2 September — Confederates evacuate Atlanta, while Sherman, with the elements of the XVII Corps that participated in the Red River Campaign, moves into the city.
7 — Price crosses the Arkansas River with over 10,000 troops thus launching the long awaited invasion of Missouri.
19 — XIX Corps, now in Major General Philip Sheridan’s Army, defeats Early
19 September — at Winchester, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley. Price crosses the Missouri state line.
22 — Early suffers another setback at Fisher’s Hill in the Shenandoah with the XIX Corps present.
19 October — XIX Corps once again plays a decisive role in battle as Sheridan routs Early at Cedar Creek finally wresting control of the Shenandoah from the Confederates.
23 — Price meets with a resounding defeat in his invasion of Missouri at Westport. Union troops under Major General William S. Rosecrans nearly destroy Price’s army and force him on a long retreat back to Arkansas. In the process, Price’s army dwindles to a fifth of its original strength as men desert by the thousands.
8 November — Northern public reelects Lincoln by a large majority guaranteeing a Union victory in the Civil War. All the Federal troops that escaped from the Red River Valley have now made significant contributions to the Union cause. Their contributions were not possible except for the diversion made by the Union army in Camden Expedition, which, in effect, saved them for service on other fields.
* * *
Notes
1. Compiled from the following sources: OR, series 1, Vol. 34, part 1, 653–654; E. B. and Barbara Long, The Civil War Day By Day, 474–579; and Report of the Joint Committee.
Appendix 2.
Order of Battle1
UNION
Union Department of Arkansas and VII Army Corps
Maj. Gen. Frederick Steele
Headquarters Troops (escort)
D Company, 3rd Illinois Cavalry
H Company, 15th Illinois Cavalry
Third Division
Brig. Gen. Frederick Salomon
Artillery
Vaughn’s Illinois Battery
E Battery, 2nd Missouri Light
Voegele’s Wisconsin Battery
Frontier Division
(Joined the march in the vicinity of Elkins Ferry)
Brig. Gen. John M. Thayer
Cavalry Division Brig. Gen. Eugene A. Carr
Total effective Union force: approximately 11,500 men of all arms
* * *
CONFEDERATE
Confederate Army
General Edmund Kirby Smith, Commanding, Dept. of the Trans-Mississippi
District of Arkansas
Maj. Gen. Sterling Price
Escort: 14th Missouri Battalion
Fagan’s Cavalry Division2
Brig. Gen. James F. Fagan
Marmaduke’s Cavalry Division
Brig. Gen. John S. Marmaduke
Maxey’s Cavalry Division
(Arrived from Indian Territory 7-12 April and departed on 27 April)
Brig. Gen. Samuel B. Maxey
(The following infantry divisions arrived on 20 April in Arkansas and were attached to General Price’s command on 26 April 1864)
Walker’s Division
Maj. Gen. John G. Walker (wounded)
Arkansas Division
Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Churchill
Missouri Division
Brig. Gen. Mosby M. Parsons
Total effective Confederate force: approximately 14,000 men
* * *
Notes
1. Compiled from the OR, Vol. 34, Part 1, 657–658; B & L Vol. 4, 368; and Confederate Military History Vol. 10, 273–279. Confederate field returns are incomplete for the District of Arkansas and the data contained here are based on scanning several reports from the commanders. Data concerning Confederate artillery units are almost entirely incomplete. The Arkansas and Missouri divisions’ commanders kept better returns than Price’s cavalry units and the order of battle is more complete.
2. Confederate units at the division and brigade levels generally took the name of their commanding officers and did not have number designations. Most of the regiments were numbered; however, in some cases these units took on the name of their commander as the designation.
3. Incomplete records in the OR do not permit the listing of subordinate units.
Bibliography
Bibliographical Note
One would think that since so little has been written about the Camden Expedition it would be difficult to find adequate sources. I found that this was not the case. In fact, there is a wealth of sources available for researching this forgotten operation. In this note, I would like to identify those sources I found most useful and those that are questionable in reliability; and offer a possible explanation for a yawning gap in Camden’s historiography.
