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Defeat at Poison
Spring cost the Union Army 301 killed, wounded, and missing. More than half of
these losses belonged to the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry, which suffered 117
killed, but carried off sixty-five of its wounded. General Marmaduke reported
that 125 white Federals were taken prisoner. The Confederates also captured four
guns and 198 wagons, but thirty of the latter had to be burned because not
enough draft animals were left alive to pull them off the battlefield. For
Frederick Steele’s army at Cam-den, the loss of the forage train meant prolonged
hunger. The setback also underlined the danger of operating so deep in hostile
territory without sufficient logistical support. Confederate casualty reports
were incomplete, but Maxey estimated his total losses at fewer than 145.
The Federal
forces caught at Poison Spring operated under debilitating handicaps. In
addition to being outnumbered by a wide margin, Colonel Williams did not have
enough time to organize his original escort and Captain Duncan’s relief column
into a cohesive team. Early in the battle, well before the 18th Iowa Infantry
faced any significant pressure, Duncan curtly refused a request from Williams to
move four companies to the head of the train to reinforce the 1st Kansas
Colored. The Iowans subsequently redeemed themselves with their tenacious,
rearguard performance in covering Williams’ retreat, but the same cannot be said
of the Union cavalry. Wherever the action heated up, the blue troopers would
drift away from the firing line. By the time of the third Confederate assault,
which cracked the 1st Kansas Colored, the cavalry units deployed between the
black regiment and the 18th Iowa seem to have abandoned their posts completely,
presenting DeMorse’s Texans with an easy opportunity to enfilade Major Ward’s
right flank.
Although not
every component in Colonel Williams’ escort fought with the same spirit as the
1st Kansas Colored, the blame for the Poison Spring disaster belonged primarily
to General Steele. The Union commander displayed sheer recklessness in sending
such a vulnerable detachment so far from his main body, especially since he knew
he faced an aggressive and highly mobile foe. On the Confederate side, General Marma-duke deserves high marks for mobilizing a force large enough to exploit
Steele’s mistake, but he failed to handle his brigades properly once battle was
joined. Victory hung in the balance until General Maxey took charge and
coordinated the final Rebel assault.
The main legacy
of Poison Spring was the addition of an ugly dimension to the Civil War in
Arkansas. In keeping with the prevailing racial prejudices of the day, many of
Steele’s white soldiers exhibited a callous disregard for the murder of their
black comrades. Others were outraged by the atrocities at Poison Spring. “I want
no [Confederate] prisoners,” stormed Corporal Charles O. Musser of
the 29th Iowa Infantry. “If they [the Confederates] raise the Black flag, we can
fight under it. . . . I say give the rebbels no quarter, and the feeling is the
same throughout the army in the west. we will retaliate.”31
If there was one
Union unit at Camden that subscribed unanimously to these sentiments, it had to
be Steele’s other black regiment, the 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry. On the
evening of April 19, Colonel Samuel J. Crawford, the 2nd’s no-nonsense
commander, summoned his officers to a meeting to discuss the Poison Spring
Massacre. With cold-blooded deliberateness, that assemblage solemnly swore that
“the regiment would take no prisoners so long as the Rebels continued to murder
our men.” The 2nd Kansas Colored soon found an opportunity to redeem that
merciless pledge.
Shortly after
General Steele captured Camden, his intelligence sources began advising him that
General Banks had been defeated on the Red River and was in full retreat. Two
couriers from Banks, who reached Steele on April 18 and 22, respectively,
confirmed these disturbing reports. Steele received another blow on the
twenty-second when he learned that General Edmund Kirby Smith, the commander of
the Confederacy’s Trans-Mississippi Department, had arrived near
Camden with eight thousand infantry. These three divisions were fresh from their
recent victory in Louisiana and spoiling for a fight. That same day, Brigadier
General James F. Fagan organized four thousand Rebel horsemen into a strike
force to cut Steele’s communications between Camden and the Arkansas River.
Fagan drew blood on April 25 at Marks’ Mills, where he captured a 240-wagon
Union train and annihilated the reinforced brigade that Steele had detailed to
escort it to Pine Bluff. Rather than let his army be trapped south of the
Ouachita River, Steele quietly evacuated Camden on the evening of April 26 and
headed back to Little Rock.
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