The Camden Expedition of 1864

by Michael J Forsyth

  Early that morning Price had waited patiently for Steele to advance “with his habitual caution” on the latest line of Rebel works. By mid-morning the bewildered Confederate commander discovered the error of his assumption. After sending out some patrols, Price realized he had miscalculated and that Steele had turned in retreat toward Camden at a hurried pace. One young Rebel trooper recorded that “the Yanks got scared and turned towards Camden” and his commanding general undoubtedly agreed.32 Price now deduced that the Yankees intended to grab Camden for use as a forward operating base before continuing on to Louisiana. Price aimed to prevent this sensing that if Steele had begun a retrograde movement, his army must be in trouble. Accordingly, he hastily devised a plan to attempt cutting Steele off from Camden. He immediately ordered an all-out pursuit consisting of Maxey’s Division from the Indian Territory and Fagan’s Division. To Marmaduke Price assigned the critical mission to get in front of the Union army on its line of retreat to stop it short of Camden. Price trusted that Marmaduke, with brigade commanders such as Jo Shelby, would carry out his orders with great vigor to halt the advance of Steele’s army.33

  Marmaduke sped off at breakneck speed with Shelby leading the move around Steele’s flank. While Marmaduke’s wing executed the forced march to Camden, Price moved aggressively to attack Thayer. Dockery’s Brigade led the pursuit of the rear guard and in late afternoon caught Thayer languishing east of Moscow waiting for the head of the column to clear the swamp. Dockery, who smarted for two weeks following the humiliation at Mt. Elba, went a long way toward resurrecting his reputation as he launched a vicious attack. Its sheer boldness on the open prairie carried great momentum that shattered Thayer’s line of defense scattering regiments in every direction and enabling the screaming Rebels to snatch a section of artillery. Dockery’s elated troopers now drove straight for the exposed Federal wagon train. Some elements of the gray brigade did reach the train, but the quick reflexes of Colonel John Edwards of the 18th Iowa Infantry restored order driving the Confederates away before they could cause serious damage. As the 18th Iowa pressed their counterattack, the 1st Arkansas (Union) and 2nd Kansas (Colored) along with fugitives of the broken units fell in line and pushed Dockery back to Moscow retaking the lost guns before being ordered back to the division. Skirmishing continued throughout the evening but the Rebels made no more serious attacks on Thayer that day.34

  The losses for the day were low on both sides with Thayer losing 31 men; however, closer examination reveals a lost opportunity. This single Confederate brigade attack yielded impressive results, but had Price massed the two divisions at his disposal it is interesting to speculate about what he might have achieved. The Union army was in the process of attempting to cross a formidable barrier, the Terre Rouge Swamp, slowing its rate of movement and placing it in a vulnerable state. The swamp divided Steele’s army into pieces, moreover, making it susceptible to destruction in detail by a massed assault from the rear. Yet, rather than assembling his full force Price allowed an individual brigade to make a headlong attack without coordination thereby wasting a superb opportunity to crush Steele. While Dockery’s initiative is commendable, Price had once again failed to keep a rein on his subordinates and in the end allowed Steele to make the crossing with few losses. The action at Moscow is yet another sample of Price’s haphazard leadership.

  Thayer had regrouped his forces as the sun began to set and started moving through the swamp, continuing all night. Meanwhile, Shelby had moved throughout the night also and his hard-riding cavalry managed to get a scratch force to Poison Spring before Steele. The question now is whether or not he had an adequate force to actually stop the exhausted Federals. Eugene A. Carr had also been pushing his men hard to reach Poison Spring before the Confederates. Steele had detailed Rice’s brigade and Charles Peetz’ battery under the control of Carr to provide punch for the cavalry should they encounter heavy resistance. In the early afternoon of April 14, a patrol sent out by Carr made the discovery that the Rebels had won the race to Poison Spring. After initially mistaking the Confederates for friends, the Union troopers turned about to make their escape. A cross-fire decimated their ranks, but the scouting party managed to get a report back to Carr informing him of the presence of Shelby. Carr moved up more of his troopers to skirmish with the Rebels while he assessed the situation. After interrogating prisoners taken in the engagement, Carr determined that he had elements of Greene’s and Shelby’s brigades to his front, but was unsure if Price had moved his whole force around Steele’s flank. He conferred with Rice at 7:30 in the evening and together they determined to camp for the night and assault the Rebel blocking position at daylight. If, as the two commanders believed, Price had only two small brigades of cavalry in the way, Carr and Rice would have no problem driving the Confederates away.35