Without a doubt the most useful source is War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, which compiles all after action reports and correspondence of the unit commanders into Volume 34, Parts 1–3. It is an excellent repository for investigating the progress of the campaign and veracity of the participants. By far the best firsthand account is The History of the 33rd Iowa Volunteer Infantry by the oft-quoted Union Private Andrew Sperry. I found his record of the Camden Expedition accurate, lively, and complete. Sperry had a talent for capturing the moment and placing the reader at the center of the action he was experiencing. Without this fine chronicle, a full history of the expedition would have been far more difficult to weave together.
No full-length firsthand Confederate account exists of the expedition. Therefore, I used several reminiscences of the expedition written at different points to piece together a viewpoint from the Confederate soldier’s perspective. Among the best is Dr. Junius Bragg’s short article “Chasing Steele through Jenkins’ Ferry” and Joseph Blessington’s Walker’s Texas Division.
There are two excellent general overviews available that provide an account from the Union and Confederate points of view. Both were written by participants some years after the war and give a fairly accurate synopsis of events. From the Union side, Wiley Britton’s history The Civil War on the Western Border provided a fine overview of the entire operation, while the authoritative Confederate Military History, Volume 10—Clement Evans, editor—gives a review from the Rebel standpoint.
Unfortunately, some chroniclers wrote highly biased treatises that, while useful in specific areas, were suspect in others. John Edwards’ Shelby and His Men is the most prominent of these from the Confederate side. Edwards was an aide to Joseph Shelby and his biography of the cavalry commander was an unabashed attempt to inflate the considerable reputation of his chief. Yet, Edwards does provide an excellent glimpse of such incidents as the atrocities at Poison Springs and Marks’ Mills. While maintaining a critical eye, one can find a great deal of excellent information from his biography. Samuel Crawford’s Kansas in the Sixties is a subjective history on the Union side. Crawford openly expresses disdain for Frederick Steele’s leadership. However, just like Edwards, Crawford offers many interesting anecdotes of the expedition and his role as commander of the 2nd Kansas (Colored) is critical to unfolding events at Jenkins’ Ferry.
As rich as the Camden literature is, a gap still exists in the written history of the expedition from the perspective of the Rebels. With the exception of the Official Records and John Edwards’s biography of Shelby, there is no Confederate account of the opening phases from a private soldier’s standpoint. There is little primary Confederate source material describing the Union advance on Washington and Elkins’ Ferry, or the attempt to block Steele from reaching Camden—those phases prior to the point where the Rebel infantry divisions arrived from Louisiana. We may find a possible explanation by examining the background of the Confederate units that participated in the early operations. By and large the Confederates hailed from the poorest, hardscrabble regions of the Confederacy.
These men came from the backwoods of Missouri, lowlands of Arkansas and Louisiana, and open plains of the Indian Territory. Not noted for emphasis on education, these areas had a high percentage of illiterate men who were of military age. Therefore, few would have left a written account of their experiences. Perhaps this is the reason for the dearth of Rebel material from the opening stages of the Camden Expedition.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed searching for sources and reading about the unique and trying expedition. Though history has largely ignored the experiences of the men who fought its battles, Camden is no less exciting than any other action of the Civil War. Further, as I attempt to show in the text, this operation did have an important effect on the outcome of the war and is well worthy of examination by serious students of the conflict as well as by casual readers.
Unpublished Sources
Banks, Nathaniel P. Papers. Charles Ramsdell Microfilm Collection, reels 786.1, 786.7, 786.9, and 786.16, University of Texas at Austin.
Carr, Eugene Asa, Papers. United States Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Price, Sterling, Papers. Special Collections, Rice University Library. Copies of General Orders issued by Sterling Price as Commander of the Missouri State Guard.
