The Union Fortifications of Fort Smith

After the Union troops took possession of Fort Smith in 1863, their focus turned to holding the key post.

This initially was not a problem, as the Confederate forces in the region had been driven away and were suffering from extremely low morale. The winter months, however, gave them time to reorganize and for new recruits and desperately needed supplies to arrive. By early 1864, rumors were reaching Fort Smith of Confederate plans to retake the vital city and post.

To prepare a defense against such a plan, the Federals began building an impressive line of fortifications that rings the main garrison as well as the downtown area of the city itself. Running from just below today's Fort Smith National Historic Site and National Cemetery, the defenses started on the Poteau River. From there they followed a series of ridges and hilltops around the city to the banks of the Arkansas River just north (downstream) from the downtown area.

This line consisted of rifle pits and breastworks, some of which were stockaded. The land in front of the defenses was cleared and tangled branches and tops from felled trees were used to create an additional defense against an infantry attack. At key hilltops along the line, earthwork forts and batteries were built to serve as strong points. Cannon placed in these works could sweep the approaches to the defenses and control the main roads leading into Fort Smith.

Key forts were built to control the Fort Towson Road (today's Towson Avenue), the Van Buren Road and on the grounds of the Immaculate Conception Church. The Catholic church owned a full square mile on the hills just west of the downtown area and the Sisters of Mercy strongly voiced their opposition to the construction of fortifications on church property. Their pleas reached deaf ears. The military importance of the site was obvious.

The construction of these fortifications continued through the spring of 1864. Citizens often picked up shovels and axes to join in the work, as did details from the various regiments stationed at Fort Smith.

In addition to the main line that surrounded the town, Union engineers also threw up earthen embankments against the stone walls of the main fort and placed a battery at Belle Point in front of the fort to control the river approaches to the garrison.

Very little remains of these fortifications today. Some small sections of rifle pits can still be seen and in a few places vague traces of earthworks are still visible. For the most part, though, the Union defenses of Fort Smith vanished during the late 19th and early 20th century residential and industrial expansion of the city. To learn more about Fort Smith National Historic Site, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/fortsmith

The Battle of Devil's Backbone, Arkansas - Mountain Fight for Fort Smith

As Union troops surged into Fort Smith on the morning of September 1, 1863, General James G. Blunt ordered his cavalry to pursue the retreating soldiers lead by Confederate General W.L. Cabell.

The Confederates were falling back on the Waldron Road, having evacuated Fort Smith without a fight, and appeared to be in full flight. Following Blunt's orders, Union Colonel William F. Cloud led the 2nd Kansas and 6th Missouri Cavalries, along with two sections from Rabb's Indiana battery, down the road leading to Jenny Lind and Waldron.

The Federals skirmished with Cabell's rear guard at Jenny Lind, sending the Confederate horsemen into a rapid retreat. What Cloud didn't know as he stormed after them, however, was that it was all part of a trap planned by the Southern general. Knowing that the Union commander would think he had the Confederates on the run and was closing in on the rear of their column, Cabell prepared an ambush where the Waldron Road crossed the Devil's Backbone, an abrupt mountain ridge that runs east to west across the horizon south of Fort Smith.

As Cloud and his horsemen rode up to the foot of the ridge, intent on catching their prey, the hunter suddenly became the hunted. The Union troopers road into a deadly trap and were ambushed by the Confederates of Monroe's Regiment who were hidden at the bottom of the Backbone:

The enemy formed in a dense growth of small timber and brush, and when our scouts came up, they let them pass through without firing a gun, but when Company C came up, they opened upon them a very heavy volley of infantry in two columns. Your son (Capt. E.D. Lines, 2nd Kansas) was killed at that time. He was in the extreme advance, (as was his custom,) and was shot by a Minnie ball, through the bowels and liver.

