Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Along the Mississippi River, 1863–1865 197
clean by Confederate cavalry before Osband could find any more recruits. For the
rest of the month, Osband and his 131 officers and men continued recruiting while
watching for unauthorized cotton speculators and “doing good service,” as McPherson
told General Sherman, “keeping the country west of the Sunflower [River] clear
of guerrillas.” Their efforts netted six 500-pound bales of cotton for the Treasury
Department and sixty recruits for the regiment, enough to start a fourth company. 16
The Union general commanding at Memphis had declared that “organized warfare
is over in Arkansas,” but early in December, Osband received orders to move his
tiny command across the Mississippi River and deal with “some forty rebel cavalry
who were hanging negroes and driving off stock.” 17 Besides 125 officers and men
from his own four companies, Osband took along seventy-six officers and men of
the 4th Illinois Cavalry, some of whom had received appointments as captains and
lieutenants in the 1st Mississippi Cavalry (AD) but could not join the new regiment
until there were enough recruits to form more companies. These prospective officers
hoped to do some recruiting in Arkansas while routing enemy marauders.
A riverboat set the troops on the Louisiana shore. They marched inland through
swampy country some fifteen miles to Boeuf River, then followed it north for another
mile or two to the Arkansas state line. The troops managed to capture fifteen Confederate
scouts who were observing their progress. About dark on 12 December, they
camped at the Meriwether Plantation, not far from the state line. The 1st Mississippi
Cavalry bivouacked between the slave quarters and the planter’s house, where they
kept the prisoners under guard, while the 4th Illinois Cavalry took over the cotton-gin
house, about one hundred fifty yards off. There was no time for a thorough reconnaissance
before nightfall, but Osband posted ten-man pickets on the road in either direction
and a ten-man camp guard. The next morning, the men were up before daybreak,
had breakfasted, and were waiting with horses saddled for enough light to begin the
day’s march when a force of more than one hundred Confederates opened fire on the
4th Illinois, stampeding many of the horses. Dismounted troopers splashed across
the marshy ground that separated them from the camp of the 1st Mississippi Cavalry.
There, the Union defenders exchanged shots with the enemy. The Confederates
withdrew before daylight, taking with them thirteen prisoners from the 4th Illinois
Cavalry captured during the first minutes of shooting. Osband identified the attackers
as members of “Capers’ battalion,” one of several Partisan Ranger organizations
formed in the summer of 1862. These northern Louisiana cavalrymen were probably
in the neighborhood to further the last stage of a large arms shipment from Richmond,
Virginia, to the Confederate depot at Shreveport and had used their knowledge
of local geography to approach the camp through the surrounding swamps, slipping
by Osband’s pickets on the roads. Union casualties in the hour-long engagement
amounted to seven killed and thirty-three wounded; the 1st Mississippi Cavalry lost
one killed and fifteen wounded. With nearly one in eight of the survivors needing
16 OR, ser. 1, vol. 30, pt. 3, p. 477 (“You will arrest”), and pt. 4, p. 233 (“from the plantations”);
vol. 31, pt. 1, p. 566 (“a deserted”), and pt. 3, pp. 237, 293, 309 (“keeping the country”). Col E. D.
Osband to Lt Col W. T. Clark, 25 Nov, 27 Nov, 4 Dec 1863, all in 3d United States Colored Cavalry
(USCC), Regimental Books, RG 94, NA. Edwin M. Main, The Story of the Marches, Battles and
Incidents of the Third United States Colored Cavalry (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1970
[1908]), pp. 65–70, 75–78.
17 OR, ser. 1, vol. 31, pt. 3, p. 104 (“organized warfare”); vol. 53, p. 476 (“some forty”).