novushomus
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- May 23, 2016
Hello everyone of CivilWarTalk!
Have a Happy 4th of July tomorrow and while your remember that today is the day that, paraphrasing William Faulkner's classic, "that southern boys" remember "that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word" and that tomorrow was the culmination of the Siege of Vicksburg, the day that would split the Confederate in two, and the day would cement Ulysses S. Grant in military history, let us not also forget that tomorrow is the day that a feverish little Arkansas town on the west bank of the Mississippi exploded in the one of the most unfortunate assaults of the war.
Helena had been in Union hands for almost a year, falling into the hands of Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis's Army of the Southwest on July 12, 1863, without opposition. Helena had been a consolation prize for Curtis, for though he had ambitions to take Little Rock, logistical constraints forced him to abandon his attempt in the face of stiffening rebel resistance and to move to the support of the Federal navy on the White and Mississippi rivers. A small garrison had since occupied the town, the latest in a series of river towns to fall to Federal hands which was now commanded by Maj. Gen. Benjamin M. Prentiss. Prentiss, a braggadocio with an oversized personality and ego, was most famous for his role in the defense of the Hornets Nest at Shiloh and for being the Union division commander captured there. Following his parole, he had been served in court martial duty before being assigned what could rationally be assumed to be command of a quiet backwater post. The Confederates had other plans.
Lt. Gen. Theophilus Holmes, commander of the District of Arkansas.
As the summer of 1863 arrived, with Grant's Army of the Tennessee laying siege to Vicksburg and Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks's Army of the Gulf laying siege to Port Hudson, the last two bastions of Confederate control on the Mississippi and in President Jefferson Davis's words, "the nailhead holding the south's two halves together" were under serious threat. The commander of Confederate forces in the District of Arkansas, Lt. Gen. Theophilus "Granny" Holmes, realized action was required if Confederate forces west of the river were to avoid isolation. His theater commander, Lt. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, who had replaced Holmes as overall commander of forces west of the Mississippi, agreed.
Holmes was an interesting character. Though not even sixty, his stooped appearance and worried features led troops to tease him with the sobriquet of "Granny". Partially deaf, a story circulated that Holmes had once during a artillery bombardment asked his troops if the noises he heard were gunfire during the Seven Days Battles. He was quietly reassigned to Arkansas as political solution, removing a mediocre commander from Lee's army and replacing the problematic firebrand Thomas C. Hindman in command of Arkansas. His military career, never distinguished, was about to approach its nadir.
After receiving permission to attack the garrison at Helena if he thought he could do so successfully, Holmes moved to concentrate his army at Jacksonsport in preparation for an attack on Helena. Holmes's army consisted of an infantry division commanded by Maj. Gen. Sterling Price, the ex-governor of Missouri, and two cavalry divisions, Brig. Gen. John S. Marmaduke's and Brig. Gen. Lucius M. Walker's. Holmes made a number of unwise decisions in the disposition of his army; Part of Price's division, Fagan's 2nd Brigade and its' artillery, had to be brought from Little Rock by train. For reasons he never made clear, Holmes decided to detach Fagan's brigade from Price to report directly to himself even though Fagan's command had rejoined its' parent division. Additionally, Price's 5th Brigade under Brig. Gen. Daniel M. Frost, some 1,500 men and artillery garrisoning Pine Bluff, were left behind and never even brought up to support the assault.
Brig. Gen. John S. Marmaduke, commanding Confederate Missouri cavalry
However, it was Holmes's disposition of his cavalry that would turn out to be the most unfortunate. Marmaduke had initially commanded all the Confederate cavalry in Arkansas. Holmes, however, held little confidence in the passionate Missourian's ability as a cavalryman and when Marmaduke launched a failed raid into Missouri in early 1863 that generated more complaints about his behavior from irate Missouri civilians than Missouri recruits to the Confederate cause, Holmes decided to act by stripping away the Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana cavalrymen from Marmaduke's command and reassigning them to Walker. Walker was a recent transfer who had been expelled from Gen. Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee and was considered by him to be unfit for any level of command. Holmes's natural response was to give Walker a division and to make him the senior of the two cavalry commanders. It would be the trigger of a blood feud.
Brig. Gen. Lucius M. Walker, commanding Confederate cavalry
Assembling the bulk of his army at Jacksonport, Holmes marched to cross the White River and on July 3, the North Carolinian called Price, Marmaduke, Walker, and Fagan to the Alan Polk House, six miles west of Helena to issue his orders. He would strike the fortified town with three converging columns; Price's two brigades of 3,095 men, would attack from the west, overrunning the western most Federal batteries and rifle pits. Fagan's brigade of 1,339 men would launch a diversionary attack from the south, while Marmaduke's 1,700 cavalrymen struck from the north. Artillerymen attached to Price's command would man captured Union artillery and turn it on the defenders, while Marmaduke's horse artillery would be in close support. Holmes hinged his plan, requiring precise coordination and surprise, on the rather imprecisely worded starting time of "daybreak." Additionally, Holmes failed to reconnoiter the terrain around Helena and failed to form pioneer detachments for the infantry columns. As events turned out, these would be fatal mistakes.
