Listed in Arkansas Register of Historic Places on 04/07/10
SUMMARY
The Fourche Bayou Battlefield is the scene of the September 10, 1863, fighting in which Confederate troops attempted to hold back the Union army that threatened
to capture the capital. The Fourche Bayou Battlefield is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places under Criterion A with national
significance as the final scene of a campaign that returned a fourth Confederate capital to Federal control during the Civil War. It is being submitted
under the multiple-property listing “Historic and Archeological Resources Associated with the Little Rock Campaign of 1863.”
ELABORATION
In the weeks after the signal Confederate defeat at the Battle of Helena on July 4, 1863, Union officials became concerned about rumors that Maj. Gen. Sterling Price was planning to invade his home state of Missouri with an army of 19,000 men. Unaware that the Confederate army was bleeding deserters in the wake of the Helena disaster and was totally incapable of such an offensive, Brig. Gen. John Wynn Davidson crossed the St. Francis River at Chalk Bluff (NR listed 10-29-71) on July 29 and headed down Crowley’s Ridge at the head of 6,000 cavalrymen and a handful of Iowa infantry troops to head off the invasion.
As Davidson headed down the Ridge, Union officials realized that Price was not going to attack Missouri and decided that the time was right to move against Little Rock with the goal of capturing the state capital and gaining control of the rich Arkansas River Valley. Troops idled by the July 4 capitulation of the Rebel stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi, were shipped to Helena for the campaign, which veteran Maj. Gen. Frederick Steele would lead. Davidson’s hungry troopers reached the area around present-day Marianna in early August, received supplies from Helena, then headed west, reaching Clarendon on August 9, 1863.
Steele led the 6,000-man infantry component out of Helena on the evening of August 10 through the oppressive heat of a Delta summer amid swarms of disease-bearing mosquitoes and barely drinkable water. By the time they reached Clarendon five days later, Steele reported one thousand men, including many officers, on the sick list. Steele decided on August 23 to move his infantry from the malarial bottoms at Clarendon to higher ground at DeValls Bluff, which also was the railhead for the Memphis and Little Rock Railroad. The railroad would later provide a crucial means of carrying supplies from the White River to Little Rock at periods when the Arkansas River was too low to use.
Davidson, meanwhile, continued west and began meeting Confederate resistance, skirmishing heavily around Brownsville on August 25 and fighting a heavy engagement on Bayou Meto at modern-day Jacksonville on August 27 (Bayou Meto (Reed’s Bridge) Battlefield, NR listed 12/31/02). The Yankee infantry followed, with the bulk of the troops arriving at Brownsville by September 2. Bolstered by reinforcements, Steele’s army contained between 14,500 and 15,000 men supported by forty-nine cannon. Price’s Rebel force, by comparison, contained 7,749 men, the majority of who occupied strong fortifications in the area where Park Hill is located in modern North Little Rock.
As his cavalry scouted the area, Steele considered the best route from which to attack Little Rock. He quickly dismissed the road running south from Bayou Meto, which he said “passed through a section impracticable for any military operations--swamp, timber, and entanglements of vines and undergrowth--and was commanded by the enemy’s works.” After Davidson’s troopers scouted the area he determined to advance via Ashley’s Mills near present-day Scott, taking the Shallow Ford Road to the Arkansas River on September 6, the same day Confederate generals John S. Marmaduke and L.M. Walker fought a duel in which Walker was mortally wounded. Price placed Marmaduke under arrest.
As Steele’s juggernaut gathered north of the Arkansas, the defense of the southern bank was left in the hands of about 1,200 Rebel cavalry under the command of Col. Archibald Dobbins, a former planter from the Helena area. His thin grey line had the unenviable task of protecting a twelve-mile stretch of river with a dozen fords.
On the evening of September 9, 1863, Davidson gathered his officers at his headquarters at Ashley’s Mills to tell them that the final attack on Little Rock would take place the next morning. Steele had decided to lay a pontoon bridge at a bend of the Arkansas and send his cavalry across, hitting Little Rock from the east and flanking the Confederate infantry out of their daunting works on the north side of the river. “It was announced by [Davidson] that early the next morning the whole available force of the army would move; the infantry, under General Steele, to assault the enemy’s strong works on the north side of the river, while our cavalry division was to cross the Arkansas River 8 miles below, and move to the capture of Little Rock,” Col. J.M. Glover reported. “He stated that no ordinary obstacle was to be allowed to defeat the purpose of the division; that we were to make a dash upon the city and capture it, and either hold or destroy the enemy’s bridges, though it cost us one of our regiments.”
