What Happened...
The Battle of Arkansas Post
From Rugged and Sublime: The Civil War in Arkansas;
Courtesy of the Department of Arkansas Heritage
In the West, Ulysses Grant, whose victories at Fort Henry, Fort Donelson,
and Shiloh in 1862 had vaulted him into prominence, now found himself bogged
down in his campaign against the Confederate Mississippi River stronghold at
Vicksburg. In late December of 1862, William Tecumseh Sherman, later to become
notorious in the South for his march through Georgia and South Carolina, had
been repulsed with heavy losses at Chickasaw Bluffs north of Vicksburg and
forced to withdraw. Southerners had reason to hope that the fledgling
Confederacy, despite the Northern preponderance of men and material, might yet
win its independence.
In Arkansas, however, the situation was not so promising. In 1862, Federal
forces had won battles at Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove in northwest Arkansas and
had occupied the port city of Helena on the Mississippi River. The victories at
Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove had helped secure the state of Missouri for the
Union, but they did not guarantee Federal occupation of the remainder of
Arkansas. Before that could be accomplished, Union forces would have to gain
control of the Mississippi River, which forms the state's eastern border, and
the Arkansas River, which bisects it from northwest to southeast., As remnants
of Thomas Hindman's defeated and demoralized army struggled toward Little Rock
in late December 1862, Federal commanders were preparing to do just that. The
first blow would fall at a place already steeped in the state's history -
Arkansas Post.
Since its founding by a party of Frenchmen under Henri de Tonti in 1686,
the location of Arkansas Post had changed several times. Historians have
identified at least ten different forts and settlements associated with the
Post. In this pivotal year in the history of Arkansas and the nation, it was, in
the words of a Union officer, "a small village, the capital of Arkansas
County... situated on elevated ground, above the reach of floods, and defining
for some miles the left bank of the river. [It] is 50 miles [sic] above the
mouth of the river, 17 miles below Little Rock, and is surrounded by a fruitful
country, abounding in cattle, corn and cotton."
As the year 1863 opened, the fate of Arkansas Post and the rest of the
state had been entrusted to Lt. Gen. Theophilus H. Holmes, a
fifty-eight-year-old North Carolinian and West Point graduate who had served
with distinction in the Mexican War. Holmes's Civil War service, however, was
marred by criticism and controversy. Plagued by poor health and seemingly
unequal to the responsibilities that had been assigned to him, he was held in
low esteem by the men under his command, who gave him the unflattering nickname
"Granny." One critical newspaper editor summed up the feelings of many about
Holmes when he concluded a scathing indictment by noting, "In justice, we must
add that Gen. Holmes is a man of most excellent heart, kind disposition and a
gentleman in all things, and it is not his fault that he is not a General." For
all his shortcomings, Holmes did understand the importance of defending the
river approach to Little Rock. He placed Col. John W Dunnington in charge of the
river's defense, and, in late 1862, Dunnington began the construction of an
earthen fort at Arkansas Post. The site selected was on high ground at the head
of a horseshoe bend. By the middle of November, the fort, known alternately as
the Post of Arkansas or Fort Hindman, was nearing completion. Diamond-shaped,
three hundred feet on a side, and armed with three heavy cannon and eight
smaller cannon, the fort commanded an unobstructed view of the river for more
than a mile in either direction. A line of rifle pits extended westward from the
fort for almost a mile to a stream called Post Bayou. The garrison was made up
of approximately five thousand troops from Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana, many
of them dismounted cavalry.
In December 1862, Holmes sent Brig. Gen. Thomas Churchill to take command
of the post. Churchill, a Kentuckian and Mexican War veteran, was married to
Anne Sevier, the daughter of a prominent Arkansas family. He had fought at
Wilson's Creek (Missouri), Pea Ridge, and Richmond (Kentucky) before coming to
Arkansas Post. Churchill was determined to use his new command not only as a
defensive position, but also as a staging area for strikes against Federal
communication and supply lines on the Mississippi River.
Accordingly, in the last week of December 1862, Confederate forces
operating out of the Post attacked and captured the unarmed Union steamer Blue
Wing at Cypress Bend on the Mississippi, eight miles below the town of Napoleon.