Brig. Gen. Frederick Salomon, commanding the 13th Division, infantry,
Arguably, Prentiss had beaten Holmes even before the first gun had sounded. Alerted to impeding offensive, Prentiss had strengthened his defenses. Assigned to him was the 13th Division of Thirteenth Corps, under the command of Prussian expatriate Brig. Gen. Frederick Salomon, a cavalry brigade under Col. Powell Clayton, and the recently organized and recruited 1st Arkansas African Descent under Maj. George W. Burchard, an infantry regiment that had been organized out of the recently freed "Contraband" slaves that had flocked to Helena since its' liberation His garrison totaled a little more than 4,000 men on July 4, but was bolstered by the guns of the Timberclad U.S.S. Tyler. Though outnumbered, Prentiss had several advantages.
Helena was city surrounded by hills and ridges, outcroppings of the nearby Crowley's Ridge. These had been fortified with rifle pits and four batteries, A, B, C, and D, with C occupying the ominously named Graveyard Hill. Inside of the ridges was the recently completed Fort Curtis. The fortifications and the mounted artillery would give Prentiss and edge in firepower. Additionally, Prentiss took the time to have his men cut down the timber along the roads leading into the city from the west. Early on the morning of July 4, Prentiss roused his men. He had been surprised at Shiloh, and he was determined not to be surprised again.
In the darkness of July 4, the seeds of Holmes's misjudgments sprouted a bitter fruit for Confederate arms. Both Fagan and Marmaduke had correctly interpreted Holmes's "daylight" order as first light. Both struck in the early morning before the sun had fully rose. Price, with the main Confederate column, however attacked more than an hour later, having been delayed and forced to leave his artillery behind by the wooden abatis and downed trees the Federals had placed in his path. Once Price arrived, he waited for more than an hour despite hearing the guns of Fagan's attack. By the time he struck, Fagan's attack had lost its's steam after capturing three lines of rifle pits in front of Battery D but failed to carry the main battery. Fagan's Arkansans were pinned by artillery from the Tyler.
Col. Powell Clayton, commanding Union cavalry
To the north, Marmaduke's attack failed after Kansans from Powell Clayton's command enfiladed their flank. Walker, whose flank Marmaduke was supposed to support, advanced cautiously and failed to connect his line to Marmaduke's. As a result, Marmaduke withdrew his men and failed to notify Walker that he had fallen back.
In the center, Holmes personally had to correct Price's misconception about the starting time to get his center column going forward. Price's command, Brig. Gen. Dandridge's McRae's 1st Brigade and Brig. Gen. Mosby M. Parsons's 4th Brigade, attacked Battery C on Graveyard Hill in two side-by-side columns. To the credit of Price's men, they carried the rifle pits and the main battery in their attack, giving the Confederates their only tactical success of the day.
Unfortunately, it was literally downhill from here. McRae's brigade, mostly Arkansas conscripts, lost any semblance of its formation and became combat ineffective. Parsons's brigade of Missourians, although better drilled, became entangled with McRae's men. Price, Parsons, and McRae were attempting to sort out their commands when they came under fire from Fort Curtis. Holmes arrived at Graveyard Hill shortly afterwards, and looking to exploit his success, began ordering soldiers from the rank of colonel on down to private, ignoring any semblance of a chain of command, to assault and carry Fort Curtis. Parsons's men, being better organized, attempted to follow the orders, but were repulsed with significant losses.
Holmes's last offensive act, an ineffective attempt to relieve Fagan by attacking Battery D from the rear with the few hundred men that McRae could organize, gained no traction. When Salomon dispatched his reserve to counterattack Battery C, Holmes conceded that he could no hold his position and ordered his army to quit the field. It was not even noon.
The Confederate army of the District of Arkansas brought 7,646 men into battle on July 4. More than 1,636 rebels were killed, wounded, or captured in Holmes's failed effort, a stunning twenty one percent of his engaged army. Union losses were much lighter, with only 220 casualties of Prentiss's 4,129 officers and men. To make it worse for the Confederates, on the same day that their assault failed, Vicksburg surrendered. This made their effort and losses almost entirely in vain.
The Confederate high command was thrown into disarray from the fallout of the Battle of Helena. It was Holmes's last field command. At the end of July his health failed and he turned over command of the District of Arkansas to Price. While Steele campaigned to take the Arkansas capital, two of its defenders, Marmaduke and Walker, met to fight a duel. Marmaduke, accusing Walker of cowardice and furious of Walker's lack of support at Helena (as well as anger of recent tactical disputes during the ongoing campaign), challenged his fellow division commander to a duel and mortally wounded him on the second shot fired. It was the last duel fought in Arkansas.
