Civil War in the Delta: Environment, Race, and the 1863 Helena Campaign George David Schieffler University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 8-2017 Civil War in the Delta: Environment, Race, and the 1863 Helena Campaign George David Schieffler University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Schieffler, George David, "Civil War in the Delta: Environment, Race, and the 1863 Helena Campaign" (2017). Theses and Dissertations. 2426. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/2426 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Civil War in the Delta: Environment, Race, and the 1863 Helena Campaign A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History by George David Schieffler The University of the South Bachelor of Arts in History, 2003 University of Arkansas Master of Arts in History, 2005 August 2017 University of Arkansas This dissertation is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. ____________________________________ Dr. Daniel E. Sutherland Dissertation Director ____________________________________ ____________________________________ Dr. Elliott West Dr. Patrick G. Williams Committee Member Committee Member Abstract “Civil War in the Delta” describes how the American Civil War came to Helena, Arkansas, and its Phillips County environs, and how its people—black and white, male and female, rich and poor, free and enslaved, soldier and civilian—lived that conflict from the spring of 1861 to the summer of 1863, when Union soldiers repelled a Confederate assault on the town. Scholars have been writing Civil War community studies since the 1960s, but few have investigated communities west of the Mississippi River. Historians also have written widely about Arkansas during the war, but there are no comprehensive studies of a single community in the state. “Civil War in the Delta” fills these voids by detailing the wartime experiences of soldiers and civilians in Helena and its surrounding countryside. “Civil War in the Delta” also describes the 1863 Helena campaign, one of the most significant engagements of the war west of the Mississippi. On July 4, 1863, approximately 7,600 rebels attacked and were repulsed by 4,100 Federals at Helena. The attack was launched to relieve pressure on the besieged Confederate garrison at Vicksburg and secure an important rebel position on the Mississippi River. In the end, it was too little and too late to save Vicksburg, which capitulated on the same morning. However, over 1,800 men were killed, wounded, or captured in the engagement, and its outcome ensured Union control of the Mississippi. The campaign also illustrates the natural environment’s pivotal role in the Civil War. The Confederates believed if they moved against Helena with “celerity and secrecy,” they would easily capture the post. However, the natural environment of the Arkansas Delta—and the Federals’ strategic use of that environment—prevented the Confederates from achieving those ends. Harsh environmental conditions during the rebel approach to Helena in tandem with the Federals’ adaptation of the landscape as a key ally led to Confederate defeat and, by extension, solidified Union control of the Mississippi River and Arkansas. ©2017 by George David Schieffler All Rights Reserved Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the help and support of a number of people. First, I would like to thank my dissertation director and advisor, Daniel Sutherland, for his steady encouragement, thoughtful guidance, and inestimable advice. It was truly an honor and a privilege to have worked under such a renowned, respected, and careful scholar. Simply put, I am proud to call him my mentor. I also thank dissertation committee members Patrick Williams and Elliott West for their invaluable research and editorial suggestions. The former is the most talented editor, wordsmith, and historian of the American South that I know, while the latter is one of the most creative thinkers and authors in the profession. Any shortcomings or errors in this dissertation are wholly my own and exist in spite of the tutelage of these three scholars. Like all historians, I am indebted to a number of librarians, archivists, and fellow historians who unearthed valuable materials for me and patiently steered me in the right direction. In Helena, Otis Howe, Alice Gatewood, and Shane Williams at the Helena Museum of Phillips County pointed me toward Phillips County’s superb historical quarterly. At the University of Arkansas, Jeannie Whayne and Elliott West introduced me to environmental history, while Mullins Library’s Special Collections Division and fine Interlibrary Loan Department provided vital materials and advice. I extend particular thanks to Geoffery Stark, Joshua Youngblood, Kasey Kelm, and Robin Roggio for patiently obliging my incessant requests for books, articles, and manuscript materials. I am also grateful to the staffs of all of the institutions listed in my bibliography, but I express particular