River Squadron serving under charter on the Mississippi River and its tributaries. According to Captain Stephen R. Harrington of the Fifth Kansas Cavalry, reporting from camp thirty miles from Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) on the north bank of the Arkansas River, unidentified Confederate guerrillas attacked and captured Miller on August 17, 1864, from the south side of the Arkansas River and burned the …

Steamer Perry, Attack on

The 1864 attack on the Union side-wheel steamer John D. Perry illustrates the ongoing battle for control of significant interior rivers in the Trans-Mississippi Department, one year after the fall of Little Rock (Pulaski County) to the Union. In the spring of 1863 the Union Army’s Quartermaster Department chartered the John D. Perry for service on the Mississippi River and its tributaries. According to Brigadier General Christopher Columbus Andrews, who commanded the Second Division of the Seventh Army Corps headquartered at DeValls Bluff (Prairie County), approximately 100 unidentified Confederate partisans attacked the Perry on September 9, 1864, just below Clarendon (Monroe County) from the east side of the White River while the vessel transported a portion of Major General Joseph …

Steamer Resolute, Attack on

The 1864 attack on the Union steam tug Resolute illustrates the ongoing battle for control of significant interior rivers in the Trans-Mississippi Department, more than a year after the fall of Little Rock (Pulaski County) to the Union. Chartered on January 1, 1862, by the U.S. Army Quartermaster Department for use as an auxiliary vessel, the steam tug Resolute displaced thirty tons of water and served with two barges transporting troops and supplies on the Mississippi River and its tributaries. According to Brigadier General Christopher Columbus Andrews, commanding the Second Division of the Seventh Army Corps headquartered at DeValls Bluff (Prairie County), an indeterminate number of unidentified Confederate partisans fired at the Resolute at 8:00 p.m. on October 11, 1864, …

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. …

Stephenson, M. L.

M. L. Stephenson, a Union officer from Illinois, fought in several major Civil War battles in Missouri and Arkansas, was wounded three times, and eventually settled on a law career in Arkansas that climaxed in a very brief but eventful term on the Arkansas Supreme Court, where he participated in one of the critical episodes and law cases of the post–Civil War era—the dispute that became the Brooks-Baxter War. Stephenson was one of the Republican justices who ruled that Joseph Brooks, not Elisha Baxter, had been elected governor in 1872—a decision that President Ulysses S. Grant effectively reversed. Marshall Lovejoy (M. L.) Stephenson was born on March 29, 1838, in rural Nicholas County, Kentucky, northeast of Lexington. His parents, Robertus …

Stewart’s Plantation, Skirmish at

Following his victory at the Battle of Pea Ridge in March 1862, General Samuel Curtis, with intentions of capturing Little Rock (Pulaski County), moved his Union Army of the Southwest into northeast Arkansas, occupying Batesville (Independence County). Here, he split his force into three divisions, with one division under the command of General Frederick Steele dispatched to occupy the river port town of Jacksonport (Jackson County). While on a foraging expedition, made necessary by major supply problems that would lead to a cross-country march to Helena (Phillips County) to establish a supply line on the Mississippi River, Steele’s forces engaged Confederate forces in the Skirmish at Stewart’s Plantation on June 27, 1862. As supplies began to run low, Steele received …

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 …

Sugar Creek, Action at

aka: Battle of Dunagin's Farm
aka: Action at Little Sugar Creek

The Action at Sugar Creek, commonly known as the Battle of Dunagin’s Farm, was the first battle of the Civil War wholly fought in Arkansas and was part of the tug of war between the North and the South for control of Missouri. In late 1861, after the victory at Wilson’s Creek on August 10, 1861, the Missouri State Guard under Major General Sterling Price occupied Springfield, Missouri, and settled into winter quarters, not expecting pressure from Federal troops until spring. But on January 1, 1862, Major General Samuel R. Curtis and the Union’s Army of the Southwest prepared to march on Springfield and rid Missouri of enemy troops. Price, aware of the Federals’ advance, knew that he could not …

