Poison Spring was a Civil War engagement fought in Arkansas, 1864. It was a Confederate victory.
Dwindling supplies for his army at Camden forced Maj. Gen. Fred Steele to send out a foraging party to gather corn that the Confederates had stored about twenty miles up the Prairie D'Ane-Camden Road on White Oak Creek. The party loaded the corn into wagons, and on April 18, Col. James M. Williams started his return to Camden. Brig. Gen. John S. Marmaduke's and Brig. Gen. Samuel B. Maxey's Confederate forces arrived at Lee Plantation, about fifteen miles from Camden, where they engaged Williams. The Rebels eventually attacked Williams in the front and rear forcing him to retreat north into a marsh where his men regrouped and then fell back to Camden. The Union lost 198 wagons and all the corn.
On April 20, a supply train out of Pine Bluff reached Steele's command bearing rations meant to last ten days. When the empty wagons started back toward Pine Bluff, Confederate forces seized them and wiped out the escorting troops in what became known as the Battle of Marks' Mills. Word circulated afterward that African-American noncombatants had been killed by the Confederates in that engagement; according to Urwin, the death toll likely exceeded 100. Around this same time, a scout brought Steele news that Banks had suffered defeat. Smith responded by shifting three infantry divisions out of Louisiana to confront Steele, and these Confederate soldiers made their way across the Red River on April 15 and 16.
Faced with these developments, Steele chose to give up Camden, and his troops marched out of the town on April 26. By April 29 the leading elements of his force had arrived at Jenkins' Ferry on the Saline River. Persistent rainfall had left the surrounding terrain flooded, forcing the Federals to construct a pontoon bridge, and the wagon train inched across at a slow pace.
The following day Smith struck at the rear of Steele's column, sparking the Battle of Jenkins' Ferry. His attacks failed to break through, allowing Steele's men to complete their crossing of the Saline. During the fighting, soldiers of the 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment took revenge for the earlier killings at Poison Spring, executing a number of captured men from Ruffner's Missouri Battery and slitting the throats of wounded Confederates left on the ground. Following Poison Spring, officers of the regiment had vowed that no prisoners would be taken so long as the enemy kept murdering their men. Nine gravely wounded soldiers from the
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