Helena would be a major boost for Federal morale, though significantly overshadowed by the Union victories at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and to a smaller extent, Rosecrans's triumph at Tullahoma. Prentiss was superseded in command by a Grant favorite, Maj. Gen. Frederick Steele, and resigned in disgust. Helena was used as the logistic base in which Steele launched his campaign to capture Little Rock in September.
As you celebrate Independence Day and remember the surrender of Vicksburg and Lee's retreat from Gettysburg tomorrow, do kindly take time to remember the often far too forgotten Trans-Mississippi and Helena.
Have a Happy 4th of July tomorrow and while your remember that today is the day that, paraphrasing William Faulkner's classic, "that southern boys" remember "that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word" and that tomorrow was the culmination of the Siege of Vicksburg, the day that would split the Confederate in two, and the day would cement Ulysses S. Grant in military history, let us not also forget that tomorrow is the day that a feverish little Arkansas town on the west bank of the Mississippi exploded in the one of the most unfortunate assaults of the war.
Union garrison commander Benjamin M. Prentiss.
Helena had been in Union hands for almost a year, falling into the hands of Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis's Army of the Southwest on July 12, 1863, without opposition. Helena had been a consolation prize for Curtis, for though he had ambitions to take Little Rock, logistical constraints forced him to abandon his attempt in the face of stiffening rebel resistance and to move to the support of the Federal navy on the White and Mississippi rivers. A small garrison had since occupied the town, the latest in a series of river towns to fall to Federal hands which was now commanded by Maj. Gen. Benjamin M. Prentiss. Prentiss, a braggadocio with an oversized personality and ego, was most famous for his role in the defense of the Hornets Nest at Shiloh and for being the Union division commander captured there. Following his parole, he had been served in court martial duty before being assigned what could rationally be assumed to be command of a quiet backwater post. The Confederates had other plans.
As the summer of 1863 arrived, with Grant's Army of the Tennessee laying siege to Vicksburg and Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks's Army of the Gulf laying siege to Port Hudson, the last two bastions of Confederate control on the Mississippi and in President Jefferson Davis's words, "the nailhead holding the south's two halves together" were under serious threat. The commander of Confederate forces in the District of Arkansas, Lt. Gen. Theophilus "Granny" Holmes, realized action was required if Confederate forces west of the river were to avoid isolation. His theater commander, Lt. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, who had replaced Holmes as overall commander of forces west of the Mississippi, agreed.
Holmes was an interesting character. Though not even sixty, his stooped appearance and worried features led troops to tease him with the sobriquet of "Granny". Partially deaf, a story circulated that Holmes had once during a artillery bombardment asked his troops if the noises he heard were gunfire during the Seven Days Battles. He was quietly reassigned to Arkansas as political solution, removing a mediocre commander from Lee's army and replacing the problematic firebrand Thomas C. Hindman in command of Arkansas. His military career, never distinguished, was about to approach its nadir.
After receiving permission to attack the garrison at Helena if he thought he could do so successfully, Holmes moved to concentrate his army at Jacksonsport in preparation for an attack on Helena. Holmes's army consisted of an infantry division commanded by Maj. Gen. Sterling Price, the ex-governor of Missouri, and two cavalry divisions, Brig. Gen. John S. Marmaduke's and Brig. Gen. Lucius M. Walker's. Holmes made a number of unwise decisions in the disposition of his army; Part of Price's division, Fagan's 2nd Brigade and its' artillery, had to be brought from Little Rock by train. For reasons he never made clear, Holmes decided to detach Fagan's brigade from Price to report directly to himself even though Fagan's command had rejoined its' parent division. Additionally, Price's 5th Brigade under Brig. Gen. Daniel M. Frost, some 1,500 men and artillery garrisoning Pine Bluff, were left behind and never even brought up to support the assault.
However, it was Holmes's disposition of his cavalry that would turn out to be the most unfortunate. Marmaduke had initially commanded all the Confederate cavalry in Arkansas. Holmes, however, held little confidence in the passionate Missourian's ability as a cavalryman and when Marmaduke launched a failed raid into Missouri in early 1863 that generated more complaints about his behavior from irate Missouri civilians than Missouri recruits to the Confederate cause, Holmes decided to act by stripping away the Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana cavalrymen from Marmaduke's command and reassigning them to Walker. Walker was a recent transfer who had been expelled from Gen. Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee and was considered by him to be unfit for any level of command. Holmes's natural response was to give Walker a division and to make him the senior of the two cavalry commanders. It would be the trigger of a blood feud.