Sugar Loaf Prairie, Affair at

The 1865 Affair at Sugar Loaf Prairie was a unique encounter between Union troops and guerrillas in extreme northern Arkansas in which a cave was used as a hiding place. On January 8, 1865, a scouting mission of twenty-five men of the Seventy-third Infantry Enrolled Missouri Militia under the command of Lieutenant Willis Kissel moved from Forsyth, Missouri, in an effort to look for two bands of guerrillas who were operating in the southern part of the state. Moving into Arkansas, the Federals learned from a local family that the guerrilla band under the command of Alfred Cook was hiding in a cave near Sugar Loaf Prairie about two miles away. Kissel captured Cook’s son, and the youth led the …

Sultana

The Sultana steamboat disaster in 1865, at the end of the Civil War, has been called America’s worst maritime disaster. More people died in the sinking of the riverboat Sultana than on the Titanic. However, for a nation that had just emerged from war and was still reeling from the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, the estimated loss of up to 1,800 soldiers returning home on the Mississippi River was scarcely covered in the national news. The remains of the steamboat are believed to lie buried in Arkansas. Those aboard the boat were mostly Union soldiers from Midwestern states such as Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana. Having been taken prisoners of war, they were sent to the notoriously overcrowded Confederate prisons …

Sylamore, Skirmishes at (January 23 and 26, 1864)

After Arkansas seceded from the Union in May 1861, the Confederate Congress urged state leaders to make provisions for the manufacture of arms and munitions, including saltpeter, a major component of gunpowder. On August 21, the steamboat New Moon arrived at Sylamore (Stone County) with a cargo of thirty huge kettles, a steam engine, and a hammer mill to produce gunpowder for the Confederacy. They were brought up the North Fork of Sylamore Creek to what became known as Gunner Pool (now located in the Ozark National Forest). Governor Henry Rector placed Colonel Thomas R. Freeman in charge of the militia units to protect the munitions efforts. As steamships loaded and unloaded cargo and supplies for all of northern Arkansas …

Talbot, William

William Talbot was a sailor aboard the USS Louisville who received a Medal of Honor for his handling of the vessel’s nine-inch cannon during the 1863 Battle of Arkansas Post. William Talbot (his Medal of Honor papers identify him as Talbott) was born in Liverpool, England, in 1814. At age sixteen, he immigrated to the United States, arriving at Bath, Maine, in August 1830. He got married on September 4, 1834, and he and his wife, Priscilla, would have five sons and a daughter. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States on July 7, 1848. In 1860, he was forty-six years old and worked as a rigger in West Bath, Sagadahoc County, Maine. Talbot apparently enlisted in the …

Talbot’s Ferry, Skirmish at

aka: Skirmish at Talbert's Ferry

The Skirmish at Talbot’s Ferry (also known as Talbert’s Ferry) in Marion County was one of many skirmishes associated with General Samuel Curtis’s campaign in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas in 1862. The fighting was concentrated around a Confederate saltpeter manufactory located along the White River at Talbot’s Ferry near Yellville (Marion County). On April 19, 1862, a detachment under the command of Captain James T. Drummond of the Fourth Iowa Cavalry crossed the White River near Yellville with intentions of locating and destroying the Confederate saltpeter manufactory located eight miles south of Little North Fork—now part of Bull Shoals Lake—on the south side of the river. During his patrol, Captain Drummond captured three men thought to be Confederate pickets placed …

Tappan, James Camp

James Camp Tappan was a Confederate general, lawyer, and politician from Helena (Phillips County). He is best remembered for commanding a brigade of Brigadier General Thomas J. Churchill’s Arkansas Division. James Tappan was born on September 9, 1825, in Franklin, Tennessee, the son of Benjamin S. Tappan and Margaret Bell Camp Tappan. He was the oldest of thirteen children. He received his education at Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and Yale University in Connecticut, graduating in 1845. He then studied law in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and joined the bar of that state in 1846. In 1848, Tappan moved to Helena and began practicing law there and married his wife, Mary, in 1854. Tappan served a term in the Arkansas legislature as a …