Following the ambush, the Battle of Devil's Backbone raged for three hours. The two forces engaged in a severe artillery duel that damaged nerves far more than it did bodies. The Confederates held their own and appeared to be on the verge of prevailing when the cannon fire finally slowed. To his shock and dismay, however, General Cabell watched as his army virtually disintegrated around him.

Not under immediate attack and having fought well so far, the Confederate lines suddenly collapsed and soldiers streamed down the backside of the ridge. Cabell could do nothing but withdraw his remaining intact units and fight a rear guard action as he pulled back to Waldron. The loss of the fight at Devil's Backbone ended his hopes of defeating the Union army in detail and retaking Fort Smith.

To learn more about the battle, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/devilsbackbone.

Fort Smith during the Civil War

Following its seizure by the state militia in April of 1861, the post of Fort Smith and the adjacent community bearing its name entered one of the most turbulent periods of Arkansas history.

Confederate troops occupied Fort Smith for the first two years of the Civil War, using it as a supply depot and base of operations. It served as a point of refuge for Southern soldiers following the disastrous Pea Ridge Campaign in March of 1862 and was the center of General Thomas Hindman's efforts to build a new Army of the Trans-Mississippi later that year in anticipation of his Prairie Grove Campaign.

Thousands of men camped on the hills and prairies surrounding Fort Smith, while quartermasters and commissary officers did their best to obtain uniforms, shoes, weapons, ammunition and food for the soldiers.

Even after Hindman withdrew what remained of his army from the vicinity in December of 1862, Fort Smith remained in Southern hands. Finally during the final days of August 1863, however, the Union army of General James G. Blunt closed in on the fort from the west. After moving into position along the nearby Poteau River to block the Federal approach, Confederate General W.L. Cabell decided he could not hope to hold Blunt in check.

Withdrawing from the Poteau River position on the night of August 31, 1863, Cabell evacuated Fort Smith and moved his his command to protect the supply wagons as they lumbered south across the mountain roads to Waldron, Arkansas.

Sending a large force of cavalry to pursue Cabell, Blunt occupied Fort Smith. For the first time in more than two years, the Stars and Stripes flew again over the walls of Fort Smith.

To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/ARFS5.

The Southern Seizure of Fort Smith, April 23, 1861

Even as Arkansas deliberated the critical move of joining her sister Southern states in leaving the Union, the clouds of war loomed on the state's western borner.

The U.S. Army maintained a garrison at Fort Smith in 1861 and pro-secession leaders in Arkansas realized that as long as Federal troops held the fort, it would be a thorn in the side of their dreams of an independent Southern nation.

As a result, the state called out its militia and organized a military force to take Fort Smith, fully realizing that if the fort's garrison resisted, war could result even while the state was still part of the Union. Led by Colonel Solon Borland, the Arkansas troops left Little Rock and headed up the Arkansas River by steamboat. The force of infantry and artillery grew as it moved. In a final stop in Van Buren, for example, additional militiamen joined Borland's force.

Well aware that Borland was coming, Major Samuel Sturgis of the 4th U.S. Cavalry deliberated what to do. Finally deciding that he could not hope to hold the large fort with the small command at his disposal, Sturgis decided that the time had come to go. As Borland's command steamed up the river, Sturgis gave the order for his men to prepare to evacuate Fort Smith.

Major Sturgis and his men left Fort Smith at 9 p.m. on the evening of April 23, 1861, heading for Fort Washita in what is now Oklahoma. Behind they left a couple of officers including the post quartermaster, a few soldiers, the women who did the post laundry and the sick men in the hospital.

Borland's men came off their boats just 2 hours after the U.S. soldiers left, claimed possession of the fort for Arkansas and took the few men remaining there as prisoners of war. They were quickly paroled and at least one, Major Richard C. Gatlin who was visiting the post, soon resigned his commission and went on to become a Confederate general.

To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/fortsmithseizure3.

