The Van Buren raid occurred in Crawford County, Arkansas, on December 28, 1862, during the American Civil War. After defeating Confederate forces led by Major General Thomas C. Hindman at the Battle of Prairie Grove on December 7, 1862, Union forces under Brigadiers General James G. Blunt and Francis J. Herron prepared for a raid against the Confederate positions at Van Buren and Fort Smith. Disease, lack of supplies, and desertion had previously forced Hindman to begin withdrawing most of his force from the area. Setting out on December 27, the Union troops struck an outlying Confederate cavalry unit near Drippings Spring, north of Van Buren, on the morning of December 28. The Confederate cavalry fled to Van Buren, which was then overrun by Union troops.
The Union pursued and captured three steamboats on the Arkansas River, and captured some Confederate troops and many supplies in Van Buren. Across the river in Fort Smith, the Confederates destroyed supplies and also burned two steamboats trapped upriver. An artillery duel took place at Van Buren, and after nightfall a minor skirmish was fought downriver at Strain's Landing. After the raid, Hindman withdrew his men to Little Rock and the Union force returned from the raid, unable to maintain a supply line to Van Buren across the Boston Mountains. The battle of Prairie Grove and the Van Buren raid broke Confederate strength in the region.
After the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States in 1860, several southern states considered seceding from the union. In the southern state of Arkansas, anti-secessionists were initially strong, slavery being considered a key issue. The successful bombardment of Fort Sumter by Confederate troops in seceded territory on April 12 swung political opinion toward secession. The state convention voted to secede on May 6, and Arkansas joined the Confederate States of America.
After significant military activity in Missouri throughout 1861, Major General Earl Van Dorn of the Confederate States Army formed the Army of the West in Arkansas in early March 1862 from forces commanded by Missouri State Guard Major General Sterling Price and Confederate Brigadier General Ben McCulloch. Van Dorn moved his army north towards the Union army of Major General Samuel R. Curtis, but was defeated at the Battle of Pea Ridge on March 7 and 8. After the defeat at Pea Ridge, Van Dorn moved most of the Confederate soldiers and supplies in Arkansas east of the Mississippi River and into Tennessee, leaving very little military organization in the state. In May, Major General Thomas C. Hindman was placed in command of Confederate forces in the state, with a task of rebuilding Confederate strength in the area. Although Hindman was successful in rebuilding Confederate strength and stabilizing the military situation in Arkansas, his methods were unpopular and sometimes extralegal. He was replaced by Major General Theophilus Holmes, who arrived at Little Rock on August 12.
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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