Tate’s Bluff Fortification

The Tate’s Bluff Fortification near Camden (Ouachita County), constructed circa 1864, is a square earthen fortification measuring 100 feet on each side and located on a hilltop just below the confluence of the Little Missouri and Ouachita rivers. The Tate’s Bluff community was established by Captain Richard (Dick) Tate. Following service at the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, Tate traveled by boat up the rivers of the Louisiana Purchase to the point where the Ouachita and Little Missouri rivers ran together. He returned to his home in Tennessee and persuaded eighty-nine people to immigrate to Arkansas with him and settle in the area. John Henderson Tate, who was Dick Tate’s nephew, and his wife, Ann Bryan …

Taylor’s Creek and Mount Vernon, Skirmishes at

aka: Skirmish at Crowley's Ridge

Returning from his ill-fated attack on Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in April 1863, John S. Marmaduke scattered his Confederate forces from Wittsburg (Cross County) to Marianna (Lee County) in Arkansas, with Archibald Dobbins at Hughes’ Ferry. Hearing of Marmaduke’s return, Federal commanders at Helena (Phillips County) ordered Colonel Powell Clayton to take approximately 1,000 cavalry and three pieces of artillery to stop the Confederates from reestablishing in eastern Arkansas by destroying all food supplies and forage. If Confederates were denied this support system of food, shelter, and slaves, the Federal army could maintain superiority in eastern Arkansas and the Mississippi River to Helena, thus enhancing Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign to take Vicksburg, Mississippi. Clayton’s second goal was to determine if Sterling …

Telegraph No. 3 [Steamboat]

The Telegraph No. 3 was a steamboat used as a transport by the Union army during the Civil War. It suffered a boiler explosion, hit a snag, and sank near Osceola (Mississippi County) on November 23, 1863; three men drowned because of the accident. The Telegraph No. 3 was built at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1853 for the U.S. Mail Line. The vessel was fast, having made a speed trial from Cincinnati to Louisville, Kentucky, in nine hours and fifty-one minutes. The U.S. Army was using the Telegraph No. 3 as a transport vessel during the Civil War, and the steamer was heading down the Mississippi River from Cairo, Illinois, toward Memphis, Tennessee, on November 23, 1863, with a cargo of …

Ten Percent Plan (Reconstruction)

The Ten Percent Plan was the first official Reconstruction policy unveiled by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. The policy was announced by President Lincoln in December 1863 and was aimed at shortening the war by offering comparatively merciful terms for Confederate states to leave the Confederacy and rejoin the Union. Through this plan, Arkansas Unionists would begin the process of forming a new, loyal state government recognized by federal officials. After the fall of Fort Smith (Sebastian County) and Little Rock (Pulaski County) to the Union army in 1863, Arkansas was effectively split into zones under Union control and Confederate control. Unionists were emboldened by the success of the U.S. Army and began working to solidify the collapse …

Tenth Arkansas Infantry/Tenth Arkansas Cavalry (CS)

Two units known as the Tenth Arkansas Cavalry served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. Both served in the state late in the war and saw action in a number of engagements. A third unit known as Crawford’s First Arkansas Cavalry received an official designation as the Tenth Arkansas Cavalry but operated almost exclusively under the former name rather than the latter. The first unit known as the Tenth Arkansas Cavalry began service as the Tenth Arkansas Infantry Regiment. Organized at Springfield (Conway County) in July 1861, the regiment consisted of companies from Conway, Van Buren, and Perry counties. Thomas Merrick served as the first colonel of the regiment. Merrick served as a general officer in the pre-war …

