The Battle of Fayetteville

Often overlooked, fight was significant to region

It was 160 years ago this week that Confederate and Union forces clashed in what became known as the Battle of Fayetteville, right around the area today where College Avenue meets Dickson Street in front of the modern Washington County Courthouse.

That 1863 fight won’t ever be recalled in the same way as larger battles like Antietam, Shiloh, Gettysburg or Vicksburg, but it was indeed important for the Union campaign.

Fayetteville was located on the “wire” road, the path of the telegraph line from St. Louis to Fort Smith. The wire incidentally ran right by the home of Jonas Tebbetts, which is today preserved by the Washington County Historical Society as the Headquarters House Museum on Dickson Street just east of College Avenue.

The telegraph wire was certainly of strategic importance. Fayetteville was the largest settlement along its path and was an area of possibly supply for troops north of the Boston Mountains. The city was approximately halfway between Elk Horn Tavern at Pea Ridge and the city of Van Buren, both important links along the wire road.

In the Civil War, had Fayetteville fallen to Confederate forces, supply movements, troop movements and communications between the Union command in St. Louis and Fort Smith would have certainly been hampered. The Confederates desired to return to Missouri. Had Fayetteville fallen, more warfare would have come to Northwest Arkansas.

Why is the battle still reenacted today? Arkansas history is our history! Both Union and Confederate armies units that faced off at the Battle of Fayetteville were made up mostly of Arkansas soldiers. The First Arkansas Union Cavalry and First Arkansas Union Infantry were populated by men of Benton, Carroll, Madison and Washington counties as well as men from the Arkansas River valley. There was doubt that “Arkansas men would fight or could fight” after the embarrassment of the First Arkansas Cavalry at the beginning of the Battle of Prairie Grove the previous December.

The First Arkansas fought with distinction at the Battle of Fayetteville, proving to all the federal officers that Arkansas men would indeed fight for their homes and country. Many of the Confederates in Gen. William Lewis Cabell’s command were from these same areas of Arkansas and saw themselves as liberating their homes from an invading army. Men from both sides believed they were fighting for their homes. This information comes from studying the diaries and letters of the common soldiers in both armies.

The battle literally happened in and around the Headquarters House Museum. The corner of modern College Avenue and Dickson Street was known as “Bloody Corner.”

Residents of Fayetteville had suffered at the hands of both armies by April 1863. The Confederates took Fayetteville early, then left and the federal army came in for a time. Then the Federals evacuated and the Confederates came through on their way to Pea Ridge and moved back south after that battle and the federals had returned. Each army had taken from residents items needed to sustain the soldiers. Many buildings were burned by the retreating Confederate army after Pea Ridge and crops ravaged as well as livestock. The citizens were hungry and in need.

An Arkansas newspaper in February 1863 stated “Nowhere in Arkansas, north of the (Arkansas) river, could the army subsist a week” and “The wealthiest planters are as destitute as the poorest squatters. They raised little the past year, and that little has been consumed by the opposing armies that have in turn visited them.”

After the Battle of Fayetteville, the federals were more securely in place — even though the federal army again evacuated Fayetteville about two weeks after the battle but returned again in the fall of 1863. Col. Marcus LaRue Harrison set up a successful but short-lived colony farm system to protect the civilian population and help them raise crops and protect supplies to make life more stable for the civilian population. The First and Second Arkansas Cavalry also used Fayetteville as a base of operations as they did in Elkhorn (Pea Ridge), Ark., and Cassville, Mo. They patrolled the surrounding areas in an attempt to drive out bushwackers and other lawlessness. The area would remain politically divided, but in somewhat better shape than before.

We remember this battle and the struggles of the citizens of Fayetteville who rebuilt and shaped this place. We are blessed to live in such a beautiful place with such a rich history.