  In addition to feeling out the enemy, Carr had sent out small detachments of foragers to find subsistence for his hungry men. One of the parties met a pair of Union men who informed them of the presence of a large quantity of corn that the army could use to supplement their rations. The foragers brought off what they could and reported this encouraging intelligence to Carr. The cavalry commander in turn composed a note to Steele informing him of the existence of an ample store of corn. He recommended that some arrangements be made to procure this forage to alleviate the growing supply difficulty.36 While unable to act on the report immediately, Steele filed the information away for future reference when the army reached Camden.

  At daylight on the 15th, still about eighteen miles from Camden, Rice and Carr rolled forward to clear the road of Rebels. Coming upon the junction of the Middle Washington and Camden Roads, Shelby’s troopers opened up a brisk fire on the advancing Federals temporarily halting Rice. Carr and Rice now deployed left and right of the road in an attempt to find the flanks of Shelby’s Brigade. The ubiquitous Sperry’s 33rd Iowa moved around the Rebel left unmasking a battery that had pinned down the main line on the road. Sperry reported that they rushed the guns forcing the battery to cease firing. The charge enabled the advance to continue, as Shelby’s position became untenable. By 10:30 A.M. the column resumed a regular march punctuated by periodic skirmishing for the next three hours. The infantry would alternate between march column and line of battle as the Rebels took to harassing the bluecoats. While the Rebels did all they could to impede the advance, Marmaduke and Shelby knew there was little they could do now to prevent Steele’s army from gaining access to Camden. Accordingly, when the Confederates came upon the crossroads of the Camden and Lower Washington Roads, Marmaduke filed away to the south to prevent his own force from becoming pinned against Camden.37

  Mrs. Virginia McCullom Stinson had passed the morning with her normal chores when the streets in Camden began to stir with excitement. Rumors raced through town about the impending fall of the city to advancing Federal troops. For three years Camden had avoided the humiliation of occupation and maintained a semblance of prosperity in the midst of the war. Now all the citizens speculated as to their fate and that of their property when the Yankees came to town. They would not wait long to receive the answer to their questions. Shortly after noon, the lead elements of Carr’s cavalry clattered into town having driven the final show of token resistance away. The plodding infantrymen would take considerably longer to close on the quaint city overlooking the Ouachita. Sperry reported that Rice’s brigade, the lead infantry unit of the VII Corps, marched in around 6:30 in the evening. Elements of the corps continued streaming in non-stop until Thayer’s division finally closed on Camden in the late afternoon of April 16.38 Steele’s army had gained Camden and with the exception of the troubling food problem had carried out its mission in admirable fashion. But, the challenge of feeding 12,000 men in enemy country with a tenuous supply line was causing the army to begin deviating from the plan. Already the army had diverted to Camden and would have to take several days to obtain forage before continuing on to Louisiana. Here is where the entire operation began to go awry. />
  Events in Louisiana had irretrievably changed the situation as well, yet the challenges of communication conspired to deny Steele full knowledge of what had happened to Banks on the Red River. Steele arrived in Camden late in the evening of the 15th and set up headquarters in one of the well-to-do homes in town.39 Upon arrival in town the Federal commander heard a disturbing rumor that Banks had received a serious reverse in Louisiana. Steele had no way of confirming this intelligence since the “spies”—Civil War leaders used this word interchangeably with scout—he had sent to communicate with Banks had not returned.40