Federal pioneers began constructing the pontoon bridge that night as the Fifth, Eleventh and Twenty-fifth Ohio Artillery Batteries and a section of the Second Missouri Light Artillery took up positions from which they could lay converging fire on the wooded salient across the river. Archibald Dobbins, arriving from a diversionary attack upriver at Buck’s Ford, arrived at 3 a.m. and ordered C.B. Etter’s battery to advance and fire on the Union engineers. The Rebel’s opened fire shortly before daybreak, scattering the workers with their second shot. However, the well-placed Yankee gunners quickly retaliated. “Before the smoke of the first discharge of their guns had scarcely reached the tops of the trees, which concealed their movements, twenty guns belched forth from their Concealment on the north side of the river a stream of shell into the midst of their battery,” Capt. Julius Hadley, Davidson’s artillery chief, reported.
Around 10 a.m., the bridge was completed and the Fortieth Iowa and Fortieth Illinois Infantry Regiments dashed across the span to establish a foothold on the sandbanks along the southern shore. They were followed by the eight howitzers of Capt. Gustave Stange’s Missouri artillery, who would accompany the Union right as it advanced toward Little Rock.
Col. J.M. Glover’s Second Brigade – consisting of the First Iowa Cavalry, Tenth Illinois Cavalry and Third Missouri Cavalry, in addition to Stange’s cannoneers – would comprise the Union right, and they were the next across the pontoon bridge. Col. Lewis Merrill’s First Brigade crossed the river at a ford and would deploy to the left of Glover. Merrill sent the Seventh Missouri Cavalry to support four cannon of the Twenty-fifth Ohio Battery – which effectively removed them from the battle – then dismounted the Eighth Missouri Cavalry and ordered them forward, supported by a section of the Twenty-fifth Ohio. Merrill held his own regiment – the Second Missouri Cavalry, or “Merrill Horse,” a unit mounted on white horses – in reserve. Steele’s infantry, meanwhile, headed toward the Confederate works on the north shore of the river.
The fighting at Fourche Bayou would be somewhat confusing because of the terrain. The bayou meandered through the area, effectively severing the combat into two separate battles. Glover, on the Union right, would have to advance through heavy timber between the bayou and the Arkansas River. Opposing him Was Col. William Jeffers commanding the Eight Missouri Cavalry (C.S.), Colton Greene’s regiment, Burbridge’s regiment and Young’s battalion – all tough, veteran Missourians.
Merrill, on the Union left, would advance through the tall corn in Fletcher’s field, moving forward against Col. Robert C. Newton, who placed his troops along the bayou levee across from the cornfield. Newton commanded Sam Corley’s regiment of dismounted Arkansas cavalry, Bull’s Missouri regiment, Denson’s Louisiana squadron and Morgan’s Texas Cavalry, in addition to Etter’s and Pratt’s batteries. These troops were bolstered by a volunteer battery under W.E. Woodruff; because of a shortage of horses and mules, Woodruff’s battery was pulled by oxen, lending an exotic element to the battlefield.
As Glover’s Second Brigade, led by the Tenth Illinois Cavalry, entered the woods they immediately ran into Jeffers’ skirmishers, who fell back. The Illinois troops charged “to a point where a deadly fire was poured in upon [them] from an overwhelming force of the enemy, dismounted and in ambush.” The horsemen fell back in disorder, leaving Lovejoy’s Missouri battery exposed. Glover ordered Stange’s gunners to open fire on the Rebels, but “instead of obeying orders, he fell back, and even failed to fire from where he was, which was an excellent range for grape and canister.” Lt. Col. James Stuart of the Tenth Illinois Cavalry ordered Stange’s artillerists “to run [the guns] out by hand, but they all got under the gun carriages and did not obey.” The jubilant Confederates rushed forward and captured Lovejoy’s beleaguered cannon.
Glover decided to change tactics. “I now determined to fight him in his own way, and brought up the Tenth Illinois and Third Missouri, and dismounted them to fight on foot, in three lines,” with skirmishers leading, and a second line following in a solid row between the bayou and the river. The grim Yankees moved forward, “and in a few moments a terrific and deadly fire prevailed along the whole line from friend and foe” as the Rebels were forced steadily back.
On the Union left, Merrill’s First Brigade moved forward, led by the dismounted Eighth Missouri Cavalry. Confederate Colonel Newton reported that “I directed Pratt to reserve his fire until they advanced in some force and came into easy range, when he was to ply them vigorously with grape and canister.” As the Yankees advanced, “Pratt opened with his two guns and quickly drove them back,” Newton reported. “Moving to our right, they attempted to force a crossing of the bayou, but were met and handsomely driven back by Bull’s command, assisted by Pratt’s trusty guns, which continued to rake them with canister and grape until Fletcher’s field, which was immediately in my front, was cleared of them.” Captain Albert DeMuth of the Eighth Missouri Cavalry (U.S.), who was in the cornfield, wrote that “we dismounted and proceeded about a quarter of a mile when the grape and canister came rattling among us like hail, one man belonging to company ‘L’ was shot in the stomach right in front of me. We then got into a corn field. Here they gave us Hail Columby- for a short time, we squatting down in the weeds and grass as close to mother earth as possible, but nevertheless the enemy’s shells bursted immediately over us wounding several of our men.” A gunner with the Twenty-fifth Ohio Battery wrote that “our right section under Lt. Hubbard advanced to the left of the Bayou in a cornfield and for a short time had a hot time. The rebs had a battery planted and had the exact range of us, shells bursting all around us.” The Ohioans soon fell back and began a long-range fire.