The Blue Wing, carrying ordnance and supplies and towing two barges of coal, was
destined for the Federal fleet downriver at Vicksburg. The victorious Rebels
towed the ship and its supplies up the Arkansas River to the recently completed
Fort Hindman. This Confederate triumph would turn out to be the beginning of the
end for the Post of Arkansas.
On January 4, 1863, Grant placed Maj. Gen. John McClernand in command of
Union forces that were attempting to regain control of the Mississippi River.
McClernand, a former Illinois congressman who owed his position to President
Lincoln's desire to hold southern Illinois Democrats to the Union cause, was
despised by regular army men, and he knew it, but he was determined to make the
most of his opportunity. After concluding that future operations against
Vicksburg were threatened by the continued presence of Rebel forces at Arkansas
Post, he determined to attack and destroy it. William Tecumseh Sherman, fresh
from his defeat at Chickasaw Bluffs and now in McClernand's command, concurred.
On the night of January 4, Sherman and McClernand conferred with Adm. David D.
Porter, chief of river operations, on board Porter's headquarters boat, the
Black Hawk, to develop plans for the attack .
On January 8, McClernand loaded thirty-two thousand infantry, one thousand
cavalry, and more than forty pieces of artillery aboard sixty transports.
Escorted by three ironclads and several other rams and gunboats, the Federal
flotilla headed upriver from Milliken's Bend near Vicksburg. In an attempt to
mask his intentions, McClernand directed that the force continue upriver past
the mouth of the Arkansas to the mouth of the White River. The flotilla
proceeded up the White and thence through a cut-off to the Arkansas, where it
turned upriver toward Fort Hindman. At 5 p.m. on the ninth of January, the
troops began disembarking on the left bank of the river at Nortrebe's farm,
approximately three miles below the fort. By noon on the tenth, all troops had
been landed. In addition, two regiments of infantry, one of cavalry, and three
pieces of artillery were landed on the right bank of the river with instructions
to gain a position above the fort from which they could control the upriver
approaches.
Churchill ordered his whole force, which he reported as "3,000 effective
men," to take positions in trenches about one-and-a-half miles below the fort to
block the direct line of advance along the river between Nortrebe's farm and
Fort Hindman. But enfilading fire from the gunboats Rattler and Black Hawk
forced the Confederates to withdraw to the fort and adjoining positions.
Defective powder limited the range of Fort Hindman's big guns preventing them
from effectively challenging the gunboats.
McClernand planned to move his troops into position on a plateau north of
the fort. To divert attention from this movement, he ordered Porter to move his
gunboats upriver to engage Fort Hindman's guns. Shortly after 5:30 p.m., Porter
sent the ironclads Louisville, Baron de Kalb, and Cincinnati upriver to within
four hundred yards of the fort. As soon as these became engaged, Porter also
sent the light draft vessels Lexington and Black Hawk to throw in shrapnel and
rifled shell. Finally, he ordered the Rattler to steam past the fort and
enfilade it. A fierce duel ensued in which the Rattler sustained severe damage
from Confederate guns and drifted back into an abatis that Dunnington had placed
in the river opposite the Post. The fight continued until after dark, when
superior Union firepower finally succeeded in silencing most of the fort's guns.
McClernand continued to deploy his troops throughout the evening of the tenth.
Churchill was also busy positioning his troops in the rifle pits extending
west from the fort to Post Bayou.,, During the night, he received a telegraphic
dispatch from General Holmes ordering him to "hold out till help arrived or all
dead." Churchill passed the word on to his brigade commanders with instructions
to see it carried out "in spirit and letter." A Texas cavalryman scoffed, "When
it comes to our number holding out . . . against such odds it is all bosh, and
if 'GRANNY' Holmes was down here where he could smell a little gunpowder, he
would get better of the 'hold on' fit which so recently seized him at LITTLE
ROCK."
McClernand recorded that the night was cold and his troops without fires
and tents, but on the morning of January 11, his "chilled but faithful men were
greeted by a bright and genial sun." His plan called for Porter's gunboats to
begin a thirty-minute shelling of the Rebel positions at 1 p.m. This would be
followed by a three-minute lull, and then the full-scale assault would begin.
Porter's barrage began as scheduled. On the Union right, Sherman, whose troops
were in position approximately four hundred yards from the Confederate lines,
noticed that the Rebel artillery quickly ceased to respond to the fire. He
ordered his troops forward before the specified time had passed. Soon the entire
Federal line was in motion. With Fort Hindman's big guns silenced, Porter's
gunboats moved in, pounding the fort from close range and lobbing exploding
shells over the walls.