  Unknown to Steele, on April 8 at Mansfield Banks was soundly defeated by the aggressive Stonewall Jackson protégé Richard Taylor. Taylor had sprung a large ambush with his concentrated army—including the divisions of Price’s District of Arkansas—against a fragment of the Army of the Gulf as it trudged to Shreveport. After hitting and routing the head of Banks’ column, Taylor advanced down the Mansfield-Pleasant Hill Road crushing individual divisions of the Federal army sending them tumbling south like dominoes. Only a determined defense by the 19th Army Corps under Brigadier General William Emory saved Banks from utter destruction. Taylor, his fighting blood at a fever pitch, drove after the retreating Union army the following day catching up with them a Pleasant Hill. After a severe contest the Federals checked Taylor’s offensive when A. J. Smith’s corps delivered a hammer blow. Taylor drew off, but a thoroughly shaken Nathaniel Banks decided to continue his retreat that night over the loud protests of several of his officers.

  Kirby Smith’s Fabian strategy had worked better than he could have hoped, but decisions now confronted him about how best to prosecute a counteroffensive. The influence of his two touchy subordinates would have great bearing on any decision he made as Price and Taylor had widely varying opinions on how to proceed. Taylor felt that the retreating Union army under Banks should be pursued relentlessly until destroyed. Further, he strongly believed that Steele would “commence retreating as soon as he hears the news from this quarter.” The conditions certainly supported Taylor’s assertion that he could destroy Banks since the rapidly falling Red River had trapped the Federal navy thus immobilizing the Army of the Gulf. With sufficient force Taylor believed he could pin Banks down, starve him into submission, and, by default, capture or force the destruction of the Union navy. Therefore, Taylor demanded action in Louisiana as the decisive field to attain far-reaching results. He was so adamant that he concluded a dispatch to Smith’s chief of staff: “Should the remnant of Banks’ army escape me I shall deserve to wear a fool’s cap for a helmet.”41

  Smith disagreed with Taylor and he became extremely irritated by an increasingly sarcastic tone in Taylor’s correspondence.42 Kirby Smith had expressed a belief weeks earlier that “the only field for great results in this department is in the District of Arkansas.”43 The reason for this opinion was twofold. First, Smith knew that Steele was a professional soldier with a solid combat record. Steele’s opponent was the erratic Price whose reliability was always the subject of debate in the Confederate high command. Banks, by contrast, was a politician-turned-soldier with a dubious record of achievement thus far in the war. Taylor’s capabilities were well known and admired across the South. Therefore, Smith probably calculated that Steele in Arkansas was the more threatening of the Union commanders and Taylor his most competent subordinate. Second, Smith’s Fabian policy was territorial in nature, placing a premium on retention of terrain over destruction of the enemy. Since this policy was in step with overall Confederate national strategy, he felt that it was his duty to ensure that his department remained under Rebel authority to the greatest extent possible. By mid-April Smith had not changed his mind about Arkansas and had actually become more adamant in advocating a pursuit of Steele. Smith states in an April 12 dispatch:

  Steele is bold to rashness: will probably push on without thought or circumspection. To win this campaign his column must be destroyed. Should you move below [in Louisiana] and Steele’s small column will push on and accomplish what Banks has failed in … we will … be disgraced. Banks is certainly so crippled that he cannot soon take the offensive. Most probably he will fall back to Alexandria. The patient, uncomplaining spirit manifested by Arkansas, the prompt and unselfish behavior of Price in pushing on his whole infantry force to your support, merits a return. Great results are to be reached in that direction.44

  Smith concluded by ordering Taylor to prepare three divisions of his command for service in Arkansas while Taylor would take the remaining division and cavalry to ensure Banks continued his retreat.

  The decision infuriated Taylor causing him to launch a series of acidic dispatches at Smith criticizing its substance. Taylor’s barbs failed to move Smith who continued resolutely on with preparations for a counteroffensive in Arkansas. Price’s quiet strategy of providing full support of Smith’s Fabian policy, in spite of his own objections to it, had worked in his favor. Price would soon receive three divisions of infantry, enough to turn the tables on Steele and eventually initiate his long sought invasion to liberate Missouri.

