The Battle of Brownsville was fought on August 25, 1863, near what is now Lonoke, Arkansas, between Union forces led by Colonel Washington Geiger and Confederate troops under Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke. Union forces commanded by Major General Frederick Steele were advancing from Helena, Arkansas, towards Little Rock, the state capital of Arkansas. Confederate Major General Sterling Price ordered cavalry led by Marmaduke and Brigadier General Lucius M. Walker to Brownsville in response to the Union advance.
Marmaduke's men defended a forward position, while Walker's remained to the rear in some woods; the plan was for Marmaduke to draw Union troops into an ambush. However, Walker did not come to Marmaduke's aid when a Union brigade commanded by Geiger advanced. Geiger's men drove the outnumbered Confederates from their first position. Reforming, Marmaduke attempted to form another line further to the west, but retreated again after delaying the Union advance. Union troops pursued until nightfall. The campaign against Little Rock continued, and the city was taken on September 10.
In mid-1862, Union troops occupied the Confederate town of Helena, Arkansas. On July 4, 1863, Confederate troops attacked the Union defenders in the Battle of Helena but were repulsed. That same month, Union troops were freed for further action in the state of Arkansas after a victory at the Siege of Vicksburg. August 10 and 11 saw 6,000 men and 16 cannons led by Union Major General Frederick Steele leave Helena to begin moving against Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas. Commanding the Confederate troops in the region was Major General Sterling Price, who had replaced the ill Theophilus Holmes.
Steele reached Clarendon, Arkansas, on August 17, where he joined forces with cavalry commanded by Brigadier General John W. Davidson. Illness had hampered the Union movements, and over 1,000 of Steele's men were sick. Steele began moving his base of operations to DeValls Bluff while sending Davidson's men across the White River to locate the Confederates. Meanwhile, Price sent cavalry commanded by Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke to the hamlet of Brownsville (near what is now Lonoke, Arkansas), to join forces with Brigadier General Lucius M. Walker. Walker was in overall command of the two forces, although the two officers did not get along well after a dispute during the fighting at Helena. Brownsville is about 30 miles (48 km) east of Little Rock and was along one of the major travel routes to the city.
The initial Confederate battle plan was for Walker to remain with some of the men in a woodline, while Marmaduke formed a line towards the front and tried to draw the leading Union units into an ambush. Marmaduke's forward line was about 1,300 men strong, and was composed of Shelby's Iron Brigade and another cavalry force led by William L. Jeffers, and was supported by one cannon from Bell's Missouri Battery and a portion of Joseph Bledsoe's Missouri Battery. On the morning of August 25, a Union cavalry brigade led by Colonel Washington Geiger advanced and made contact with the Confederate along the edge of a prairie. The Union troops outnumbered the Confederates by about four-to-one in manpower and eight-to-one in artillery.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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