_____. Manuscript and Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
_____. Missouri State Historical Society. Papers and General Orders, University of Missouri, Columbia.
Smith, Edmund Kirby, Papers. Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Steele, Frederick, Papers. Department of Special Collections, Collection number M0191, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California.
Taylor, Richard, Papers. Louisiana Adjutant General’s Office, Jackson Barracks, New Orleans.
Thayer, John Milton, Collection. Nebraska State Historical Society, Collection number RG001 Nebraska Governors, Sub-group 14, John Thayer, Box 12, Lincoln.
Walker, John G., Papers. Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
_____. “The War of Secession West of the Mississippi River During the Years 1863-4 & 5. Mss. Myron Gwinner Collection, United States Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Published Primary Sources
Basler, Roy P, ed. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. 9 vols. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1953.
Bee, Hamilton. “Battle of Pleasant Hill.” Southern Historical Society Papers VIII: 184–186. 1880.
Boggs, William R. Military Reminiscences of General Wm. R. Boggs, C. S. A. Durham: Seeman Printery, 1913.
Buck, Nina Smith. “Blucher of the Day at Manassas.” Confederate Veteran, VII (March 1889): 108. Reprint. Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1987–88.
Blessington, Joseph P. The Campaigns of Walker’s Texas Division. New York: Lane, Little & Co., 1875. Reprint. Austin, Texas: State House Press, 1994.
Britton, Wiley. Civil War on the Border II. Ottawa, Kansas: reprint by Kansas Heritage Press, 1999.
_____. The Union Indian Brigade in the Civil War. Kansas City, Mo.: Franklin Hudson, 1922. Reprint, Ottawa, Kansas: Kansas Heritage Press, 1992.
Crawford, Samuel J. Kansas in the Sixties. Ottawa, Kansas: reprint by Kansas Heritage Press, 1994.
Crist, Lynda Lasswell, Mary Seaton Dix, and Kenneth H. Williams, eds. The Papers of Jefferson Davis. Ten Volumes. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997.
Davis, Jefferson. Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers, and Speeches. Edited by Roland Dunbar. Volume VI, New York: Press of J. J. Little & Ives Company for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1923.
Debray, Xavier. “Debray’s 26th Texas Cavalry.” Southern Historical Society Papers XIII. 153–165, 1885.
Dooley, Amanda M. Autobiography of August Bondi: 1833–1907. Bethesda, Maryland: University Publications of America, 1993. On microfiche at the Combined Arms Research Library, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Dorsey, Sarah A. Recollections of Henry Watkins Allen, Brigadier-General, Confederate States Army, Ex-Governor of Louisiana. New York: M. Doolady, 1866.
Douglas, H. T. “The Trans-Mississippi Department.” Confederate Veteran, XXV (April 1917): 153-155. Reprint, Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1987-88.
Drake, F. M. “Campaign of General Steele.” War Sketches and Incidents from Iowa Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Vol. 1. Des Moines: 1893.
Edwards, John N. Shelby and His Men or the War in the West. Cincinnati: Miami Printing and Publishing Company, 1867.
Elliot, M. A., ed. The Garden of Memory: Stories of the Civil War as Told by Veterans and Daughters of the Confederacy. Camden, Arkansas: The Hurley Co., 1976.
Evans, Clement, ed. Confederate Military History: Louisiana and Arkansas, X. Atlanta: Confederate Publishing Co., 1899.
Fountain, Sarah M., ed. “Letters of War.” Ouachita County Historical Quarterly, Vol. 27/No. 2 (Winter 1995): 15–35. Excerpts from Sisters, Seeds and Cedars.
Grant, U. S. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. Edited by E. B. Long. Cleveland: World Publishing, 1952. Reprint with an introduction by William S. McFeely, New York: Da Capo Press, 1982.
Hay, John, and John Nicolay. Abraham Lincoln: A History. 10 vols. New York: The Century Co., 1909.
Hazewell, C. C. “The Twentieth Presidential Election.” Atlantic Monthly, 14 (November 1864): 633–641.