Merrill’s troops began taking fire from their rear, which led the colonel to make a personal reconnaissance to ensure he wasn’t about to be flanked. He found that Fourche Bayou was full of water, which eliminated the possibility of a flanking movement from the right, and that “the left of Glover’s line of skirmishers was very considerably in rear of my right, and was overshooting the enemy into my line.” What Merrill had feared was an effort to turn his right was actually friendly fire. His flanks secured, Merrill “immediately sent an order to the whole of my line to move forward and drive the enemy from his position. . . . The line moved forward as directed, driving the enemy from the corn-field and across the bayou.”
Frederick Steele’s decision to split his troops proved beneficial around 1 p.m. as Brig. Gen. J.O. Shelby’s Iron Brigade rushed to reinforce Jeffers’s Rebels. Col. G.W. Thompson reported that they “formed in line of battle in an open field; but the enemy, running up their batteries on the opposite side of the river, opened an enfilading fire, which swept up and through our lines in a most unsatisfactory manner, compelling us to change our positions every few moments, and without being able to go return the fire with any effect.”
Ultimately, the stubborn defense failed to save the capital. Maj. Gen. Sterling Price, the memory of the loss of Vicksburg fresh in his mind, ordered his troops north of the river to immediately evacuate their works and march toward Arkadelphia. He ordered all Rebel supplies, rolling stock for the railroad, steamboats and the partially completed gunboat C.S.S. Pontchartrain burned to keep them out of Union hands. Price then ordered the Confederate cavalry to fall back and cover the retreating army. By 5 p.m. the last of the Rebels had left town and John Wynn Davidson reported that “at 7 p.m. the capital of Arkansas was formally surrendered by the acting civil authorities, and the United States arsenal, uninjured, with what stores remained in it, was repossessed.”
Merrill was ordered to pursue the retreating Rebels the next day with a makeshift cavalry division, but the Missouri colonel’s advance was tepid, allowing Price’s army to escape unscathed. Steele characterized the pursuit as “not as vigorous as it should have been” and Davidson suggested a court of inquiry, but nothing transpired.
The fight at Fourche Bayou was the finale of the Little Rock Campaign. Official reports put Union combat losses in the campaign at 18 killed, 118 wounded and 1 missing, while incomplete Rebel reports put theirs as 12 killed, 34 wounded and 18 captured or missing. Confederate losses were almost certainly higher, and neither of the accounts include the hundreds of losses to disease during the campaign. In addition, dispirited Rebels abandoned the army by the hundreds; historian Carl Moneyhon estimated Confederate desertions after the fall of Little Rock at 1,900 men in addition to 650 sick and wounded troops who were left behind.
The combat at Fourche Bayou resulted in a fourth Confederate capital falling into Union hands and creating conditions to establish a loyal Unionist government. The Confederate army fell back into southwest Arkansas, where it effectively remained for the duration of the war. The capture of Little Rock, combined with other Union victories at Fort Smith and in the Indian Territory, led to nominal Federal control of the Arkansas River valley for the rest of the Civil War.
SIGNIFICANCE
As the scene of the September 10, 1863, fighting in which Confederate troops attempted to hold back the Union army that threatened to capture the capital,
the Fourche Bayou Battlefield is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places under Criterion A with national significance under the
multiple-property listing “Historic and Archeological Resources Associated with the Little Rock Campaign of 1863.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Banasik, Michael E., ed. Reluctant Cannoneer: The Diary of Robert T. McMahan of the Twenty-Fifth Independent Ohio Light Artillery (Iowa City, IA: Press of the Camp Pope Bookshop, 2000)
Christ, Mark K. Civil War Arkansas, 1863: The Battle for a State (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010)
Huff, Leo E. “The Union Expedition Against Little Rock, August-September 1863”Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 3, Autumn, 1963
__________. ed. The Civil War Letters of Albert Demuth and Roster 8th Missouri Volunteer Cavalry. Springfield, MO: Greene County Historical Society, 1997.
Moneyhon, Carl H. The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on Arkansas: Persistence in the Midst of Ruin (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2002)
War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. 70 vols. In 128 books and index. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1880-1891)