General Thomas Churchill
Few Civil War forts could match the miserable conditions at
Arkansas Post. Located on the Arkansas
River, about 25 miles from its mouth on the Mississippi, the crude Confederate fortress
was built at the site of an old French trading post. Despite its strategic location in the rich Arkansas
River Valley, nearby swamps were a welcome host for disease, mosquitoes, and
insufferable humidity. The fort hospital
was crammed daily with the sick and dying. “We are losing men every day,” wrote Texan
Robert Hodges. “It looks as though we are all doomed to die in this detestable
country. We can hear the dead march
nearly all the times of the day and sometimes at night.” Lieutenant Flavius Perry wrote, “This country
was never made I don’t think for white people to live in, nothing but frogs and
crawfish can live here long.”
General Theophilus Holmes, the nearsighted, deaf commander of
Confederate forces in Arkansas, ordered the construction of the fort in
September, 1862. Built mostly by
impressed slaves, the fort featured three Dahlgren cannons removed from a
Confederate gunboat. The Dahlgren’s
casemates were constructed of oak logs and railroad iron. Outside the fort were 720 yards of trenches
manned by an Arkansas battery, a motley collection of Arkansas conscripts, and
two Texas brigades. The Texans were a diverse
collection of infantry and dismounted cavalry regiments commanded by Colonel
James Deshler and Colonel Robert Garland.
Dismounted cavalry were actually cavalrymen ordered (due to infantry
shortages) to send their mounts back home and become infantry - a huge dishonor
among the Texans, who generally preferred service on horseback rather than as a
lowly “mud slogger.” General Thomas Churchill, a former postmaster general from
Little Rock, commanded the Arkansas Post garrison. In honor of Thomas Hindman, Arkansas’ fiery Confederate
general, the fort was christened Fort Hindman.
The garrison, however, gave it a second christening - “Fort
Donelson No. 2,” a reference to the fallen bastion in Tennessee. Most
of them realized they couldn’t hold out against a determined, overwhelming
assault. There was no avenue of escape, no
Confederate naval presence on the river, and no ready source of reinforcements. General Holmes’s written order to “hold out
until help arrived or until all are dead” inspired little, if any, confidence. One Texan wrote: “Had the fort been built
anywhere else, it could doubtless have been held successfully against a large
force, but there was not a place on the Arkansas River less capable of
successful defense against a large force than Arkansas Post, but we were
stationed there with orders to hold the place against all hazards.”
By 1863, Union generals began to view Arkansas Post as a growing
threat to their plans to conquer the Mississippi. Fort Hindman units attacked Union steamboats
with artillery rounds. One Union supply
boat, the Blue Wing, was forced to
surrender – a real boon for the supply strapped Confederates. Illinois politician turned general, John
McClernand, saw an opportunity for personal gain. With a presidential authorization from
Lincoln in hand, he appropriated the command of General William Tecumseh
Sherman and named it the “Army of the Mississippi.” This army, made up of two Union army corps
would be used to assault Fort Hindman. Sherman had recently led the same troops in a failed
assault on Chickasaw Bayou near Vicksburg.
Eager for redemption, his men were hungry for a victory. Accompanying McClernand were three ironclads
and four river gunboats under Admiral David D. Porter. He would assault the fort by land while
Porter would bombard it from the river.
A force of 30,000 men - with gunboats - against a Confederate garrison
of 5,000 (healthy and sick) would suggest a blue tidal wave was about to roll over
a hapless, disease ridden fort.
General John McClernand
On the morning of January 9, 1863, Fort Hindman’s garrison awoke
to a forest of smokestacks on the Arkansas River. The trenches were manned while McClernand’s
men splashed ashore below the fort, packed their gear, and made their way
through the swamps to Arkansas Post’s defensive line. Some of them tried to capture feral hogs for
supper but met with little success. While
Union troops continued landing on the following day, Texans began pulling down
their own winter cabins for logs to help fortify their trenches. Their adversaries bedded down within earshot
of their bugles and construction work.
