…"Scout to Hot Spring County," Arkansas
"On February 8, 1864, blue-clad troopers of the 3rd Missouri Cavalry rode southwest out of Little Rock, Arkansas on a "scout to Hot Spring County…for the purpose," explained Private Alexander W.M. Petty, "of driving out a company of bushwhackers reported to be committing all kinds of depredations there upon the persons and property of the loyal citizens." Over the next week, the Federals journeyed over 200 miles, clashed repeatedly with Rebel guerrillas, suffered casualties, and took enemy prisoners. Their scout through Southwest Arkansas—typical of the countless small counterinsurgency expeditions and clashes with Rebel bushwhackers that infested the Ozarks and Ouachitas—offers a window in the harsh realities of guerrilla warfare and the difficulties that faced U.S. soldiers in attempting to suppress it.
The Civil War ravaged Arkansas. In the early years of the war, Union and Confederate forces clashed repeatedly in the northern part of the state, hoping not only to secure Arkansas but also Missouri to the north. Decisive Union victories at Pea Ridge in March and Prairie Grove in December of 1862 ended Confederate hopes of ever permanently occupying Missouri. Moreover, these victories made the invasion of central Arkansas a true threat. In 1863, Union forces campaigned to secure the Arkansas River Valley stretching through the very center of Indian Territory and Arkansas. Federal victories at Honey Springs, Bayou Fourche, and elsewhere collapsed the Confederacy's Arkansas River defenses. By autumn of 1863, Old Glory floated over Fort Gibson, Fort Smith, and Little Rock, forcing Confederate forces into small footholds in the southern portion of Arkansas.
While these military campaigns determined the military and political fate of "Rackensack," as Arkansas was sometimes called, increasing guerrilla violence shaped the everyday lives of many more Arkansans. As historian Daniel Sutherland eloquently argues: "This is how the Civil War was fought in Arkansas: ambushes, midnight raids, often with civilians treated as combatants and neighbors turned predators." In the Boston and Ouachita Mountains of western Arkansas, Rebel guerrillas preyed on Unionist families, isolated Federal outposts, and the occasional innocent traveler. Guerrillas infested the counties to the southwest of Little Rock: Saline, Montgomery, and Hot Spring. Guerrilla activity forced many families to flee their homes altogether; by late 1863, the small village of Hot Springs—famous then and now for its warm, natural thermal springs and after which Hot Spring County was named—was almost entirely deserted…"
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Armand
adds artillery to his soft-plastic Union forces.
