Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

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Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867
the morning of the 4th just as our Regt had got formed we heard the pickets commence
fireing,” Lieutenant Miller wrote, “and we knew the ball had opened.” 8
Companies of the 2d Arkansas (AD) filled a 600-yard gap in the Union line by
a levee near the riverbank, half a mile south of town. A section of Battery K, 1st
Missouri Light Artillery, stood on either flank. It was a quiet spot, where the greatest
danger came from the Missourians’ guns firing across the regiment’s front at a
Confederate attack on the Union trenches west of town. “By the time our regt got
posted it was day light and the skirmishing on the right began to get pretty heavy
which told us the attack was not going to be made in our regeon so we set down
behind the breast works in plain view of the fighting and concluded we would look
on,” Lieutenant Miller wrote; “but before we had been there 5 minutes the balls began
to whistle around us pretty lively and the breast work our part of the leavy was
behind run in the rong direction to screen us so we had to content ourselves and trust
to providence I was setting in the line with the men and a ball just passed over my
head and wounded two of the men in our Co I got a handkerchief and tied up one of
their wounds while Cap[t. David M. Logan] tied the other.” That done, they sat back
to watch the battle. “We heard the Rebbels cheering and knew they was chargeing
on the batterries” inland from Helena, about one mile northwest of Miller’s position.
In a minute we could see colum[n] after colum[n] pouring over the hills. . . . [A]s
soon as they came in sight . . . every batterry that could get range of them let into
them with a venge[a]nce . . . and we could see the rebbels . . . falling in all directions.
. . . [T]he Rebbels would begin to give way and their officers would Rally them and
they would try it again but at last they gave it up. . . . [T]hey retreated down the hill
into the gorge and covered themselves behind logs and stumps. . . . [T]hey laid in
there about an hour and amused themselves shooting at us.” 9
Fighting lasted until late morning. The defenders inflicted about sixteen hundred
casualties (more than 20 percent of the attacking force) before General Holmes recalled
his troops. The next day, Lieutenant Miller walked over the battlefield. “Such a
sight I never seen before,” he recorded. “The Rebbels was laying thick some of them
tore all to peices with shell and some shought through with sollid shot they had laid
there 24 hours . . . and began to smell bad.” Since the 2d Arkansas (AD) had not yet
mustered into federal service, regimental records do not cover the Confederate attack
on Helena and no record survives of the regiment’s casualties, if there were any.
Perhaps they amounted to no more than the three men “hurt” that Miller mentioned
in his letter home. 10
The successful defense of the federal base at Helena allowed General Steele
to use the river port as a springboard for his August move into central Arkansas,
which resulted in the capture of Little Rock during the last days of summer. While
Steele’s expedition headed inland, a new black regiment arrived at Helena. The 3d
8 OR, ser. 1, vol. 22, pt. 1, p. 388, and pt. 2, pp. 335, 352; M. Miller to Dear Mother, 6 Jun [Jul]
1863, Miller Papers.
9 OR, ser. 1, vol. 22, pt. 1, p. 394; Miller to Dear Mother, 6 Jun [Jul] 1863.
10 OR, ser. 1, vol. 22, pt. 1, pp. 389, 394, 405–06, 410–12; Miller to Dear Mother, 6 Jun [Jul]
1863; NA M594, roll 211, 54th USCI.