Major-General Frederick Steele and his Federal Army of Arkansas had left Little Rock in March to link with Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks’s Red River expeditionary force. Steele had resisted joining with Banks due to a large Confederate cavalry presence and a lack of adequate forage in southern Arkansas. But he complied with orders nonetheless and headed southwest. The Federals were hampered by spring rains and muddy roads until they arrived at Arkadelphia on April 1.
Steele expected to link with Brigadier-General John M. Thayer’s cavalry heading east from Fort Smith. But when there was no sign of Thayer after three days, Steele’s Federals resumed their southwestern movement toward Washington. The supply shortage began taking its toll, just as Steele had feared, and his men and animals were soon relegated to half-rations. From Washington, Steele hoped to move east to Camden to collect more supplies via the Ouachita River.
The other obstacle that Steele had feared, the Confederate cavalry, was now starting to stir. Major-General Sterling Price, commanding the Confederate District of Arkansas, directed Brigadier-General John S. Marmaduke to bring his troopers out of winter quarters at Camden and prevent the Federals from crossing the Little Missouri River. This indirectly played into the Federals’ hands because part of Steele’s mission was to keep the Confederates occupied so they would not go south and disrupt Banks’s expedition.
Marmaduke moved out with three cavalry brigades under Brigadier-Generals Joseph O. “Jo” Shelby and William L. Cabell, and Colonel Colton Greene. Marmaduke planned a three-pronged assault on Steele’s front, flank, and rear. On the 2nd, Shelby’s prong attacked the Federal rear guard but was repulsed. While Marmaduke’s other two brigades tried getting into position, Steele fortified his flank by securing Elkins’ Ferry on the Little Missouri. The bulk of Steele’s army advanced via Elkins’, and a detachment under Colonel Adolph Engelmann moved down the road to Washington before halting for the night at Okolona.
The next morning, Engelmann’s brigade moved north toward Spoonville to try to track down Thayer’s lost cavalry. The Federals ran into Confederate horsemen, and fierce skirmishing ensued. Colonel John Garrett of the 40th Iowa reported:
“At 9 a.m., as the brigade was about ready to start back to Spoonville, a sharp fight was opened on our picket-line. My regiment was ordered into line by direction of Colonel Engelmann, commanding brigade… Advancing a short distance they met the enemy in the brush and behind logs, and by a few well-directed shots drove them back, following cautiously and firing as opportunity offered.”
Colonel Conrad Krez of the 27th Wisconsin wrote:
“We cleared the rise of the ground, which was covered with an almost impenetrable thicket of hawthorn. The enemy fell back to the other side of a clearing on high ground, and the ravine dividing that clearing from another hill running parallel with the road, where they maintained a heavy fire immediately in front of the three companies deployed by me, and at that time opened with artillery and threw grape and canister to the right of Company G… a heavy thunder-storm broke out and interrupted further operations.”
The fight ended with the Confederates falling back in the rain and the Federals holding their ground. Other skirmishing occurred along the Little Missouri, as Marmaduke traveled with Cabell in an effort to get between Steele’s main force and Washington. Cabell’s brigade tried to stop the Federals from crossing the Little Missouri at Elkins’ Ferry on the 4th. Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Drake was assigned to lead six companies from the 36th Iowa and 43rd Indiana in guarding the road from the ferry to the Federal camp. Drake reported:
“Soon after daylight, the enemy engaged the cavalry pickets, and almost simultaneously made a determined effort to turn my left flank. The engagement was now becoming very warm, and my men were falling wounded on my right and left, but by a very determined effort we finally succeeded in driving back the rebel column into the woods in front of the orchard.”
Drake, with just 300 men, had about 2,000 Confederates closing in on him. The rest of the 36th Iowa came forward, and the Federals made a brave stand that finally drove the Confederates off, despite still being outnumbered. More Federal reinforcements arrived after the Confederates had fallen back. Colonel Charles Kittredge of the 36th Iowa reported, “Drake especially deserves honorable mention for the gallant manner in which he performed his duties.”
This engagement enabled the rest of Steele’s forces to cross the Little Missouri. The Federals sustained about 30 casualties, while the Confederates lost 68 (18 killed and 50 wounded). When Steele received news of the fighting, he opted to hold his positions and continue to wait for Thayer.
General Edmund Kirby Smith, commanding the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department, expressed dismay that Steele had been allowed to cross the Little Missouri. Steele’s Federals were now more than halfway to their goal of reaching Shreveport. Smith had originally planned to defeat Banks and then turn to defeat Steele, but this development compelled him to focus on Steele first.
The Confederates fell back to defensive works between Washington and Elkins’ Ferry, on the western fringe of Prairie d’Ane. Marmaduke had his men build defenses “with which to deceive the enemy into the belief that I would here give him battle.”
Bibliography
- Cutrer, Thomas W., Theater of a Separate War: The Civil War West of the Mississippi River. The University of North Carolina Press, (Kindle Edition), 2017.
- Davis, William C. (Patricia L. Faust ed.), Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.
- Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative: Red River to Appomattox. New York: Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Kindle Edition), 2011.
- Josephy, Jr., Alvin M., War on the Frontier: The Trans-Mississippi West. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1983.
- Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971.