Not
only had Earl Van Dorn failed to destroy a numerically inferior Union army at
Pea Ridge, but he sustained at least 2,000 casualties and left five cannon in
enemy hands. Pea Ridge was a severe blow to the Rebel cause in Arkansas, but a
harder one was about to be inflicted by friendly hands.
The
Confederate government exhibited deplorable timing by choosing the aftermath of
Pea Ridge to demonstrate that it regarded Arkansas as expendable – a resource to
be exploited instead of a treasure worth guarding. On March 25, 1862, Van Dorn
received orders to cross the Mississippi at Memphis and reinforce Rebel forces
massing to oppose the Union conquest of western Tennessee. Van Dorn complied as
quickly as he could, leaving the state virtually defenseless. This blatant act
of abandonment deprived Arkansas of the services of most of the troops that it
had raised during the war’s first year. An angry Governor Rector protested to
Jefferson Davis. Rector also contemplated seceding from the Confederacy,
threatening to “build a new ark and launch it on new waters, seeking a haven
somewhere, of equality, safety, and rest” unless Richmond took steps to assure
Arkansas’ security.
The
Davis administration responded to these legitimate concerns by sending Arkansas
an army of one – Major General Thomas C. Hindman. Hindman was a Mexican War
veteran and former Mississippi state legislator who relocated to Helena in
1854. With vaunting ambition and ham-fisted zeal, he threw himself into
Arkansas politics, denouncing nativism, challenging the clique that had long
dominated the state’s Democratic machine, and then banging the drum for
secession. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he raised the 2nd
Arkansas Infantry Regiment with his own funds and embarked on a precipitate rise
in the Confederate Army. He was promoted to brigadier general on September 28,
1861. General Hindman led several charges at the Battle of Shiloh, April 6-7,
1862, until an enemy shell smashed into his horse and exploded, flinging its
long-haired rider to the ground with a painful wound. Such valor earned Hindman
the second star of a major general and a challenging new assignment. He assumed
command of the Military District of the Trans-Mississippi at Little Rock by the
end of May 1862, and acted ruthlessly to restore Arkansas to a defensible
condition. Hindman declared martial law, enforced the Conscription Act to
collect a new army for Arkansas, and subjected deserters to summary execution.
He commandeered Texas soldiers en route to Mississippi, negotiated the return of
a division of Price’s Missourians, and ordered Pike to send all non-Indian
troops in Indian Territory to Arkansas. He set up workshops to manufacture the
weapons, ammunition, and equipment his new army needed. He had millions of
dollars worth of cotton in eastern Arkansas burned to keep it out of Yankee
hands. He also ordered the creation of irregular bands to harass any enemy
troops who ventured into the state.
Many
Arkansans questioned the legality of Hindman’s draconian policy, but it turned
out to be just what the Confederate cause in Arkansas needed. A month before
Hindman reached Little Rock, Samuel Curtis, recently promoted to major general,
marched through northern Arkansas with 20,000 men to capture Little Rock and set
up a military government. Curtis got within fifty miles of the Arkansas
capital, but the transfer of 8,000 of his troops east of the Mississippi and
logistical problems stalled his advance. When the Union Navy failed to provide
him with a new line of supply via the White River, Curtis changed his objective
to Helena on the Mississippi. He also altered his mode of operations, making
Arkansans the first Southerners to taste the “hard war” tactics that would
ultimately bring the Confederacy to its knees. He had his men live off the
countryside, and they gleefully stole or destroyed both public and private
property. As Curtis moved eastward through the delta, he also granted refuge to
thousands of slaves who fled to his army seeking freedom. The Emancipation
Proclamation would not go into effect for nearly another six months, but
emancipation had become part of Arkansas’ Civil War experience. On July 12,
Curtis entered Helena at the head of two armies – a white one with firearms and
a black one armed with little more than hope.
