USA > Arkansas > A pictorial history of Arkansas, from earliest times to the year 1890. A full and complete account, embracing the Indian tribes occupying the country; the early French and Spanish explorers and governors; the colonial period; the Louisiana purchase; the periods of the territory, the state, the civil war, and the subsequent period. Also, an extended history of each county in the order of formation, and of the principal cities and towns; together with biographical notices of distinguished and prominent citizens > Part 34
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1st. The inferiority of our armies to those of the enemy in point of numbers. 2d. The poverty of our single source of supply in comparison with his several sources.
3d. The fact that slavery from being one of our chief sources of strength at the commencement of the war, has now become, in a military point of view, one of our chief sources of weakness.
The enemy already opposes us at every point with superior numbers, and is endeavoring to make the preponderance irresistible. President Davis, in his recent message, says the enemy "has recently ordered a large conscription, and made a subsequent call for volunteers, to be followed, if ineffectual, by a still further draft." In addition, the President of the United States announces that "he has already in training an army of one hundred thousand negroes as good as any troops," and every fresh raid he makes and new slice of territory he wrests from us will add to this force. Every soldier in our army already knows and feels our numerical inferiority to the enemy. Want of men in the field has prevented him from reaping the fruits of his victories, and has prevented him from having the furlough he expected after the last reorganization, and when he turns from the wasting armies in the field to look at the source of supply, he finds nothing in the prospect to encourage him.
Our single source of supply is that portion of our white men fit for duty, and not now in the ranks. The enemy has three sources of supply; first, his own motley population ; secondly, our slaves; and thirdly, Europeans, whose hearts are fired into a crusade against us by fictitious pictures of the atrocities of slav- ery, and who meet no hindrance from their governments in such enterprise, be- cause these governments are equally antagonistic to the institution.
In touching the 3d cause, the fact that slavery has become a military weak- ness, we may rouse prejudice and passion, but the time has come when it would
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HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
be madness not to look at our danger from every point of view, and to probe it to the bottom.
Apart from the assistance that home and foreign prejudice against slavery has given to the North, slavery is a source of great strength to the enemy, in a purely military point of view, by supplying him with an army from our granaries; but it is our most vulnerable point, a continual embarrassment, and in some respects an insidious weakness. Wherever slavery is once seriously disturbed, whether by the actual presence or the approach of the enemy, or even by a cavalry raid, the whites can no longer with safety to their property openly sympathize with our cause. The fear of their slaves is continually haunting them, and from silence and apprehension many of these soon learn to wish the war stopped on any terms; the next stage is to take the oath to save property, and they become dead to us, if not open enemies. To prevent raids, we are forced to scatter our forces, and are not free to move and strike like the enemy; his vulnerable points are carefully selected and fortified depots. Ours are found in every point where there is a slave to set free. All along the lines, slavery is comparatively value- less to us for labor, but of great and increasing worth to the enemy for informa- tion. It is an omnipresent spy system, pointing out our valuable men to the enemy, revealing our positions, purposes and resources, and yet acting so safely and secretly that there is no means to guard against it. Even in the heart of our country, where our hold upon this secret espionage is firmest, it waits but the opening fire of the enemy's battle line to wake it like a torpid serpent into ven- omous activity.
In view of the state of affairs, what does our country propose to do? In the words of President Davis, "no effort must be spared to add largely to our effect- ive force as promptly as possible. The sources of supply are to be found in re- storing to the army all who are improperly absent, putting an end to substitu- tion, modifying the exemption law, restricting details, and placing in the ranks such of the able-bodied men now employed as wagoners, nurses, cooks, and other employés as are doing service for which the negroes may be found compe- tent." Most of the men improperly absent, together with many of the exempts and men having substitutes, are now without the Confederate lines, and cannot be calculated on. If all the exempts capable of bearing arms were enrolled, it will give us the boys below eighteen, the men above forty-five, and those per- sons who are left at home to meet the wants of the country and the army; but this modification of the exemption law will remove from the fields and manu- factories most of the skill that directed agricultural and mechanical labor, and, as stated by the President, "details will have to be made to meet the wants of the country," thus sending many of the men to be derived from this source back to their homes again. Independently of this, experience proves that striplings and men above conscript age break down and swell the sick lists more than they do the ranks. The portion, now in our lines, of the class who have substitutes is not, on the whole, a hopeful element, for the motives that created it must have been stronger than patriotism, and these motives, added to what many of them will call breach of faith, will cause some to be not forthcoming and others to be unwilling and discontented soldiers. The remaining sources mentioned by the President have been so closely pruned in the Army of Tennessee that they will be found not to yield largely. The supply from all these sources, together with what we now have in the field, will exhaust the white race, and though it
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THE YEAR 1862.