The Second Fort Smith, 1838-1871

Politics, in the 19th century as much as today, often played a role in where military posts were located and how much money went into building them. This was definitely the case at Fort Smith in Arkansas.

The original Fort Smith had been evacuated by the U.S. Army in 1824 in favor of new posts closer to the rapidly expanding Western frontier. But politics came into play and, over the objections of the army itself, the U.S. Congress appropriated money for a new Fort Smith. Army officers saw no need for the new fort, but since the money had been appropriated, they oversaw its construction.

The second Fort Smith was a magnificent piece of construction. A complex of brick and stone buildings surrounded by a five-sided stone wall with imposing bastions at its corners, the fort was one of the most beautiful of the growing nation's western posts. Because at the time no one could see the need for a major defensive work at Fort Smith, the engineers designing and building the post halted construction of the original plans and developed the citadel to serve a primary function as a supply post for troops assigned to the frontiers.

They could not then imagine the conflict that would soon divide North and South and split the United States in two.

State troops from Arkansas seized Fort Smith in 1861, even before the state left the Union, and it remained an important Confederate post for the next two years. As had the U.S. Army, the Confederate army used Fort Smith as a supply post. It played a particularly critical role in the Prairie Grove Campaign of 1862, when its storehouses served to equip and provision General Thomas Hindman's growing Trans-Mississippi Army.

Fort Smith fell to Union troops in 1863 when it was evacuated ahead of the advance of an army led eastward through the Indian Nations of today's Oklahoma by General James G. Blunt. Southern troops tried to turn the tide of the disaster at the nearby Battle of Devil's Backbone, but failed. Despite demonstrations and actually bringing the fort under fire in 1864, they never again seriously threatened Union possession of Fort Smith.

The army continued to hold the post until 1871 when it was declared surplus and turned over to the Federal Court for the Western District of Arkansas and its famed "hanging judge," Isaac C. Parker.

To learn more about the second Fort Smith, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/ARFS4.

The Original Fort Smith, 1817-1824

Beginning our look at the historic sites in Fort Smith, I thought it would be interesting to look back at how the fort came to be established on the western frontier more than forty years before the Civil War.

Although the Trail of Tears would not come for another nineteen years, by 1817 a number of Cherokee had accepted the inevitable and started moving west from their homes in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and the Carolinas. The began settling in western Arkansas, carving homes and fields from the wilderness and rebuilding their lives.

The problem was that the Osage, a well established tribe already in the area, objected to what they considered a Cherokee intrusion. The two nations neared the point of war as incidents of violence escalated. To keep peace between the Osage and the Cherokee, the United States decided to establish a garrison on the far western frontier. On December 25, 1817, a company of 64 riflemen led by Major William Bradford nosed a boat up to a high bluff at the confluence of the Arkansas and Poteau Rivers. Then called Belle Point, a settlement of French fur trappers had existed at the site for many years.

The soldiers built a rectangular fort atop the bluff that had been designed by Major Stephen Long. He later selected the site for the modern city of Atlanta. With blockhouses on diagonal corners, other structures to serve as quarters, storehouses, etc., and cannon for its defense, the fort was named Fort Smith after General Thomas A. Smith.

The officers and soldiers of the isolated fort spent their first few years negotiating with the Native American tribes to avoid a full scale war and also roamed the hills and valleys of Arkansas and what is now Oklahoma on noteworthy trips of exploration. They visited such points of interest as Mount Magazine and even Hot Springs.

In 1821, the 7th U.S. Infantry arrived at Fort Smith, greatly expanding the military presence at the post. The noteworthy regiment had fought at the Battle of New Orleans under Andrew Jackson and was ordered west from Fort Scott in Georgia.


The original fort was held by the Army until 1824, by which time the flood of both Cherokee and white settlers into the region had pushed the frontier west. Seeing no need for the continued occupation of Fort Smith, the army evacuated the post in favor of new forts closer to the expanding frontier. The abandonment, however, would quickly prove to be temporary in nature.

