Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

The Mississippi River and its Tributaries, 1861–1863 161
idea seemed to have worked, for the advancing Confederates merely feinted in
that direction while bypassing the city itself. 12
West of the Mississippi, control of the lower Missouri River was an important
concern of Union strategists. Along with the single line of the Hannibal and St.
Joseph Railroad, the lower Missouri formed the eastern end of the overland route
to the goldfields of California and Colorado, sources of bullion that funded the
Union war effort. For this reason, Lincoln was loath to offend Missouri’s slaveholders.
When Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont proclaimed martial law throughout
Missouri in August 1861 and declared free the slaves of Confederate Missourians,
the president was quick to tell him that emancipation would not only “alarm our
Southern Union friends and turn them against us,” but perhaps also “ruin our
rather fair prospects for Kentucky.” Within two weeks, Lincoln ordered the abandonment
of this part of Frémont’s program. The abundance of free white labor
in the state and the administration’s desire to placate border state slaveholders
meant that the need to employ freed slaves and the problems associated with the
presence of large numbers of displaced black people were not prominent features
of Missouri’s Civil War. 13
Federal military operations in Arkansas began with the Army of the Southwest,
led by Brig. Gen Samuel R. Curtis. It drove Confederate troops out of southwestern
Missouri and defeated them at Pea Ridge, just over the state line, on 7–8 March
1862. Curtis, an 1831 West Point graduate, Mexican War veteran, and Republican
congressman, received a promotion for the victory, which followed within weeks
Grant’s successes at Forts Henry and Donelson. The defeated Confederates retreated
to Van Buren, halfway down the western edge of the state, where they received
orders to join the main force east of the Mississippi that was preparing to attack
Grant’s army. Although the reinforcements from Arkansas arrived too late to take
part in the Battle of Shiloh, their departure removed the main body of Confederate
troops from the state.
When the new Confederate commander, Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman,
reached Little Rock at the end of May, he had to assemble a fresh army. He enforced
conscription, which had begun in mid-April, and began forming partisan
ranger companies to harass Union communications and supply routes. Partisans,
floods, and bad roads prevented Curtis’ army from reaching Little Rock in May. It
withdrew to Batesville, some ninety miles to the north. Low water the next month
kept a Union flotilla laden with supplies from ascending the White River, so Curtis
left Batesville and led his troops southeast to Helena on the Mississippi. Living off
the land, they arrived there on 12 July 1862. As they neared the river, they found
that each county along their route had a greater number and a higher proportion
of slaves than the last. The Confederates tried to impede the twelve-day march
by having black laborers fell trees and destroy ferries in Curtis’ path. The general
reacted by issuing certificates of emancipation to any slaves who came his way. By
12 OR, ser. 1, vol. 16, pt. 1, pp. 1089–90, and pt. 2, pp. 243 (“control of”), 268, 862–63; vol. 17, pt.
2, pp. 60 (“very few”), 122 (“about 750”), 856. John Y. Simon, ed., The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant,
30 vols. to date (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1967– ), 5: 199
(hereafter cited as Grant Papers).
13 OR, ser. 1, 3: 467, 469 (quotation), 485–86; WGFL: US, p. 551.