The following morning, January 11, Porter began pounding the
fort at point blank range. The fort’s big
naval guns were silenced while Union infantry confidently rose and charged
forward. At 80 to 100 yards from the Confederate line,
they were met with a hail of minie balls, artillery shells and shotgun
pellets. One Ohioan wrote, “The enemy
seemed determined to hold the fort. The
men in the ditches fought like so many tigers, and it was like running against
a stone wall to attempt to drive them out.”
Union General A.J. Smith’s brigade lost 60 men during their initial
assault. “We were ordered to retreat, and
back we rushed pell mell for the woods, all in confusion,” wrote Thomas
Marshall of the 83rd Ohio. “There we were rallied and cursed by
General Smith, and again started forward.”
Again they started forward and again they started forward;
the Yankees’ sheer numbers were starting to have their effect. After the fort’s Dahlgrens were disabled,
naval fire began hitting the rebel trenches.
The effects were horrifying as men once whole were blown to pieces. Robert Chalk of the Sixth Texas wrote: “One
shell from the gunboats fell in our lines, just under my feet. It killed and wounded 7 of our company. Little Frank McLaughlin was lying just in
front of me; he had a big leather belt on.
The shell cut him in two and his belt was left lying in the ditch.” It
was only a matter of time before the Confederate line would be breached. Most of the Texans preferred to continue the
fight. Members of the 24th
Texas Regiment, Garland’s brigade, had other plans – they initiated the fort’s
surrender.
Without authorization from General Churchill, white
surrender flags began flying in front of the 24th’s section of
trenches. Confusion reigned as Confederate
officers were unsure if they should continue fighting or surrender. Deshler’s men kept firing as jubilant Federals
rushed out into the open thinking the Confederates had surrendered. More white flags began to appear. Union troops began to enter the Confederate
works as the firing ceased. Churchill
had little choice but to surrender his entire command. Mounted on his horse, he met with Sherman. “Well Sherman,” he said. “I have made the
very best fight in my power.” Sherman
replied, “And a very gallant fight you have made of it.” Churchill rode his horse along the trenches
to halt any stray shooting. He argued
heatedly with Garland over his unauthorized white flags.
The Confederate dead were buried in the trenches they fought
in. A.J. Withrow of the 25th
Iowa wrote, “The sight which met my eyes made my heart sick. In one spot, I counted ten rebels who had
been killed by one shell. Some were cut
in two, others had both legs shot off and blood, brains, and fragments of
bodies lay all around, added to this dead horses, broken wagons, tents,
clothing and indeed everything that makes up the paraphernalia of a camp lay
about in grand confusion.” Field
hospitals were unintentionally riddled with shell fragments, killing the Confederate
wounded inside. For Union troops, prebuilt wooden coffins, stacked
ominously on their transports, were used to bury their dead. Confederate casualties were 709 dead, wounded
or missing while Union casualties were higher at 1,060. Sherman ordered the fort burned and
leveled. Confederate prisoners suffered extended
misery after being herded onto river steamers and shipped north to Chicago’s
notorious Camp Douglas. Exposed to
freezing temperatures, many Texans had no coats (they had left them behind
before the battle). Many fell ill
onboard as their diseases were transmitted to fellow prisoners and captors
alike.
Arkansas Post would
become a footnote to the overall Vicksburg Campaign commanded by General
Ulysses S. Grant. Angered by
McClernand’s attack on Arkansas Post, Grant brought an abrupt end to
McClernand’s political maneuverings and added his command to his own. A quarter of the Confederate forces in Arkansas
were suddenly lost, causing a panic in the streets of Little Rock, Arkansas. Colonel Garland, who many blamed for the
fort’s early surrender, would never command another regiment. Until the end of the war, he was passed over
for promotion. Garland later died of
tuberculosis; a disease he picked up while in prison camp. Colonel Deshler was killed by an artillery
shell at Chickamauga.