To learn more about the original Fort Smith, the ruins of which are shown above, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/ARFS3.

Fort Smith National Historic Site - Fort Smith, Arkansas

One of the most significant historic sites in the nation can be found on the banks of the Arkansas River in the historic old city of Fort Smith.

Fort Smith National Historic Site preserves what remains of the historic fort that defended the frontier for more 50 years along with structures associated with the Judge Isaac C. Parker and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas. Parker was known even in his lifetime as the "Hanging Judge" of Fort Smith and the deputies who operated under his jurisdiction brought law and order to the Old West and inspired such films as John Wayne's "True Grit" and "Rooster Cogburn" and Clint Eastwood's "Hang Em High."

Largely because the Parker years generate so much interest, many people do not realize today that the old fort played a key role in the Civil War. Both Union and Confederate troops occupied it at various stages of the war and it was a strategic focal point for both armies as they struggled to control both western Arkansas and the Indian Nations of what is now Oklahoma.

Over the next few posts, I will focus on Fort Smith and its role in the Civil War so I hope you will check back every day or so to learn more about one of my favorite cities and favorite historic sites in the nation. You can also learn more any time at www.exploresouthernhistory.com/fortsmith.

Battle of Reeds Mountain - Washington County, Arkansas

On December 6, 1862 - the day before the Battle of Prairie Grove - Union and Confederate troops battled for control of Reed's Mountain, a ridge separating the Cove Creek Road from today's community of Canehill (then spelled Cane Hill).

The mountain was critical to Confederate General Thomas Hindman's plans to advance up from Van Buren into Northwest Arkansas before the divided Union Army of the Frontier could reassemble. If all went well, he hoped to move up the Cove Creek Road and destroy one Union division with overwhelming force before then turning on the other with the same advantage.

To achieve this objective, however, it was critical that Hindman's movement up Cove Creek be screened from Union General James G. Blunt's division at Cane Hill. Since Blunt had pickets on the road and a small force overlooking the Cove Creek Valley from the crest of Reed's Mountain, Hindman ordered Colonel J.C. Monroe to take his brigade of Arkansas cavalry ahead of the main army and drive off the Federals.

Driving Blunt's pickets up the road, Monroe struck Reed's Mountain with a force of only 400 men (150 of his soldiers were doing picket duty up and down the road). Charging up the slope of the mountain, he was initially driven back by the Union soldiers at the top. Spreading into a full line of battle, however, he engaged the Federals in a severe firefight and then, finally, was able to move around one of their flanks and drive them from the mountain as night fell on December 6, 1862.

The small victory by Monroe's Arkansans created the opportunity Hindman wanted to push his army past Blunt's position at Cane Hill before his movement was detected by the Union commander.

To learn more about the remarkable fight at Reed's Mountain, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/ARReedsMountain.

Confederate Section of Fairview Cemetery - Van Buren, Arkansas

A walk through the Confederate Section of Van Buren's picturesque Fairview Cemetery provides a haunting reminder of just how brutal the year 1862 was for the Southern forces in Arkansas.

Row after row of headstones, many of them marked as "Unknown," bring a great deal of reality to the brutal cost of the Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove Campaigns. This is especially true because, with a few exceptions, the men and boys buried here did not die in combat. Instead, they suffered from horrible battle wounds and debilitating disease. Often linger in misery for days and weeks before finally breathing their last.

These men were the hard luck soldiers of the Western frontier. Some of them marched through winter snows and ice with no shoes and threadbare uniforms literally falling off of their emaciated bodies as they followed Van Dorn to Pea Ridge and Hindman to Prairie Grove. Unlike many others, they did not desert and slip away into the mountains or through the lines to join the Federal forces. Instead they stood their ground and fought fiercely and bravely for the cause in which they believed.