should greatly exceed expectations, and put us on an equality with the enemy, or even give us temporary advantages, still we have no reserve to meet unex- pected disaster, or to supply a protracted struggle. Like past years, 1864 will diminish our ranks by the casualties of war, and what source of repair is there left us? We, therefore, see in the recommendations of the President only a tem- porary expedient, which, at the best, will leave us, twelve months hence, in the same predicament we are in now. The President attempts to meet only one of the depressing causes mentioned; for the other two he has proposed no remedy. They remain to generate lack of confidence in our final success, and to keep us moving down hill as heretofore. Adequately to meet the causes which are now threatening ruin to our country, we propose, in addition to a modification of the President's plans, that we retain in service for the war all troops now in service, and that we immediately commence training a large reserve of the most cour- ageous of our slaves, and further, that we guarantee freedom within a reason- able time to every slave in the South, who shall remain true to the Confederacy in this war.
As between the loss of independence and the loss of slavery, we assume that every patriot will freely give up the latter, give up the negro slave rather than be a slave himself. If we are correct in this assumption, it only remains to show how this great national sacrifice is, in all human probabilities, to change the current of success and sweep the invader from our country.
Our country has already some friends in England and France, and there are strong motives to induce these nations to recognize and assist us, but they can- not assist us without helping slavery, and to do so, this would be in conflict with their policy for the last quarter of a century. England has paid hundreds of millions to emancipate her West India slaves and break up the slave trade. Could she now consistently spend her treasure to re-instate slavery in this country? But this barrier once removed, the sympathy and the interests of these and other nations will accord with our own, and we may expect from them both moral support and material aid. One thing is certain, as soon as the great sac- rifice to independence is made and known in foreign countries, there will be a complete change of front, in our favor, of the sympathies of the world.
This measure will deprive the north of the moral and material aid which it now derives from the bitter prejudices with which foreigners view the institu- tion, a .d its war, if continued, will henceforth be so despicable in their eyes that this source of recruiting will be dried up. It will leave the enemy's negro army no motive to fight for, and will exhaust the source from which it has been recruited.
The idea that it is their special mission to war against slavery has held growing sway over the northern people for many years, and has at length ripened into au armed and bloody crusade against it. This baleful superstition has so far sup- plied them with a courage and constancy not their own. It is the most power- ful and honestly entertained plank in their war platform. Knock this away, and what is left? A bloody ambition for more tertitory, a pretended veneration for the Union, which one of their own most distinguished orators (Dr. Beecher, in his Liverpool speech), openly avowed was only used as a stimulus to stir up the anti-slavery crusade, and lastly the poisonous and selfish interests which are the fungus growth of the war itself. Mankind may fancy it a great duty to destroy slavery, but what interest can mankind have in upholding this remainder of the
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HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
northern war platform? Their interests and feelings will be diametrically op- posed to it. The measure we propose will strike dead all John Brown fanati- cism and will compel the enemy to draw off altogether, or .in the eyes of the world, to swallow the Declaration of Independence without the sauce and dis- guise of philantrophy. This delusion of fanaticism at an end, thousands of northern people will have leisure to look at home and to see the gulf of despot- ism into which they themselves are rushing.
The measure will, at one blow, strip the enemy of foreign sympathy and as- sistance, and transfer them to the South; it will dry up two of his three sources of recruiting; it will take from his negro army the only motive it could have to fight against the South, and will probably cause much of it to desert over to us; it will deprive his cause of the powerful stimulus of fanaticism, and will enable him to see the rock on which his so-called friends are now piloting him. The . immediate effect of the emancipation and enrollment of negroes on the military strength of the South would be : To enable us to have armies numerically super- ior to those of the North, and a reserve of any size we might think necessary : To enable us to take the offensive, move forward, and forage on the enemy. It would open to us, in prospective, another and almost untouched source of sup- ply, and furnish us with the means of preventing temporary disaster and carry- ing on a protracted struggle. It would instantly remove all the vulnerability,
embarrassment, and inherent weakness which result from slavery.