While
Thomas Hindman had created a new army to defend what was left of Confederate
Arkansas, his radical expedients made him persona non grata in the eyes
of many of the state’s citizens. Numerous complaints caused Jefferson Davis to
send his friend, Major General Theophilus Holmes, to take command of Confederate
forces in the newly organized Department of the Trans-Mississippi, which
encompassed Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas, and Indian Territory. A
military mediocrity with a sickly constitution, Holmes put Hindman in charge of
the District of Arkansas.
Hindman’s new command may have represented a demotion, but it gave him
jurisdiction over Arkansas, Missouri, and Indian Territory. Determined to “push
forward toward the Missouri River with the greatest vigor,” Hindman scraped
together a ragamuffin army of 12,000 men and thirty-one guns and advanced into
northwest Arkansas to smash an isolated division of 5,000 Federals under
Brigadier General James G. Blunt. Brigadier General Francis Jay Herron
frustrated Hindman’s plan by force marching two more blue divisions 110 miles
from Springfield, Missouri, in three days to support Blunt. The two Yankee
generals succeeded in mauling Hindman’s army and their own in a savagely fought
battle at Prairie Grove on December 7, 1862. The Rebels crept away that night
under the cover of a truce ostensibly arranged to allow them to bury their dead
unmolested. Prairie Grove ended the third effort of an Arkansas-based Rebel
army to secure Missouri. It also led to Hindman’s transfer to the Army of the
Tennessee on the other side of the Mississippi.
Hindman’s departure left General Holmes free to do little more than sit and fret
at Little Rock about his lack of resources and the allegedly inferior quality of
his troops. A plea from the Confederate War Department to draw pressure off
Vicksburg, Mississippi, by attacking the Union base at Helena finally stirred
Holmes into uncharacteristic action. He assembled a force of just under 8,000
men in the latter part of June 1863 and commenced a straggling march through
oppressive heat and heavy rains. Helena’s 4,129 Union defenders were alert,
well entrenched, and supported by ample artillery. They administered a stiff
repulse to Holmes’ poorly coordinated assault on July 4, and sent the Rebels
reeling with 1,636 casualties.
Major
General Ulysses S. Grant’s capture of Vicksburg that same day eclipsed the Union
victory at Helena, but it also freed thousands of Yankees for offensive
operations in Arkansas. With Holmes’ army crippled and demoralized, Grant
realized that Little Rock and perhaps the rest of the state lay ripe for the
taking. Grant sent enough reinforcements to Helena to give Major General
Frederick Steele, his friend and West Point classmate, a force that ultimately
numbered 15,000 men. On August 11, 1863, Steele launched a campaign where he
encountered more formidable resistance from the Arkansas heat and malaria than
his Confederate adversaries. After outsmarting and outmaneuvering Rebel troops
under the ubiquitous Sterling Price, Steele marched into Little Rock on
September 10, turning it into the third Confederate state capital to fall into
Northern hands. (This reckoning does not count Jacksonville, Florida, which was
briefly occupied and abandoned by Federal forces four times between March 12,
1862, and March 29, 1863.)
The
loss of Little Rock without determined resistance caused Confederate morale in
Arkansas to plummet. Large numbers of Rebel troops deserted, many of them
seeking the protection of Northern authorities. On September 23, Steele boasted
to Major General Henry W. Halleck, the Union Army’s general-in-chief: “With
6,000 more infantry, I think I could drive . . . into Mexico.” James Blunt’s
capture of Fort Smith on September 1 enabled the Federals to place the entire
Arkansas River line under their control. The military outposts that they
established became recruiting centers for Arkansans eager to fight for the
Union, including many who renounced their tenuous allegiance to the Confederacy
after a taste of Thomas Hindman’s military tyranny. More than 8,000 white
Arkansans joined Union military units formed in the state, and an unknown number
enlisted with recruiters from other states. Others served in companies of
scouts and home guards that were never officially mustered by Federal officers.
Helena had already become a major recruiting center for the black regiments of
the U.S. Colored Troops in the spring of 1863. At least 5,526 Arkansans of
African descent joined the Union Army.
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