  While Smith’s strategy was sound in light of overall Confederate national policy, it would never achieve the sweeping results envisioned by Richard Taylor. Taylor stated at the time and in his memoirs that had he retained the force he had on-hand after Pleasant Hill, he could have destroyed Banks’ army and Porter’s fleet. This would have had a great effect on the entire Confederate war effort by “relieve[ing] the pressure on our suffering brethren in Virginia and Georgia.” He also recognized the plausibility that a disaster in Louisiana combined with continued stalemate in the east would have a negative impact on public opinion in the North. With the presidential election in the offing, this could lead to the defeat of Lincoln at the polls, thereby repudiating his war policies and delivering victory to the Confederacy.45 What Taylor was advocating was a bold move that could deliver a victory decisive in the outcome of the war. Smith, by contrast, supported stated Confederate policy to defend the territory of the Trans-Mississippi, which could never achieve anything beyond the borders of the department.

  Smith would not change his mind and by April 14 had the wheels in motion to turn on Steele.46 The unsuspecting Federal commander in Arkansas was still under the impression that Banks was moving according to plan. Steele therefore, continued to do his utmost to fulfill his part of the Red River Campaign even as Banks accused Steele of failing to support him in Louisiana. In an April 17 letter to Lieutenant Commander Thomas O. Selfridge of Porter’s fleet, Banks had the gall to write, “General Steele fails to cooperate with us, as far as we can learn, and thus far renders no assistance.”47 This accusation is unwarranted and made with a dearth of knowledge about the situation in Arkansas. Steele had advanced deep into enemy territory against his better judgement, all the while feeding his men half-rations in country stripped of provender. Steele had certainly done this in full support of Banks and made every reasonable attempt to establish communication with him through the use of couriers.

  Underlying Banks’ assertions is an effort to shift full responsibility for the disaster at Mansfield from his shoulders to Steele. Banks simply had no way of knowing the extent of Steele’s effort and therefore discounted it as insufficient. He also tacitly discounts the ability of the Rebels to utilize their own interior lines to achieve a concentration on his front. In light of the facts, Banks’ accusation is off the mark and does disservice to Steele, who in spite of his own distaste for the operation made an honest effort to support the Red River Campaign from Arkansas. By doing so, Steele had surely saved Banks from ignominious destruction at the hands of a determined, yet ragged force under Richard Taylor. But, with an overwhelming force now moving north against him, Steele had to ensure that his own army would not suffer a sound defeat. The pressing issue of feeding the VII Corps, however, was plotting to deliver up the army without a fight unless he could obtain a reliable source of subsistence.

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  Notes
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  1. OR, Vol. 34, Part 1, 674–675.

  2. McLeod, “The Frontier Division in the Camden Expedition,” 6; and White, ed., “A Bluecoat’s Account of the Camden Expedition,” AHQ (Spring 1965), 85.

  3. Sperry, History of the 33rd Iowa, 79.

  4. OR, Vol. 34, Part 3, 77–78.

  5. Ibid., 79.

  6. Ibid., 104.

  7. J. H. Atkinson, “The Action at Prairie D’Ann,” AHQ (Spring 1960), 40–41.

  8. OR, Vol. 34, Part 1, 732–733.

  9. Ibid., 838.

  10. Atkinson, “The Action at Prairie D’Ann,” AHQ (Spring 1960), 44; and OR, Vol. 34, Part 1, 824.

  11. Richards, “The Camden Expedition,” 58, and OR, Vol. 34, Part 1, 780 and 824.

  12. Britton, The Union Indian Brigade in the Civil War, 351, and Williams, ed., Military Analysis of the Civil War, “Supply for Confederate Cavalry in the Trans-Mississippi,” by Stephen B. Oates, 207.

  13. OR, Vol. 34, Part 3, 104.

  14. Lothrop, History of the First Iowa Cavalry, 159.

  15. OR, Vol. 34, Part 3, 657 and 761.

  16. Sperry, History of the 33rd Iowa, 79.

  17. Lothrop, History of the First Iowa Cavalry, 160.

  18. OR, Vol. 34, Part 1, 687, 707, and 722.

  19. Burke, Official Military History of the Kansas Regiments, 427; and Sperry, History of the 33rd Iowa, 79.

  20. OR, Vol. 34, Part 1, 722 and 733.

  21. Ibid., 838.