The
approach of the enemy would no longer find every household surrounded by spies; the fear that sealed the master's lips, and the avarice that has, in so many cases, tempted him practically to desert us, would alike be removed. There would be no recruits awaiting the enemy with open arms, no complete history of every neighborhood with ready guides, no fear of insurrection in the rear, or anxieties for the fate of loved ones when our armies moved forward. The chronic irritation of hope deferred would be joyfully ended with the negro, and the sympathies of his whole race would be due to his native South. It would restore confidence in an early termination of the war with all its inspiring consequences, and even, if contrary to all expectations, the enemy should suc- ceed in overrunning the South, instead of finding a cheap, ready-made means of holding it down, he would find a common hatred and thirst for vengeance which would break into acts at every favorable opportunity, would prevent him from settling on our lands, and render the South a very unprofitable conquest. it would remove forever all selfish taint from our cause and place independence above every question of property. The very magnitude of the sacrifice itself, such as no nation has ever voluntarily made before, would appall our enemy, destroy his spirit and his finances, and fill our hearts with a pride and singleness of purpose which would clothe us with new strength in battle.
Apart from all the other aspects of the question, the necessity for more fight- ing men is upon us. We can only get a sufficiency by making the negro share the danger and hardships of the war. If we arm and train him, and make him fight for the country in her hour of dire distress, every consideration of princi- ple and policy demands that we should set him and his whole race who side with us free. It is a first principle with mankind that he who offers life in de- fense of the State, should receive from her in return his freedom and his happi- ness; and we believe, in acknowledgment of this principle, the Constitution of the Southern States has reserved to their respective governments the power to free slaves for meritorious services to the State. It is politic besides. For many
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THE YEAR 1862.
years, ever since the agitation of the subject of slavery commenced, the negro has been dreaming of freedom, and his vivid imagination has surrounded that condition with so many gratifications that it has become the paradise of his hopes. To attain it, he will attempt dangers and difficulties not exceeded by the bravest soldier in the field. The hope of freedom is perhaps the only moral incentive that can be applied to him in his present condition. It would be pre- posterous then to expect him to fight against it with any degree of enthusiasm, therefore we must bind him to our cause by no doubtful bonds, we must leave no possible loop-hole for treachery to creep in. The slaves are dangerous now; but armed, trained, and collected in an army, they would be a thousand fold more dangerous, therefore when we make soldiers of them, we must make free men of them beyond all question, and thus enlist their sympathies also. We can do this more effectually than the North can now do, for we can give the negro not only his own freedom, but that of his wife and child, and secure it to him in his old home. To do this, we must immediately make his marriage and parental relations sacred in the eyes of the law, and forbid their sale. The past legislation of the South concedes that a large free middle class of negro blood, between the master and slave, must sooner or later destroy the institution. If, then, we touch the institution at all, we would do best to make the most of it, and by emancipating the whole race upon reasonable terms and within such reasonable time as will prepare both races for the change, secure to ourselves all the advantages, and to our enemies all the disadvantages that can arise, both at home and abroad, from such a sacrifice.
Satisfy the negro that if he faithfully adheres to our standard during the war he shall receive his freedom and that of his race, give him as an earnest of our intentions such immediate immunities as will impress.him with our sincerity and be in keeping with his new condition, enroll a portion of his class as sol- diers of the Confederacy, and we change the race from a dreaded weakness to a position of strength.
Will the slaves fight? The helots of Sparta stood their masters good stead in battle. In the great sea fight of Lepanta, where the Christians checked forever the spread of Mohammedanism over Europe, the galley slaves of portions of the fleet were promised freedom and called on to fight at a critical moment of the battle. They fought well, and civilization owes much to those brave galley slaves. The negro slaves of St. Domingo, fighting for freedom, defeated their white masters and the French troops sent against them. The negro slaves of Jamaica revolted and, under the name of maroons, held the mountains against their masters for a hundred and fifty years, and the experience of this war has been, so far, that half-trained negroes have fought as bravely as many other half-trained Yankees. If, contrary to the training of a life-time, they can be made to face and fight bravely against their former masters, how much more probable is it that with the allurement of a higher reward and led by those masters, they would submit to discipline and face dangers.