gratitude to the following: Brian Robertson and his team at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies in Little Rock; Mary Daniel at the Hawks Inn Historical Society in Delafield, Wisconsin; Russ Horton and Lindsey Hillgartner at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum; Samantha Ashley and Jo Ellen Maack at the Old State House Museum in Little Rock; Adrianna Darden at Gustavus Adolphus College’s Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library; Julie Neville at Illinois State University’s Rayfield Archives; independent scholar Doris Nelson; Vicki Betts at the University of Texas at Tyler’s Robert R. Muntz Library; and Mark Christ at the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. I am extremely grateful to my friends and family members who supported me throughout this endeavor. David Scott Cunningham, friend and senior editor at the University of Arkansas Press, gave me several relevant books and advised me on writing, editing, and publishing. Niels Eichhorn, friend and fellow historian, revived my intellectual energy by inviting me to present part of this dissertation at Middle Georgia State University in Macon. My uncles, Eddie Schieffler and Gip Turley, and my aunt, Jeannie Turley, helped me locate a number of important sources in Helena and cheered me along the way. My grandfathers, George Cracraft and Gene Schieffler, inspired me with their love of history, Phillips County, and the Civil War. Fellow graduate students, historians, and friends, Scott Cashion, Michael Shane Powers, and Madeleine Forrest Ramsey, provided indispensable humor, encouragement, and scholarly advice, while friend, mentor, and scholar of “the war,” Wendell Beall, taught me how to teach history (and have a good time doing it). Friends, colleagues, and fellow “knights,” Matt Stith and Alan Thompson, provided daily counsel, humor, and assistance. The former encouraged me to return to graduate school to study the Civil War in Phillips County and remains the first person I turn to for advice on how to navigate the academy, while the latter is the most skilled researcher and transcriber I know—and probably deserves to be named co-author of this dissertation. It is no exaggeration to say that I would not have completed graduate school without the help of these men, two of the finest scholars of the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi. Above all, thanks to Liz and my family—Danny, Judy, Sarah, Laura, Eric, Andrew, Thomas, Henry, and Charlie—for their constant encouragement, love, and support. Without them, none of this would have been possible. Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Antebellum Phillips Country 13 Chapter 2: The Secession Crisis 47 Chapter 3: And The War Came 90 Chapter 4: Occupation 140 Chapter 5: The Helena Campaign 192 Conclusion 244 Figures 259 Bibliography 266 Introduction In the spring of 1860, journalist John P. Pryor recounted his tour of eastern Arkansas for a Memphis newspaper. Arkansas, which Pryor called “the rising ‘Crystal State’ of the Union,” had become a state only twenty-four years earlier, and Pryor hoped to satisfy his readers’ curiosity about their neighbors to the west. A resident of the Memphis area, Pryor could have crossed the Mississippi River at his home. Instead, he galloped his horse some seventy miles south into Mississippi, rode a steamboat across the river, and entered Arkansas at Helena, “a far more populous, prosperous, and growing place” than he had anticipated. “Helena presents all the appearances of a rapidly growing place,” he reported. “Elegant business houses are going up by the score in the trading part of town, and many comfortable and even palatial mansions are beginning to cluster upon and crown the picturesque hights [sic] which, from the West, so handsomely overlook the ‘future commercial metropolis of Arkansas.’” The area surrounding Helena, especially its natural features, also impressed the colorful columnist. Traveling west from the town along the St. Francis Road—“one of the finest dirt roads” he had ever seen—Pryor mounted Crowley’s Ridge, an upland “broken into thousands of ‘spurs’ and well-wooded crags, and covered by timber of the largest and richest growth.” On the ridge’s western slopes, only a few miles outside Helena, he discovered “the finest upland farming country” he had ever seen. For twenty or more miles, he observed “almost one unbroken column of fair-lying plantations, all in a high state of cultivation,” and in his view, the region’s soil was “second only to the Mississippi bottom” in its ability to produce both cotton and corn. In fact, Pryor deemed Helena’s “back country superior in extent, and far exceeding in 1 quality, that of any other town on the western bank of the Mississippi river, between St. Louis and New Orleans.”1 Less than three years after Pryor wrote his celebratory account, another correspondent described Helena in the same Memphis newspaper.

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