Camden Expedition

• Brigadier General John S. MarmadukeElkin's Ferry, Poison Spring
• Major General Sterling PricePrairie D'Ane
• Brigadier General Samuel Bell MaxeyPoison Spring
• Brigadier General James B. FaganMarks' Mills
• General E. Kirby SmithJenkins' Ferry

• Major General Frederick SteeleElkin's Ferry, Prairie D'Ane, Jenkins' Ferry
• Colonel James M. WilliamsPoison Spring
• Lieutenant Colonel Francis DrakeMarks' Mills

Between March 23 and May 3, 1864, Union forces attempted an offensive push through southwest Arkansas that ultimately ended in failure, an operation later known as the Camden Expedition. This effort was meant to work in tandem with the advance led by Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks, whose objective was Shreveport.

The campaign

On March 23, 1864, Steele set out from the Little Rock Arsenal at the head of a Union force numbering 8,500 men, drawing together infantry, artillery and cavalry with the aim of linking up with Maj. Gen. Banks at Shreveport. At the time, Confederate command in Arkansas operated out of Washington, the town that had become the seat of the state's Confederate government once Little Rock fell into Union hands. From there, Confederate Maj. Gen. Sterling Price instructed Brig. Gen. John S. Marmaduke to keep pressure on the advancing Union column and to block its crossing of the Little Missouri as the troops pushed on toward Washington.

Aftermath

Few setbacks matched the scale of what Union troops endured in Arkansas during the Camden Expedition. More than 2,500 men fell as casualties, hundreds of wagons were left behind, and the campaign's goals of capturing Shreveport and Texas went unmet. In the aftermath, Confederate troops moved with ease across the Arkansas countryside, and Federal units withdrew to defensive positions in Fort Smith, Pine Bluff, Helena, and Little Rock. Yet this Confederate triumph carried a hidden price. Manpower and supplies that might have struck harder at Porter and Banks, whose fleet sat stranded by low water on the Red River, were spent elsewhere instead. As a result, Porter's vessels slipped away with barely a scratch.