Arkansas Post

Fought over three days from January 9 through 11, 1863, the clash at Arkansas Post, sometimes called Fort Hindman, took place along the Arkansas River in Arkansas and formed one episode within the broader Vicksburg campaign. Confederate troops had built Fort Hindman close to Arkansas Post during the closing months of 1862. That same period saw Major General John A. McClernand receive authorization to raise soldiers throughout the Midwest for a river-based expedition intended to strike Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Grant, meanwhile, had launched a land campaign toward Vicksburg in November, moving along the Mississippi Central Railroad. Neither Grant nor Halleck, the Union's General-in-Chief, held much confidence in McClernand, so they arranged matters so that Sherman would lead the water-based push against Vicksburg before McClernand could take charge of it. Sherman's effort ended in defeat at Chickasaw Bayou late in December, and separately, raids by Confederate cavalry compelled Grant to give up his overland advance.

By the time McClernand reached Memphis late in December, Sherman had already departed without him. He pursued Sherman's force downriver, linked up with it, and assumed command in early January 1863, renaming it the Army of the Mississippi. Independently, Sherman and McClernand each concluded that Fort Hindman deserved an assault. Confederates operating from the fort had recently seized a Union supply boat, and Sherman likely welcomed the chance to salvage his standing following the setback at Chickasaw Bayou. McClernand's soldiers, together with a naval fleet under Acting Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter, made their way upriver toward the Arkansas.

Troops began disembarking downstream of the fort late on January 9. The following day brought a bombardment of the fort by several of Porter's ships, even as McClernand positioned his men. Then, at one o'clock in the afternoon on January 11, Porter's vessels resumed shelling the fort while McClernand's infantry pressed forward against the Confederate defenses, a network consisting of the fort itself and rifle pits stretching west toward a bayou.

Although the Union assault was thrown back, white flags mysteriously appeared over sections of the Confederate line. In the chaos that followed, Federal soldiers pushed close to the line and overran portions of it. Brigadier General Thomas J. Churchill, commanding the Confederate defenders, ultimately chose to surrender.

News of the operation displeased Grant when it reached him, and he initially ordered McClernand to return to the Mississippi, though he eventually came to see merit in what had been accomplished. On January 30, Grant removed McClernand from command and personally took charge of the Vicksburg campaign. During April and May, his forces crossed the Mississippi below Vicksburg and secured a string of victories, pushing Confederate troops back into the city's defenses by mid-May. The ensuing siege concluded with the Confederate surrender on July 4, 1863, a result that proved instrumental in the Union's ultimate triumph.

Prelude

Grant's orders reached McClernand while he was still in Memphis, granting him authority over the movement heading downriver. He departed the city on December 30 to link up with the Vicksburg expedition, pausing along the way at Helena for a meeting with Brigadier General Willis Gorman. The two officers reviewed conditions there, noting that the garrison had been thinned out to supply Sherman's campaign, and turned their attention to the Confederate foothold at Arkansas Post. Just days earlier, Confederate forces had seized the Union supply steamer Blue Wing roughly 8 miles (13 km) below Napoleon, Arkansas, hauling it back to Arkansas Post. Word of this raid reached Sherman, who suspected further such strikes might follow from that stronghold. Convinced the post posed a genuine danger and that striking it successfully might lift his troops' sagging spirits, he started drawing up plans for an assault, judging that the fort's landward side left it vulnerable to capture. Separately, both he and McClernand had arrived at the same conclusion: the Confederate hold on Arkansas Post needed to be broken.

Sherman's arrival at the Mississippi from the Yazoo brought him face to face with McClernand, who was still smarting over having been sidelined from command. Assuming leadership of the combined force, McClernand christened it the Army of the Mississippi and relegated Sherman to a subordinate role within it, a change that left Sherman displeased. During the night spanning January 3 and 4, the two men sought out Porter to discuss committing his gunboats to the planned strike. Porter, who held McClernand and his treatment of Sherman in low regard, ultimately consented once Sherman stepped in on the plan's behalf. Historian Richard L. Kiper later characterized Sherman's backing of the scheme as driven by motives that were "somewhat suspect," likely rooted in a wish to salvage the reputation he had lost at Chickasaw Bayou through a fresh victory. Because the operation fell within the jurisdiction of Major General Samuel R. Curtis, who oversaw the Department of the Missouri, a command spanning Missouri, Arkansas, and territory further west, McClernand made sure to notify him of the intended action.