Heartsill, W. W. Fourteen Hundred and 91 Days in the Confederate Army. Edited by Bell I. Wiley. Jackson, Tennessee: McCowat-Mercer Press, 1953.
Hinton, Richard J. Rebel Invasion of Missouri and Kansas and the Campaign of the Army of the Border, Against General Sterling Price in October and November, 1864. Chicago: Church and Goodman, 1864. Microfilmed by the Combined Arms Research Library, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Johnson, Robert U., and Clarence C. Buell, eds. Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. 4 vols. New York: 1887. Reprint, New Jersey: Castle Company, 1989.
Jones, J. B. A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Lippincott & Co., 1866. Reprint, edited by Earl Schenck Miers in one volume, New York: Sagamore Press, Inc., 1958.
Kean, Robert Garlick Hill. Inside the Confederate Government: The Diary of Robert Garlick Hill Kean. Edited by Edward Younger. New York: Oxford University Press, 1957.
Liddell, St. John R. Liddell’s Record. Edited by Nathaniel C. Hughes. Dayton: Morningside, 1985.
Lothrop, Charles. A History of the First Iowa Cavalry Volunteers, from Its Organization in 1861 to Its Muster Out of United States Service in 1866. Lyons, Iowa: Beers & Eaton, 1890.
Lowell, James Russell. “The Next General Election.” North American Review, 99 (October 1864): 557–72.
Official Military History of Kansas Regiments During the War for Suppression of the Great Rebellion. Joshiah B. McAfee, compiler. Leavenworth, Kansas: 1870.
Porter, David Dixon. Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1885. Reprint, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Archive Society, 1997
_____. The Naval History of the Civil War. New York: Sherman Publishing Company, 1886. Reprint, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Archive Society, 1998.
Quaife, Milo Milton, ed. The Diary of James K. Polk: During His Presidency, 1845–1849. With an introduction by Andrew Cunningham McLaughlin. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1910.
“The Red River Campaign.” Ouachita County Historical Quarterly, Vol. 31/No. 3 (Spring 2000): 9–28. Excerpt from Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War.
Red River Expedition: Extracts from: United States Congress: Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War: Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, 1863–1865; The Thirty-Eighth Congress, Second Session. Millwood, New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1977.
Ryan, Frank T. “The Kentucky Campaign and Battle of Richmond.” Confederate Veteran, XXVI (April 1918): 158–160. Reprint, Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1987–1988.<
br />
Scott, Winfield. Memoirs of Lieutenant General Scott, LL.D. Two vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., Publishers, 1864.
Shaw, William T. “The Red River Campaign.” Confederate Veteran, XXV (March 1917): 116–118. Reprint, Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1987–1988.
Sherman, William T. Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman. 2 vols. New York: D. Appelton and Company, 1875. Reprint, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Archive Society, 1997.
Sliger, J. E. “How General Taylor Fought the Battle of Mansfield, La.” Confederate Veteran, XXXI (December 1923): 456–458. Reprint, Broadfoot Publishing Company, 1987–1988.
Sperry, A. F. History of the 33rd Iowa Infantry Volunteer Regiment 1863–6. Edited by Gregory J. W. and Cathy Kunzinger Urwin. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1999.
Stinson, Virginia M. “The Yankees in Camden.” Ouachita County Historical Quarterly, Vol. 25/No. 3 (Spring 1994): 25–28.
Stuart, A. A. Iowa Colonels and Regiments: Being a History of Iowa Regiments In the War of the Rebellion; and Containing a Description of the Battles in Which They Fought. Des Moines: Mills & Co., 1865.
Taylor, Richard. Destruction and Reconstruction: Personal Experiences of the Late War. New York: Appelton and Company, 1879. Reprint with an introduction by Edwin C. Bearss. New York: Bantam Books, 1992. This reprint does not follow the same pagination of the original text.
Twelfth Kansas Infantry Association. Regimental Roster. Bethesda, Maryland: University Publications of America, 1993. On microfiche at the Combined Arms Research Library, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
The Camden Expedition of 1864 Page 32