Terre Noire Creek, Skirmish at

aka: Skirmish at Antoine
aka: Skirmish at Wolf Creek

The Skirmish at Wolf Creek, one of the engagements fought during the Camden Expedition, was fought one mile east of the Terre Noire Creek along a defile near the town of Antoine (Pike County). A Confederate detachment attacked a Union supply train of more than 200 wagons traveling toward Camden (Ouachita County) and guarded by the Twenty-ninth Iowa, as well as the Fiftieth Indiana and Ninth Wisconsin regiments. The skirmish was one of the earlier engagements associated with General Frederick Steele’s attempt to push south through Arkansas. The Twenty-ninth Iowa was assigned as the rear guard of the main supply regiment with the Fiftieth Indiana as support. While moving across a defile caused by the Terre Noire Creek, the rear …

Thayer, John Milton

John Milton Thayer was a lawyer and politician. During the Civil War, he was a major general in the Union army who served extensively in Arkansas. A native of Massachusetts, Thayer is most associated with Nebraska, where he served as both a senator and governor and commanded troops from that state during the war. Thayer was born in Bellingham, Massachusetts, on January 24, 1820; he was the youngest of nine children. Thayer’s parents, Captain Elias Thayer and Ruthe Staples Thayer, owned a farm. Thayer worked as a school teacher before entering Brown University, from which he graduated in 1841. He married Mary Torrey Allen in 1842; they had six children. Joining the bar in Massachusetts the same year he graduated …

Third Arkansas Cavalry (CS)

The Third Arkansas Cavalry Regiment was a Confederate unit that served in the Western Theater during the American Civil War. Serving under commanders Major General Joseph Wheeler and Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest, it fought with the Army of Tennessee in all its major engagements until surrender at Greensboro, North Carolina, on April 26, 1865. The regiment was organized on June 10, 1861, as the First (Borland’s) Battalion Arkansas Cavalry and mustered into Confederate service on July 27 as the First Regiment Arkansas Volunteers. Led by Colonel Solon Borland, it consisted of companies from Conway, Crittenden, Dallas, Hot Springs, Ouachita, Perry, Pope, Pulaski, Saline, White, and Yell counties. On January 15, 1862, it was re-designated as the Third Arkansas Cavalry …

Third Arkansas Cavalry (US)

The Third Arkansas Cavalry organized in October 1863 at Little Rock (Pulaski County). It became one of four Union cavalry regiments raised in Arkansas during the Civil War. In total, 8,289 white Arkansans joined the Federal service to struggle against their neighbors and the Confederacy. Abraham H. Ryan was promoted from captain of the Seventeenth Regiment of Illinois Infantry Volunteers to the colonel of the Third Arkansas, which mustered into service on February 10, 1864. On April 5, 1864, Special Order No. 6 commanded Colonel Ryan to take charge of all the troops at Lewisburg (Conway County), Dardanelle (Yell County), and the vicinity. Lewisburg, a small town located on the north bank of the Arkansas River, became the station for …

Third Arkansas Infantry (African Descent) (US)

aka: Fifty-Sixth United States Colored Troops

The Third Arkansas Infantry Regiment (African Descent) was a Civil War regiment primarily composed of formerly enslaved men that saw most of its service in and around Helena (Phillips County). 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. Officers of the units were white, but Black men could serve as non-commissioned officers. At least seven regiments of Black troops and two Black artillery batteries served in Arkansas. The Third Arkansas Infantry Regiment (African Descent) was organized at St. Louis, Missouri, on August 12, 1863, though Company H was recruited at Cape Girardeau, Missouri. The “companies [were] forwarded to …

Third Arkansas Light Artillery (CS)

aka: Jackson Light Artillery

The Third Arkansas Light Artillery was a Confederate unit that served in the Western Theater in a variety of roles throughout the Civil War. The battery that would come to be known as the Third Arkansas was organized at Jacksonport (Jackson County) on June 15, 1861, under the command of Captain George McCown. The unit was known as McCown’s Battery during its early existence. The battery joined two other Arkansas artillery units in a battalion under the command of Major Francis Shoup, and this unit transferred to Confederate service on July 25, 1861. McCown resigned his commission on July 17, and Second Lieutenant George Hubbard was elected to lead the battery. The battalion moved to the east bank of the …

