Reduction of Arkansas Post
9-11 JANUARY 1863
REDUCTION OF ARKANSAS POST
Arkansas sided with the South in the Civil War, and after the firing on Ft. Sumter, Arkansans prepared for an expected Union invasion. Their capital, Little Rock, and the Fort Smith arsenal lay on the Arkansas River, which was navigable in those days all the way into Oklahoma. A concerned Governor Henry Rector appointed MGEN Thomas C. Hindman, CSA, to defend that river. Through Hindman’s prodigious efforts a fort was constructed at a sharp bend in the lower Arkansas, 50 miles from its mouth at the Mississippi, at the site of a 1686 French trading post. Fort Hindman was completed in the Fall of 1862 and garrisoned with 6,000 of Arkansas’ finest, including 35 naval gunners from the ram CSS Pontchartrain then under construction in Little Rock.
As Grant and Farragut stalled before Vicksburg late in 1862, one of Grant’s corps commanders, MGEN John A. McClernand, an Illinois politician turned general officer and personal friend of Lincoln, petitioned the President directly with his idea for an expedition against Fort Hindman at Arkansas Post. Desperate for any victory, Lincoln assented. On January 9th McClernand led a massive army of 32,000 up the Arkansas River on 60 steamers, escorted by RADM David Dixon Porter and the twin-stack, casemated, paddlewheel gunboats USS BARON de KALB, LOUISVILLE, LEXINGTON, CINCINNATI, RATTLER and BLACK HAWK. When the fort’s Confederate commander, BGEN Thomas J. Churchill, CSA, was instructed to hold until relieved or destroyed.
Union troops landed on January 10th, below the fort and on the opposite bank to block a Confederate retreat. Then Porter’s gunboats opened a murderous bombardment, first on the Confederate picket lines, then on the fort itself. The fort’s two largest cannon, in solid oak casemate overlain with four layers of railroad iron, proved no match for the powerful naval guns. The Confederates were pummeled, but Union troops ashore were not able to completely invest the position before sunset. This morning the bombardment renewed. Porter’s gunners succeeded in dismounting the fort’s thirteen guns, then Porter began lobbing explosive shells at the rifle pits still stalling the ground advance. A massed charge of the 120th Ohio convinced Churchill to surrender; Admiral Porter and his gunboat Captains accepted his sword.
Though the battle validated the power of naval gunnery and secured Grant’s right flank around Vicksburg, in truth it added little to the strategic campaign for the Mississippi. Grant was furious at what he saw as glory-seeking with “Caesar’s half of my army” on the part of McClernand. The Illinoisan’s army was quickly dissolved, and he was relegated back to corps command.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 18 JAN 23
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Coleman, Roger E. The Arkansas Post Story (rev). Washington, DC: Eastern National, 2002, pp. 107-17.
Coombe, Jack D. Thunder Along the Mississippi: The River Battles that Split the Confederacy. New York, NY: Sarpedon, 1996, pp. 189-91.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865. Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, pp. III 7-8.
Hearn, Chester G., “Admiral Porter and his ‘Damned Gunboats.'” Naval History, Vol 10 (3), May/June 1996, pp. 40-42.
Page, Dave. Ships Versus Shore: Civil War Engagements along Southern Shores and Rivers. Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press, 1994, pp. 335-39.
Porter, David D. The Naval History of the Civil War. Mineola, NY: Dover Pub., 1886, pp. 289-93.
Site visit. Arkansas Post National Memorial, AR, 11 October 2003.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: Despite the thunderous bombardment that devastated Arkansas Post, surprisingly few casualties are reported. Confederates lost 60 killed, 80 wounded and 4,800 captured. McClernand lost 173 killed or missing and 898 wounded. However the civilian town of Arkansas Post surrounding Fort Hindman was dealt a blow from which it never recovered. The devastation to the Confederate army protecting Arkansas was as serious as the damage to Fort Hindman. Neither the army nor the fort was ever reconstituted–probably a factor in Arkansas remaining a peripheral theater throughout the rest of the war.
Today the site of Ft. Hindman has been lost to river erosion, but the Confederate trench and picket lines can still be seen. The Arkansas Post National Memorial, administered by the National Park Service, celebrates the memory of this once-proud Confederate bastion.