Walking the beautifully preserved and landscaped battlefields of Prairie Grove and Pea Ridge today, it is difficult to really conceive the brutality that took place on such picturesque fields and ridges. But a walk through Fairview provides a sobering reminder of just how brutal the war was for the men in the ranks.

To learn more about the cemetery, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/fairviewcemetery.

Albert Pike's School House - Van Buren, Arkansas

A little log one-room schoolhouse now preserved on the grounds of the Crawford County Courthouse in Van Buren holds a unique place in American history. Albert Pike once taught there.

A major figure in Arkansas in the years before the War Between the States, Pike was opposed to the secession of the Southern states, but served the Confederacy as a brigadier general. By the time he received his appointment in November of 1861, however,

he was already a noted explorer, lawyer, poet, writer, educator and soldier.

A native of Massachusetts, Albert Pike had arrived west of the Mississippi in 1831, spending time in St. Louis and Independence, Missouri, before joining several major hunting and trading expeditions into Texas and New Mexico. In 1833 he accepted a job teaching at the log school that can be seen today in Van Buren.

It is thought that the structure was built in around 1820, making it one of the oldest sta

nding buildings in Arkansas. Pike did not teach long before moving on to Little Rock where he engaged on a career in law, journalism and politics. He became a nationally known writer and poet in the Antebellum era.

His career as a Confederate general was brief. Assigned to command in the Indian Nations in what is now Oklahoma

, he led Native American troops at the Battle of Pea Ridge. He became involved in a conflict with General Thomas Hindman, however, and resigned his commission the following year.

Pike sat out the rest of the war, living part of the time in the Ouachita Mountains. In later years he continued his work in Freemasonry, which he had begun in the 1840s. He eventually became a 33rd degree Mason and is regarded as the father of modern Freemasonry.

To learn more about Albert Pike's School House in Van Buren, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/pikeschoolhouse.

Siloam Springs, Simon Sager and the Civil War

Although the modern city of Siloam Springs was not incorporated until 1881, the settlement of Hico existed on the site of the Northwest Arkansas community during the Civil War.

A Prussian immigrant named Simon Sager had arrived in the area by around 1839 and established a plantation adjacent to the little community, established a few years earlier as a trading post for the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee had arrived in what is now eastern Oklahoma after their long journey west on the Trail of Tears. They were desperately in need of basic necessities and the trading post at Hico, along with other similar establishments along the border, supplied at least some of these needs.

In addition to his skills as a farmer, Simon Sager was an accomplished carpenter and furniture maker. He helped build the Cherokee Male and Female Acadamies in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and supplied his neighbors with beautiful pieces of furniture, some of which survive to this day. He also raised beef and was by all accounts a successful entrepreneur along what was then the western frontier.

The outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, however, changed everything for both Sager and the little community that would eventually become Siloam Springs. The area was heavily raided by Blunt's Division of the Union Army of the Frontier during the summer and fall of 1862. The Federals defeated Confederate troops at the Battle of Old Fort Wayne - less than 20 miles to the northwest - on October 22, 1862 and more fighting followed before the end of the year at the Battle of Cane Hill and the Battle of Prairie Grove.

To supply his thousands of men with food and other necessities, Union General James G. Blunt ordered out foraging parties that ravaged the countryside around what is now Siloam Springs. Farms, including that of Sager, were stripped of forage, grain, beef, pork, poultry and anything else the soldiers wanted. Families were often left to face starvation or flee and pro-secession families watched their homes go up in flames.

After the Prairie Grove Campaign, the armies soon moved on, but the area along today's Arkansas-Oklahoma border was then overrun by guerrilla bands. Some of these were allied with the Union, some with the Confederacy and some with no one at all. They swarmed over the countryside, raiding farms, mills and homes. Murder, robbery and assault were the watchwords of the day.

On May 17, 1864, Simon Sager's home was surrounded by a pro-Union guerrilla party of Cherokee "Pin" Indians. When the attack ended, Sager was dead. The creek flowing through the heart of Siloam Springs, however, still bears his name and one of his cabins is preserved on the campus of John Brown University.