Third Arkansas Volunteer Infantry Regiment (CS)

The Third Arkansas Volunteer Infantry Regiment originated from two companies that Hamburg (Ashley County) lawyer Van H. Manning and Dr. William H. Tebbs raised in Ashley County shortly after Arkansas seceded from the Union. The two companies traveled to Vicksburg, Mississippi, to join the Confederate army but were refused admittance. This led Manning to travel to Montgomery, Alabama, which was then the Confederate capital, to seek the aid of Senator Albert Rust of Arkansas. Rust not only helped the two orphan companies get into the army but also enlisted and returned to Arkansas to raise eight more companies and form a regiment. Rust was successful in recruiting companies in Union, Drew, Ashley, and Hot Spring counties, and they traveled to …

Third Confederate Infantry (CS)

The Third Confederate Infantry was a Confederate unit that served in the Western Theater during the American Civil War. The unit of seven companies was primarily made up of men from Greene, Jefferson, Mississippi, Pulaski, St. Francis, and Searcy counties. One Searcy County company was former Arkansas Peace Society men who had been arrested and offered the choice of enlistment or jail. These companies, originally part of Hindman’s Legion, were organized into the First Arkansas Infantry Battalion when Confederate authorities refused to accept the twenty-two-company legion. With the addition of three companies from Tennessee and Mississippi, it officially became the Eighteenth Arkansas Infantry with John S. Marmaduke as colonel, J. B. Johnson as lieutenant colonel, and H. V. Keep as …

Thirteenth Arkansas Infantry (CS)

The Thirteenth 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. The regiment organized on July 29, 1861, in Greene County with companies from Phillips, St. Francis, Poinsett, Lawrence, Greene, Crittenden, and Craighead counties. One company in the regiment was from Missouri. James Tappan was selected as the first colonel of the regiment. The regiment moved to Belmont, Missouri, and camped on the banks of the Mississippi River across from Columbus, Kentucky. The unit saw its first action at the Battle of Belmont on November 7, 1861, when Brigadier General Ulysses Grant attacked the camp. …

Thirtieth Arkansas Infantry (CS)

aka: Rogan's Arkansas Cavalry (CS)

The Thirtieth Arkansas Infantry was a Confederate unit that served in the Trans-Mississippi Theater during the American Civil War. The unit was primarily composed of men from Craighead, Cross, Clay, Greene, Jackson, Poinsett, Pulaski, and St. Francis counties. The regiment was organized on June 18, 1862, with field officers Colonel Archibald McNeill, Lieutenant Colonel Robert A. Hart, and Major James W. Rogan. Initially referred to as the Fifth Trans-Mississippi Infantry Regiment or McNeill’s Regiment, it was officially designated the Thirtieth Arkansas Infantry by the Confederate War Department. Often incorrectly referred to as the Thirty-Ninth Arkansas Infantry, it is also known as Hart and Rogan’s Arkansas Infantry. During summer and fall 1862, the regiment operated in the vicinity of the White …

Thirty-Eighth Arkansas Infantry (CS)

The Thirty-Eighth Arkansas Infantry was a Confederate unit that served in the Trans-Mississippi Theater during the American Civil War. The unit was composed of men primarily from Craighead, Independence, Izard, Lawrence, and Randolph counties. The regiment began organization in June 1862 as a mounted infantry unit but was dismounted in August 1862 and mustered into Confederate service with ten companies on September 21, 1862, at Jacksonport (Jackson County). The elected field officers of the unit were Colonel Robert G. Shaver, Lieutenant Colonel William. C. Adams, and Major Milton Baber. The Thirty-Eighth Arkansas experienced its first combat on December 7, 1862, at the Battle of Prairie Grove. Assigned to a brigade commanded by Shaver of Frost’s Division, the Thirty-Eighth, under Adams, …