Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Kansas, 1863–1865 247
and mules and seized or destroyed eighteen firearms. The black soldiers gathered six
recruits. These operations accomplished little in the long run; at the beginning of April,
Buford reported five of the enemy’s “midnight raids” on leased plantations during the
last two weeks of March. “The lakes, swamps, bayous, and canebrakes make it impossible
to guard the district,” he complained to Adjutant General Thomas. 46
Demands imposed by operations elsewhere—Steele’s thrust toward Camden early
in the spring followed by the necessary reaction to a Confederate recruiting foray north
of the Arkansas River as summer began—slowed the tempo of events along the Mississippi
for only a few months. On the afternoon of 25 July, General Buford sent inland
three hundred sixty men of the 56th and 60th USCIs, with two cannon belonging to
Battery E, 2d United States Colored Artillery (USCA), and five days’ rations to seize
livestock and arrest Confederate sympathizers. Buford warned the expedition’s commander
to go slowly and carefully, for the raid marked both regiments’ first excursion
beyond Helena’s entrenchments. Instead, Col. William S. Brooks marched his men
most of the night, reaching a point some twenty miles southwest of Helena before
daybreak on 26 July. They reconnoitered the crossing of a stream called Big Creek,
concluded that no enemy was near, and began to water the horses and cook breakfast.
“Before the teams were all unhitched,” the artillery officer reported, Confederates
concealed in dense woods opened fire at one hundred fifty yards’ range. They
closed to within fifty yards and exchanged shots with the federals for more than three
hours, inflicting sixty-two casualties. About 10:00, a nearby column of one hundred
fifty troopers of the 15th Illinois Cavalry, also part of the Helena garrison, picked its
way through the timber to join the fight. This additional force afforded the infantrymen
time to pick up most of their wounded and begin the march back to Helena. They also
brought with them the bodies of four slain commissioned officers, among them that of
Colonel Brooks. 47
The Confederate troops at Big Creek were on their way to raid leased plantations
near Helena. It was a move that the Confederate cavalry leader, Brig. Gen. Joseph O.
Shelby, had been discussing with his regimental commanders for the previous month.
Shelby’s men struck during the first week in August and, General Steele reported,
“swept the plantations below Helena of stock, negroes, and everything else that could
be taken away.” For weeks afterward, one lessee wrote, it was “impossible to get the
colored people to work on the farms outside of the military lines without protection.”
The raids stopped suddenly a few days later, when higher headquarters ordered the
raiders to rejoin the main body of Confederates south of the Arkansas River. 48
The August raids posed the last serious military threat to the leased plantations
and their residents, but problems of administration and health continued.
During the final ten months of the war, troops at Helena limited their activities to
small patrols that went out from time to time to seize livestock and to arrest Union
deserters, Confederate soldiers visiting their homes on furlough, and traders in
46 OR, ser. 1, vol. 34, pt. 1, pp. 8–9 (“midnight raids”), 126–27, and pt. 2, pp. 239–41 (“I can
only,” p. 239).
47 OR, ser. 1, vol. 41, pt. 1, pp. 19–23 (quotation, p. 22), and pt. 3, p. 384.
48 Ibid., pt. 3, pp. 601 (“swept the plantations”), 994, 1010–11, 1034–35, 1050–51. J. T. Smith to
Brig Gen N. B. Buford, 31 Jan 1865 (“impossible to get”), in General Court Martial file, Capt A. L.
Thayer (OO–895), Entry 15, General Court Martial Case Files, RG 153, Rcds of the Judge Advocate
General’s Office, NA.