The Camden Expedition
There’s not much traffic in rural Clark County on the final Tuesday of August. A small group of us stand at the edge of a mowed field, looking down into a ravine as Mark Christ of the Department of Arkansas Heritage reads accounts written by men who fought a skirmish here during the Civil War. We’re under a huge oak tree that no doubt was alive when the skirmish took place.
No one understands the Civil War in Arkansas better than Christ, and his enthusiasm for showing off such sites knows no bounds. I’m a Clark County native, but it has been many years since I’ve been on these rural roads near Okolona. When I was a college student and the sports editor of the Daily Siftings Herald at Arkadelphia, Okolona was best known as the home of Ricky Norton, the finest basketball shooter I’ve ever seen at the high school level. Norton played for a school that no longer exists and went on to star for the University of Arkansas.
We’re here today to talk history, not basketball. The skirmishes occurred as Confederate cavalry units led by Joseph Shelby harassed the rear of Maj. Gen. Frederick Steele’s Union Army. This was the Camden Expedition of 1864, and the skirmishes in Clark County marked what Christ calls “the first serious resistance to Steele’s advance.”
Christ writes in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture: “In his postwar account of Shelby’s exploits during the war, Shelby and his Men, or The War in the West, John Newman Edwards, Shelby’s adjutant, offered an expanded account of the April 3 fight in which he claims that a Union artillery shell upset several beehives. Edwards claims that the enraged bees attacked the Confederate lines, leading Shelby to abandon the field to both insects and Federals. However, the incident isn’t mentioned in any of the after-battle reports, including Shelby’s; nor is it recounted in any of the accounts published in local newspapers following the battle. … It’s probable that the Battle of the Bees is in reality one of the many embellishments included in Shelby and his Men.”
Though Christ has his doubts, the Clark County Historical Association has a marker that tells of the Battle of the Bees. Christ says a thunderstorm broke out during the height of fighting, pelting soldiers with hail. We earlier visited the site of another skirmish. It occurred along the banks of Terre Noire Creek, near the site of the Davidson Campground, where summer religious camp meetings have been held for 133 years.
The Camden Expedition was part of the Red River Campaign. Steele was ordered to march south from Little Rock and converge with troops led by Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, who was coming out of northwest Louisiana. The plan was for the combined forces to then march into east Texas. Northern textile mills were starved for cotton by 1864. The thought was that after Banks came up the Red River in Louisiana and Steele marched south through Arkansas, the combined forces could capture prime cotton-growing land in Texas. It didn’t work out that way. “Because of poor logistical planning, horrible roads and strong Confederate resistance, Steele abandoned this plan to occupy Camden instead,” Arkansas historian Derek Clements writes. “Losing battles at Poison Spring and Marks’ Mills, Steele became unable to supply his army and retreated toward Little Rock. The Confederates caught Steele while he was crossing the Saline River, engaging in the last battle of the campaign at Jenkins’ Ferry.”
We leave Clark County for Nevada County, turning right onto a county road and making our way through the thick pine woods to the banks of the Little Missouri River and the site of an engagement at Elkins Ferry on April 3-4. After spending three days in Arkadelphia (where Steele had waited in vain for Brig. Gen. John Thayer’s troops to arrive from Fort Smith), Steele’s troops reached the river on April 3. “With provisions dwindling, no contact from Thayer and a growing Confederate force in front, continuing to Shreveport appeared doubtful,” Clements writes. “Undeterred, Steele decided to march forward, searching for a better tactical position and hoping to link with Thayer. Driving the Confederates off the river’s banks at Elkins’ Ferry, Steele continued forward.”
Our next stop is Prairie D’Ane, a natural prairie adjacent to Interstate 30 at Prescott, where Confederate troops again tried to stop the Union advance. With the Confederates focused on protecting Washington in Hempstead County, Camden was undefended. Steele turned toward Camden on April 12 after the Rebels had abandoned their position at Prairie D’Ane.
In 2016, a coalition of local, state and national organizations acquired 448 acres at Elkins Ferry from Hancock Land Management. An interpretive plan is being developed for the site. The National Park Service describes Elkins’ Ferry as being “among the most pristine Civil War battlefields in Arkansas. This rural area has only seen slight changes since the Civil War.” The coalition is now set to purchase an 808-acre private farm at Prairie D’Ane, which would allow construction of a visitors’ center adjacent to the interstate.
Christ and others are working on a potential scenic byway that closely follows the route of the Camden Expedition. At a time when people in other parts of the country battle over Confederate monuments, dedicated Arkansas historians such as Christ work to tell the real story of the Civil War.