To see additional photos and learn more about Siloam Springs, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/siloamsprings. For a good account of the 1862 fighting in Northwest Arkansas, be sure to check out William L. Shea's new book, Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign.

The Battle of Van Buren - December 28, 1862

The sharp fight at Dripping Springs on the morning of December 28, 1862, opened the door to the port of Van Buren on the Arkansas River for the Union Army of the Frontier.

Pursuing Crump's retreating cavalrymen, the Union cavalry pushed south into the River Valley. There was some skirmishing as the pursuit neared Van Buren, but Crump and his men turned in force only once, on Logtown Hill on the northern edge of the town. The area is now part of the growing city. The Confederates were again driven back and the Federals advanced to the crest of Logtown Hill, which gave them a spectacular view of Van Buren and the Arkansas River below.

Below they could see the retreating Confederates as well as several steamboats either already moving or preparing to make way on the river. The Union horsemen stormed down the long slope of the hill on the heels of Crump's men, charging right down the main street of Van Buren. The sudden appearance of the blue uniformed troops in their midst stunned the people of Van Buren, who watched them go by from the sides of the street.

Crump and his men made the ferry across the river and it was able to make way before the Union troops could open fire. Most of the Confederates escaped across the river, but others - particularly a large number of sick and some wounded from the Prairie Grove Campaign - were taken prisoner. General Blunt and part of his force pursued steamboats that were trying to escape down river, firing on them from the riverbank and finally forcing one to surrender while another ran aground.

The rather odd and disjointed Battle of Van Buren intensified later in the day when a Confederate battery opened fire on the Federals from across the river, raining shells on the town and reportedly killing several civilians. Union casualties were light, as Confederate casualties had been. The Confederate guns were finally forced to withdraw when Federal artillerymen placed guns on the heights along the northern edge of Fairview Cemetery and returned fire. The superior weight and number of the Union cannon drove off the Confederate battery.

General Blunt crossed over the Arkansas River with a small detachment the next morning, become the first Union force to set foot south of the river during the war. But most of the Confederates from around Fort Smith were already gone. General Thomas Hindman had been in the process of withdrawing his army to Little Rock when the raid to the river took place.

To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/vanburenbattle1.

The Battle of Dripping Springs - December 28, 1862

The Union divisions led by Generals Blunt and Herron converged near Oliver's Store in northern Crawford County at around 3 o'clock on the morning of December 28, 1862. They did not rest long before General Blunt had them once again up and moving.

At Oliver's Store, the Union commanders learned that Lieutenant Colonel R.P. Crumps 1st Texas Partisan Rangers were camped at Dripping Springs on the main road to Van Buren. Moving ahead of the main army, Blunt and Herron advanced rapidly for Crump's camp with 3,000 cavalrymen and 4 howitzers. They began to skirmish with Crump's pickets almost immediately, but pushed forward so quickly that the main Confederate camp received very little warning of their approach.

Learning that the Federals were upon him, Crump formed his men into a line of battle on the northern slope of the hill where he was camped. The soldiers had been making their breakfasts when they received the urgent orders to prepare for battle.

As the outnumbered Confederates watched, the Union cavalry swung from column into a line of battle in the fields just north of their position. Moving up within range, the Federals opened fire with their carbines. After several rounds of fire, which was answered by the Confederates, Blunt ordered a mounted charge with sabers drawn.

The Federal line spurred forward. The 2nd Kansas Cavalry formed the left of the Union attack, while the 6th Kansas and several companies of the 3rd Wisconsin Cavalries formed the right. The attack was made with sabers drawn, one participant remembering that they were gleaming in the sun. As the charge gathered speed, the Confederates could see the long line of Union cavalry thundering in their direction.