We will briefly notice a few arguments against this course.
It is said republicanism cannot exist without the institution. Even were this true, we prefer any form of government of which the southern people may have the moulding, to one forced upon us by a conqueror.
It is said that white men cannot perform agricultural labor in the South. The experience of this army during the heat of summer, from Bowling Green, Ken-
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HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
tucky, to Tupelo, Mississippi, is that the white man is healthier when doing reasonable work in the open field than at any other time.
It is said an army of negroes cannot be spared from the fields. A sufficient number of slaves is now ministering to luxury alone to supply the place of all we need, and we believe it would be better to take the half able-bodied men off a plantation than to take the one master mind that economically regulated its operations. Leave some of the skill at home, and take some of the muscle to fight with.
It is said that slaves will not work after they are freed. We think necessity and a wise legislation will compel them to labor for a living.
It is said it will cause terrible excitement and some disaffection from our cause. Excitement is far preferable to the apathy which now exists, and dis- affection will not be among the fighting men.
It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more cen- tralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.
We have now briefly proposed a plan which we believe will save our country. It may be imperfect, but in all human probability it would give us our inde- pendence. No objection ought to outweigh it, which is not weightier than inde- pendence. If it is worthy of being put in practice, it ought to be mooted quickly before the people, and urged earnestly by every man who believes in its efficacy. Negroes will require much training, training will require time, and there is danger that this concession to common sense may come too late.
P. R. CLEBURNE, Major-General Commanding Division.
D. C. GOVAN, Brigadier-General.
JNO. E. MURRAY, Colonel Fifth Arkansas.
G. F. BAUCUM, Colonel Eighth Arkansas.
PETER SNYDER, Lieutenant-Colonel Commanding Sixth and Seventh Ar- kansas.
E. WARFIELD, Lieutenant-Colonel Second Arkansas.
M. P. LOWRY, Brigadier-General.
A. B. HARDCASTLE, Colonel Thirty-second and Forty-fifth Mississippi.
F. A. ASHFORD, Major Sixteenth Alabama.
JNO. W. COLQUITT, Colonel First Arkansas.
RICH. J. PERSON, Major Third and Fifth Confederate.
G. L. DEAKINS, Major Thirty-fifth and Eighth Tennessee.
J. H. COLLETT, Captain Commanding Seventh Texas.
J. H. KELLY, Brigadier-General Commanding Cavalry Division.
Late in 1864, the proposition began to be seriously consid- ered by the Confederate authorites. A Bill was before the Congress for the purpose, and was debated January 26th, 1865, and it is stated by historians that upon assuming su- preme command of the Army, February 6th, 1865, General Lee recommended it, but the matter dawdled along from time to time, as the Confederacy was then tottering to its fall,
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THE YEAR 1862.
and there was not time to put the measure into effect. The Bill became a law, February 22d, 1865, but it was too late, and nothing was ever done under it. The Federal authori- ties, with no need for such troops, having the whole world to draw upon for recruits, were yet quick to seize upon the idea of arming them ; and although there was no reason for the blacks to enter the Federal Army except for the pay it afforded -freedom was assured to them without it-yet it needed only for arms to be placed in their hands to have them turn against their former masters as vigorously as ever the Feder- als themselves did. They would doubtless have done the same service, or better, in Confederate ranks, with proper in- ducements.
The number of slaves set free by the emancipation proc- lamation, as made effectual by the subsequent success of the Federal arms, is given as 3,120,000. The number in Ar- kansas, by the census of 1860, was 111,259. Thus, by one far-reaching act, there was swept away a subject which had been a source of contention in the administration of affairs for nearly a century. Long before its outbreak in the Miss- ouri compromise of 1820, it had been a thorn in the nation's side, whose constant irritation had now produced one of the most desolating wars of the world, but which was now for- tunately forever removed.