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Arguably, Prentiss had beaten Holmes even before the first gun had sounded. Alerted to impeding offensive, Prentiss had strengthened his defenses. Assigned to him was the 13th Division of Thirteenth Corps, under the command of Prussian expatriate Brig. Gen. Frederick Salomon, a cavalry brigade under Col. Powell Clayton, and the recently organized and recruited 1st Arkansas African Descent under Maj. George W. Burchard, an infantry regiment that had been organized out of the recently freed "Contraband" slaves that had flocked to Helena since its' liberation His garrison totaled a little more than 4,000 men on July 4, but was bolstered by the guns of the Timberclad U.S.S. Tyler. Though outnumbered, Prentiss had several advantages.
Helena was city surrounded by hills and ridges, outcroppings of the nearby Crowley's Ridge. These had been fortified with rifle pits and four batteries, A, B, C, and D, with C occupying the ominously named Graveyard Hill. Inside of the ridges was the recently completed Fort Curtis. The fortifications and the mounted artillery would give Prentiss and edge in firepower. Additionally, Prentiss took the time to have his men cut down the timber along the roads leading into the city from the west. Early on the morning of July 4, Prentiss roused his men. He had been surprised at Shiloh, and he was determined not to be surprised again.
Expired Image Removed
Maj. Gen. Sterling Price, commanding the Confederate infantry division.
In the darkness of July 4, the seeds of Holmes's misjudgments sprouted a bitter fruit for Confederate arms. Both Fagan and Marmaduke had correctly interpreted Holmes's "daylight" order as first light. Both struck in the early morning before the sun had fully rose. Price, with the main Confederate column, however attacked more than an hour later, having been delayed and forced to leave his artillery behind by the wooden abatis and downed trees the Federals had placed in his path. Once Price arrived, he waited for more than an hour despite hearing the guns of Fagan's attack. By the time he struck, Fagan's attack had lost its's steam after capturing three lines of rifle pits in front of Battery D but failed to carry the main battery. Fagan's Arkansans were pinned by artillery from the Tyler.
In the center, Holmes personally had to correct Price's misconception about the starting time to get his center column going forward. Price's command, Brig. Gen. Dandridge's McRae's 1st Brigade and Brig. Gen. Mosby M. Parsons's 4th Brigade, attacked Battery C on Graveyard Hill in two side-by-side columns. To the credit of Price's men, they carried the rifle pits and the main battery in their attack, giving the Confederates their only tactical success of the day.
Unfortunately, it was literally downhill from here. McRae's brigade, mostly Arkansas conscripts, lost any semblance of its formation and became combat ineffective. Parsons's brigade of Missourians, although better drilled, became entangled with McRae's men. Price, Parsons, and McRae were attempting to sort out their commands when they came under fire from Fort Curtis. Holmes arrived at Graveyard Hill shortly afterwards, and looking to exploit his success, began ordering soldiers from the rank of colonel on down to private, ignoring any semblance of a chain of command, to assault and carry Fort Curtis. Parsons's men, being better organized, attempted to follow the orders, but were repulsed with significant losses.
Holmes's last offensive act, an ineffective attempt to relieve Fagan by attacking Battery D from the rear with the few hundred men that McRae could organize, gained no traction. When Salomon dispatched his reserve to counterattack Battery C, Holmes conceded that he could no hold his position and ordered his army to quit the field. It was not even noon.
The Confederate army of the District of Arkansas brought 7,646 men into battle on July 4. More than 1,636 rebels were killed, wounded, or captured in Holmes's failed effort, a stunning twenty one percent of his engaged army. Union losses were much lighter, with only 220 casualties of Prentiss's 4,129 officers and men. To make it worse for the Confederates, on the same day that their assault failed, Vicksburg surrendered. This made their effort and losses almost entirely in vain.
The Confederate high command was thrown into disarray from the fallout of the Battle of Helena. It was Holmes's last field command. At the end of July his health failed and he turned over command of the District of Arkansas to Price. While Steele campaigned to take the Arkansas capital, two of its defenders, Marmaduke and Walker, met to fight a duel. Marmaduke, accusing Walker of cowardice and furious of Walker's lack of support at Helena (as well as anger of recent tactical disputes during the ongoing campaign), challenged his fellow division commander to a duel and mortally wounded him on the second shot fired. It was the last duel fought in Arkansas.
Helena would be a major boost for Federal morale, though significantly overshadowed by the Union victories at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and to a smaller extent, Rosecrans's triumph at Tullahoma. Prentiss was superseded in command by a Grant favorite, Maj. Gen. Frederick Steele, and resigned in disgust. Helena was used as the logistic base in which Steele launched his campaign to capture Little Rock in September.
As you celebrate Independence Day and remember the surrender of Vicksburg and Lee's retreat from Gettysburg tomorrow, do kindly take time to remember the often far too forgotten Trans-Mississippi and Helena.
Bringing the