Battle

McClernand's forces set out upriver on January 5. To conceal the movement from Confederate eyes, the fleet took the White River rather than the Arkansas, later cutting across a connecting channel to rejoin the Arkansas. Transport ships carried the infantry, escorted by warships, three of which were ironclads: Baron DeKalb, Louisville, and Cincinnati.

Word of the approaching fleet reached Churchill on the afternoon of January 9. He dispatched three cavalry companies to scout ahead and instructed his men to hold the outer rifle pits, though these remained unfinished. He then reversed course, ordering the defenders into the inner line instead, since reports suggested the Union troops were disembarking near the outer works. Texans from Garland's brigade moved forward to skirmish, and Hart's battery, with its six guns, took position on the right of the inner pits close to the river.

Sherman's soldiers began coming ashore between four and five that afternoon, roughly three miles from Arkansas Post at Notrebe's plantation. Darkness prevented many of his transports from unloading that night since they arrived too late. Meanwhile Porter discovered that obstacles had been placed in the river, learning this from someone found in a boat on the water. Downriver, nine miles below Notrebe's on the opposite bank, Morgan's transports stopped to put ashore Colonel Daniel Lindsey's brigade of Osterhaus's division. This landing happened the next morning, January 10, and included 10-pounder Parrott guns belonging to the Chicago Mercantile Battery. Lindsey's men crossed the neck of the peninsula created by the river's bend and established themselves upstream of the fort, blocking any Confederate reinforcement by water. Sherman's landing operations concluded by 11:00 am.

That same morning, McClernand and his staff scouted the river road on foot. At eight o'clock the gunboat Black Hawk and the tinclad Rattler steamed upriver and shelled the Confederate rifle pits. Churchill held Hart's battery back, trusting the fort's three heavy guns to handle the vessels, but faulty powder kept those guns from reaching Black Hawk and Rattler. McClernand then directed Sherman to swing northwest in an attempt to flank the fort, though he soon judged the river road a workable route as well. Steele's division set out around the fort with Sherman alongside, guided by runaway slaves, while Stuart's division pushed straight up the river road. Close to 1:00 pm, the remainder of Morgan's corps came ashore on Sherman's side of the river at a spot below Notrebe's called Muldin's. Swampy terrain and a bayou stopped Steele's flanking column, forcing its withdrawal back to Stuart's position, and the column reached Notrebe's about the time Morgan's corps arrived there too.

By roughly two o'clock, Churchill had learned of the flanking attempt and pulled his men back toward the fort. His rear guard consisted of the earlier skirmishers along with part of the 10th Texas Infantry. Colonel Giles Smith's brigade, from Stuart's division, followed with two Missouri regiments leading as skirmishers. These two regiments advanced until Confederate fire from the fort stopped them. Stuart then repositioned his line farther right after scouting the ground, extending it three quarters of a mile from the riverbank to the Little Rock road. Two regiments belonging to Colonel T. Kilby Smith's brigade reinforced the skirmish line, which pressed toward the fort and suffered seventeen casualties under heavy fire. The 57th Ohio Infantry was dispatched rightward to examine the terrain near Post Bayou.

Morgan's men moved forward with A. J. Smith's division leading and Osterhaus's trailing behind. As Stuart's line extended right, A. J. Smith's troops filled the gap nearer the river. McClernand had promised Porter his forces would be ready by 2:00 pm, but it was not until 5:30 pm that he confirmed readiness, prompting the Union gunboats to close in and open fire. The three ironclads moved to short range, each targeting one of the Confederate heavy guns, while Lexington and Black Hawk added supporting fire. Though the naval guns killed most of the horses inside the Confederate works, human losses stayed low. Around 7:30 pm the shelling stopped. Porter attempted to send Rattler upriver to strike the fort from behind, but the tinclad met heavy f