Realizing that it was impossible to hold back the much larger Federal force, the Confederates withdrew in a rapid retreat before the Union troopers could close in with their sabers. The Southern camp was abandoned, with all of its supply wagons and equipment, and the Confederate horsemen rode over the hill and struck the Van Buren Road at full speed.

The successful attack at Dripping Springs told General Blunt that he had achieved his goal of surprising the Confederates south of the Boston Mountains. He now ordered up his other 5,000 men along with his artillery and prepared for his final advance on Van Buren. I will post in depth tomorrow on the Battle of Van Buren.

To learn more about the Battle of Dripping Springs and to see photos of the battlefield as it appears today, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/ARDrippingSprings1.

Over the Boston Mountains - December 27, 1862

The Union Army of the Frontier moved out from its camps at Prairie Grove and Cane Hill (now spelled Canehill) on the morning of December 27, 1862, 147 years ago today.

Well aware of the risks of trying to converge their entire force onto a single road and then move the resulting logjam over the Boston Mountains, which rise abruptly just south of Prairie Grove, Generals Blunt and Herron decided to cross the mountains by two separate routes.

Herron moved to the left via the Wire or Telegraph Road, which followed the old Butterfield Stage Line route over the mountains by staying primarily on the crests of the ridges. Much of this old road remains in use today and a portion can be hiked at Devil's Den State Park (shown above).

Blunt, meanwhile, move south via the Cove Creek Road, which follows the creek of that name south through the mountains. The original road crossed the winding creek nearly 40 times and as the soldiers marched on December 27th, they were forced to wade through the icy water over and over.

It had snowed the week before and there was still snow and ice in the mountains. Although the troops were in good spirits, the march was miserable. A member of Blunt's division wrote that water was high and the little streams that fed the creek and the creek itself were deep and fast. The icy water at the fords was often waist or chest deep. The soldiers were marching so fast and wading so much water that they did not have time to dry out and marched in sodden boots and wet clothes. It was also reported that it took as many as 12 horses to pull each of the army's 12 cannon over the mountains, sometimes with the assistance of as many as 50 men pulling on ropes.

By midnight on December 27th, the two wings of the army were approaching their planned bivouac at Oliver's Store, then a well-known landmark in northern Crawford County. Thus far the Confederate forces to the south had not detected the danger that was rapidly approaching via the mountains.

I'll continue to retrace the daily events of the raid tomorrow. Until then, you can read more at www.exploresouthernhistory.com/vanburenbattle1. You can learn more about Devil's Den State Park at www.exploresouthernhistory.com/ardevils1.

A Raid to the River Valley - December 26, 1862

At a Christmas party in Washington County, Arkansas, in 1862, Union General James G. Blunt decided the time had come to water his horse in the Arkansas River.

Blunt was feeling bold. Just three weeks earlier Confederate General Thomas Hindman had stolen a march on the Federal forces in Northwest Arkansas and came within a hair's width of destroying them. The result was the Battle of Prairie Grove, fought on December 7, 1862. Although Hindman handled his army better in the fight, he didn't have the ammunition, food and other supplies to continue the battle the next day. As a result, the Southern army withdrew during the night and returned to its base at Van Buren and Fort Smith.

The Union army moved up and occupied the battlefield the next day and spent the next three weeks refitting, burying the dead and taking care of the wounded. By Christmas Day, however, Blunt was again ready for action. At a party that night, he and his key officers decided to risk a sudden raid across the Boston Mountains to see if they could draw Hindman into a second battle.

Observing extremely tight operational security, Blunt and his second-in-command - General Francis J. Herron - spent December 26, 1862, preparing plans and issuing orders for the expedition. They would try to cross over the mountains to Van Buren on the north bank of the Arkansas River. The raid would result in the Battles of Dripping Springs and Van Buren and would begin the next morning.

I'll post more on the 1862 raid tomorrow, but you can read more at www.exploresouthernhistory.com/vanburenbattle1.