West of the Mississippi River, Major-General Andrew J. Smith led 10,000 Federals of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth corps to confront Brigadier-General John S. Marmaduke’s Confederates operating around the Lake Village area in Arkansas. Smith’s Federals embarked on a flotilla of 26 gunboats and army transports that left Vicksburg, Mississippi, on June 4.
The Federals disembarked the next evening at Sunnyside Landing, 90 miles upriver from Vicksburg and eight miles east of Lake Village. The Federals advanced inland and clashed with one of Marmaduke’s units (Colonel Colton Greene’s 600-man 3rd Missouri Cavalry) near Ditch Bayou, a swamp that bordered Lake Chicot. Nightfall and rain ended the fighting.
On the morning of the 6th, Smith’s Federals advanced toward Ditch Bayou until they were attacked by Greene’s Confederates. The men fought through a heavy rain as the Confederates slowly fell back toward the bayou. Smith was unable to use his numerical advantage to engulf Greene’s command due to the heavy forest and brush. The Federals pushed forward into a clearing, where the Confederates held them in check briefly before falling back again.
The Confederates formed a line about two miles from Ditch Bayou and opened artillery fire on the advancing enemy. This halted the Federals, who were unable to bring up their own guns in the heavy brush to respond. Greene withdrew when his command ran out of ammunition, falling back to Lake Chicot. Smith’s Federals, having squandered a 7-to-1 advantage in manpower, took out their frustrations by looting and pillaging Lake Village.
In Louisiana, Lieutenant-General Richard Taylor, commanding the Confederate District of Western Louisiana, expressed frustrations about missed opportunities during the recent Red River campaign. Taylor had driven Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks’s Federal Army of the Gulf in retreat toward New Orleans, and Major-General Frederick Steele’s Federals had been stopped in Arkansas, but Taylor felt that much more could have been done. He blamed much of this on General Edmund Kirby Smith, commanding the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department. Taylor wrote Smith:
“In truth, the campaign as a whole has been a hideous failure. The fruits of Mansfield have turned to dust and ashes. Louisiana, from Natchitoches to the Gulf, is a howling wilderness and her people are starving. Arkansas is probably as great a sufferer. In both States abolition conventions are sitting to overthrow their system of labor. The remains of Banks’ army have already gone to join Grant or Sherman, and may turn the scale against our overmatched brethren in Virginia and Georgia. The roads to Saint Louis and New Orleans should now be open to us…
“The grave errors you have committed in the recent campaign may be repeated if the unhappy consequences are not kept before you. After the desire to serve my country, I have none more ardent than to be relieved from longer serving under your command.”
Taylor further alleged that if Smith had not broken up his Louisiana army, Taylor could have advanced into Arkansas and Steele “would have been brushed aside from our path as a cobweb before the broom of a house maid.” With the Confederate armies of Louisiana and Arkansas united, Taylor asserted that he could have marched to St. Louis “and relieved the pressure from our suffering brethren in Virginia and Georgia. All this is true as the living God.”
Lieutenant Edward Cunningham, friend and aide-de-camp to E.K. Smith, accused Taylor of having “a disposition to criticize, misrepresent, and condemn everything done by or connected with General Smith.” Smith responded to Taylor’s accusations by relieving him of command and directing him to go to Natchitoches, “there to await the pleasure of the President.” Taylor was replaced as district commander by Major-General John G. Walker, who was also given command of the District of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
As Smith explained to President Jefferson Davis, “Taylor’s systematic misrepresentations of my motives and acts, exhibit a violence and prejudice restrained neither by respect for himself nor for his superiors.” This put Davis in an awkward position because Taylor was not only the son of a former U.S. president but he was also Davis’s brother-in-law. Davis took Taylor out of Smith’s department and gave him command of the Department of Alabama and Mississippi.
Davis also responded to allegations by Smith that the Confederate government was neglecting the Trans-Mississippi Department. Davis wrote on the 13th that due to lack of resources, “my ability to sustain you will be the measure of the assistance rendered to you.”
Stand Watie, chief of the pro-Confederate Cherokees, led several hundred troops of various Indian tribes along with three howitzers to cut the Federal supply line from Fort Smith, Arkansas, into the Indian Territory. Watie’s command ambushed the Federal steamer J.R. Williams at Pleasant Bluffs on the Arkansas River. The vessel was carrying $120,000 worth of supplies for the 5,000-man Federal garrison and 5,000 Unionist Indian refugees at Fort Gibson in the Indian Territory. The refugees had lost their homes and land among the Cherokee ruins.
The Confederate howitzers opened fire on the J.R. Williams until the crew abandoned ship and the pilot ran the vessel aground. The Confederates set fire to the ship after making off with 150 barrels of flour, 16,000 pounds of bacon, and many other useful supplies. Watie reported that this “was very acceptable to the boys, but it turned out to be a disadvantage to the command, as greater portions of the Creek and Seminole immediately broke off to carry their booty home.”
This attack hampered supply delivery on the Arkansas, placing more hardships on the troops and civilians who relied on the ships for survival. Watie was promoted to Confederate brigadier-general for his effort.
In late June, Brigadier-General Joseph O. “Jo” Shelby received orders to cut the Federal supply routes on the White River and the Little Rock & De Valls Bluff Railroad. On the 24th, Shelby’s dismounted Confederate cavalry attacked and captured the gunboat U.S.S. Queen City below De Valls Bluff. Shelby added the two guns that were on board to the artillery he was using to blockade the White River.
The Federals responded by sending three gunboats to open a heavy fire against Shelby’s troopers on shore. After a two-hour artillery duel, the Federal fire disabled the captured guns and forced Shelby to fall back. Three days later, the Federals landed a ground force at Clarendon to reclaim the two abandoned cannon and force the Confederates back across Bayou De View.
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.
- 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.
- Stanchak, John E. (Patricia L. Faust ed.), Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.
- Wert, Jeffry D. (Patricia L. Faust ed.), Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.