Reduced to reliance on small-arms fire and what remained of their six
field pieces, the Confederates nevertheless resisted fiercely, staggering and
halting the Union advance. W.W. Heartsill, a Texas soldier on the left end of
the Confederate line, watched the advancing Federals with a mixture of awe and
dread. Although he overestimated the size of the enemy army, he provided a vivid
account of the climactic point of the battle:
"Oh what a grand sight. FORTY THOUSAND men pressing forward as one man,
all silent except the commands of the Officers, on, on they come like an
irresistible thunder-bolt, as it dashes unrestrained through the air; to crush
the atoms of the sturdiest Oak, or cleave the adamantine cliffs in twain. The
Confederates remain as silent as spectators, every man with his finger on the
trigger, and each gunner at his post, until the front line of the enemy are
within seventy yards of our works; a blaze of fire flashed like lightning along
our line, sending three thousand bullets into the Federal ranks, while at the
same time [our remaining artillery] poured forth grape and canister; opening
avenues of death through the lines of the advancing foe, their lines waver;
halt; and fall back, but in good order, leaving the ground strewed with their
dead and dying; They reform their lines for another assault."
"Mound City," the best known Union vessel to operate in
Arkansas. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Naval Historical Center)
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The Federals' overwhelming numerical superiority eventually began to prevail.
The combination of Porter's guns and McClernand's field pieces knocked out all
of Fort Hindman's guns except for one ten-pounder Parrott. Still, the Rebels
resisted. By 3 p.m., Sherman's troops on the Union right were within a hundred
yards of the Rebel lines, and on the left, some of the Federal soldiers had
reached the ditch that surrounded the fort. As the Federals prepared for a final
assault, white flags of surrender suddenly appeared along part of the
Confederate line.
No one was more surprised by the white flags than Churchill, since he
alone had the authority to order a surrender and had not done so. He realized
that holding on to the Post of Arkansas was impossible given the enemy's
superiority in men and firepower, but he had hoped to be able to hang on until
nightfall, when he would try to cut his way through the Union lines to safety.
The appearance of the white flags made this impossible. Federal forces quickly
crowded in on the area where the flags had appeared, making further resistance
futile. Reluctantly, Churchill ordered the remainder of his command to lay down
their arms.
When Sherman entered the Rebel lines, he was immediately impressed by the
extent of the damage inflicted by Union firepower. "I saw that our muskets and
guns had done good execution," he wrote. "The fresh made parapet had been
knocked down in many places, and dead men lay around very thick." W W Heartsill
noted, "Only one gun of Hart's Battery but what is dismounted, all his horses;
eighty-three in number are killed in their harness." It was, he added, "as
fierce an engagement of six hours as has occurred during the war."
The victory had not come cheaply for the Northern army, either.
McClernand's final report listed 134 killed, 898 wounded, and 29 captured or
missing for a total of 1,061 casualties. Porter reported 30 killed or wounded.
Churchill listed Confederate casualties as 60 killed and 75 to 80 wounded. The
remainder of the Confederate command, numbering 4,793 men, was taken prisoner.
In addition the Federals captured 3,000 stands of small arms, 40 cans of powder,
over 2,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, 46,000 rounds of small arms
ammunition, 563 draft animals, and a considerable quantity of commissary and
quartermaster stores. Part of the captured ammunition came from the Blue Wing.
The Rebel prisoners were sent by steamer to the commissioner of exchange in St.
Louis. McClernand ordered the destruction of Fort Hindman, and, on January 17,
he re-embarked his command and steamed back to Milliken's Bend to participate in
the campaign against Vicksburg.
The triumph at Arkansas Post would be McClernand's last hurrah as an
operational commander. Resentment over the political nature of his appointment
and his own overbearing personality soon resulted in his reduction to a corps
commander under Grant. For Arkansas's Confederates, the loss of Arkansas Post
was another major setback. Its fall opened the river approach to Little Rock
from the Mississippi and was a severe blow to morale. A Little Rock editor wrote
on January 17, "The present is a dark day in the history of our State.... The
taking of the Post is an unexpected blow to our people, and one which will be
felt throughout our length and breadth, as it is the removal of the only
impediment offered in our river ... to the approaches of the gunboats."
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