CHAPTER XXI.
1862.
PROGRESS OF THE WAR .-- FORMATION OF THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI DEPART- MENT .- HARRIS FLANAGIN, GOVERNOR .- HARDSHIPS IN DOMESTIC LIFE.
AFTER the battle of Shiloh, General Beauregard, being in ill health, was relieved of command, and was succeeded by General Braxton Bragg. The new Commander remained a while at Corinth, Mississippi, and Tullahoma, Tennessee, recruiting his army. By July, a force of about 50,000 was gathered; and was drilled and disciplined for the approaching campaign.
The following is the disposition of the Arkansas troops in this army, June 30th, 1862 :
IN THE ARMY OF MISSISSIPPI :
In the First Army Corps .- First Division, commanded by Brigadier-General Charles Clark. In the Second Brigade, Thirteenth Arkansas, commanded by Colonel J. C. Tappan.
In the Second Army Corps and Third Brigade, the First Arkansas, commanded by Colonel John W. Colquitt.
In the Third Army Corps .- Major-General Hardee; First Brigade, commanded by Colonel St. J. R. Liddell; Second Arkansas, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Bocage; Fifth Arkansas, commanded by Colonel L. Featheston ; Sixth Ar- kansas, commanded by Colonel A. T. Hawthorn ; Seventh Arkansas, commanded by Colonel R. G. Shaver ; Eighth Ar- kansas, commanded by Colonel John H. Kelley; Second Brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General Patrick R. Cle-
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THE YEAR 1862.
burne; Fifteenth Arkansas, commanded by Lieutenant- Colonel J. K. Patton.
IN THE ARMY OF THE WEST :
Major-General J. P. McCown.
First Division, commanded by Brigadier-General Henry Little; First Brigade, commanded by Colonel Elijah Gates;
Sixteenth Arkansas, commanded by Colonel - Provence ; Second Brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General P. O. Hebert; Fourteenth Arkansas, commanded by Colonel W. C. Mitchell; Seventeenth Arkansas, commanded by Colonel John Griffith.
Second Division .- First Brigade, commanded by General W. L. Cabell, and McRae's Arkansas Infantry; Second Brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General Thomas J. Churchill; Fourth Arkansas, commanded by Colonel H. G. Bunn ; First Arkansas Rifles (dismounted), commanded by Colonel R. W. Harper; Second Arkansas Riflemen (dis- mounted), commanded by Colonel J. A. Williamson ; Fourth Arkansas Battalion, commanded by Major J. A. Ross ; Twenty-fifth Arkansas, commanded by Colonel J. C. Turn- bull; Thirty-first Arkansas, commanded by Colonel T. H. McCray.
Third Division, commanded by Brigadier-General D. H. Maury ; First Brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General T. P. Dockery; Eighteenth Arkansas Infantry, commanded by Colonel John J. Daley ; Nineteenth Arkansas Infantry, com- manded by Colonel - Dismukes; Twentieth Arkansas In- fantry, commanded by Colonel Henry P. Johnson ; Mccown's Arkansas Battalion, Jones' Arkansas Battalion and Second Brigade, commanded by General J. C. Moore; Hobbs' Ar- kansas Infantry, Adams' Arkansas Infantry and Third Bri- gade, commanded by General C. W. Phifer; Third Arkansas Cavalry.
31
482
HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
In the summer of 1862, the Confederate authorities created a department west of the Mississippi river, called the Trans- Mississippi Department, composed of the States of Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. In Arkansas, General Thomas C. Hindman was placed in command, afterwards General Theo- philas H. Holmes, then General Sterling Price. Generals James F. Fagan, T. J. Churchill, John Selden Roane, W. L. Cabell and Marsh Walker were assigned to duty in this department. The department was for a time under com- mand of General E. Kirby Smith, with headquarters at Shreveport, Louisiana. General Albert Rust commanded a brigade of Texans, but with some Arkansians in it. General Parsons commanded a brigade of Missourians, and General John S. Marmaduke a cavalry brigade, mostly Missourians. General Charles W. Adams, of Helena, had a brigade re- cruited mostly from Newton, Boone and other northern and northwestern counties of Arkansas. Woodruff's artillery comprised a part of the artillery force.
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