SOCIETY fflC IJ0URNAL VOLUME VI, NUMBER 1 APRIL 1982 GENERAL JOHN THAYER GENERAL JAMES BLUNT GENERAL CYRUS BUSSEY GENERAL JOHN McNEIL GENERAL JOHN EDWARDS J0URNAL EDITORS: Amelia Martin Carolyn Pollan INQUIRIES EDITOR: CONTENTS Leonna Belle Cotner ORAL HISTORY EDITOR: Missy Cole Carroll VOL. VI, NO. 1 APRIL, 1982 GUEST WRITERS: Rev. Tom Newton PROOF READERS: Fort Smith Under Union Military Rule, Mary Nell Euper September 1, 1863 - Fall, 1865 2 Rosalie Platt Donald Peer First Baptist Church 34 Carolyn Peer Confederate Veterans Buried by PHOTOGRAPHIC STAFF Fentress Mortuary 1909 - 1934 41 Gerald Shepard David King News and Opportunities - Bradley Martin April - August, 1982 44 OFFICE MANAGER and INDEXING: Phil Miller Book Notes and Aldridge Family 48 MAILING: Contents, Past Issues of The Journal 49 Thelma Black 1882 News 50 Velma Barber Frank Jedlicka Index 62 BOARD AND OFFICERS: Amelia Martin, Pres. Thelma Wray, V.P. COVER: Sue McCain, Sec. & Treas. The five Union Generals, who had the responsibility for the Fort Leonna Belle Cotner, Cor. Sec. Smith Post from September 1, 1863 to September 21,1865. Top right, Carolyn Pollan (clockwise) is General James Blunt (Picture courtesy Arkansas Historical Association); General John Edwards (Picture courtesy Nick Kelly Arkansas History Commission); General John McNeil (Picture Arlie Metheny courtesy Arkansas History Commission); General John Thayer Jimmie Delle Caldwell (Picture courtesy Arkansas Historical Association). Center picture is Robert Johnson General Cyrus Bussey (Picture courtesy Arkansas History Richard Sugg Commission). Mary Nell Euper Rosalie Platt Membership in the Fort Smith Historical ©Copyright 1982 Society includes subscription to The By the Fort Smith Historical Society, Inc. Journal of the Fort Smith Historical 61 South 8th Street Society, which is published semi-annually. Fort Smith, Arkansas 72901 Year begins Jan. 1 and ends Dec. 31. 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Editors of THE JOURNAL. 1 FORT SMITH UNDER UNION MILITARY RULE SEPTEMBER 1,1863 • FALL, 1865 by Representative Carolyn Pollan Prologue from writer: This has been a very painful story for me to privateers to plunder unarmed ships, expelled write. War fought on the grounds one walks on Union families by the thousands, burned their everyday for reasons that the Great Rebellion was houses. ." fought, seems to not only have been useless but so God help any of us, that our history would ever very ridiculous. I have always, because I was born again record bearing arms against our America and raised in the South, seen myself as a because of blindness to another human's rights! Confederate heroine (probably with the help of Gone with the Wind). After doing the research for This story is bringing out an unheralded fact of this period of history in Fort Smith, Arkansas, I no history: that Fort Smith had the honor of being the longer feel the same about the 'Southern Cause'. first city to host a meeting of patriots who wanted to Because I have felt remnants of Civil War bitterness bring their state back into the United States during in certain parts of our society in Arkansas, thisstory the Civil War. piecing together what we might have felt had we I want to give special thanks to many who helped lived in Fort Smith during Union Military in piecing this story together. First and long occupation, has long fascinated me. departed, Valentine Dell, the Editor of the Union However one looks at the history of the Civil War, paper, The New Era, who with the eyes of an one has to come back to the fact that it began under historian knew we would be interested in what President Buchanan on December 27, 1860, in happened in Fort Smith during the Civil War and South Carolina and it took many treasonous acts wrote for this paper accordingly. Then to Edwin C. including the seizure of the Little Rock Arsenal by Bearss, now the National Historian of the National Arkansas State troops, February 2, 1861, to the Park Service. His series of articles in the Arkansas bombardment and seizure of Fort Sumter on April Historical Quarterly about Fort Smith and the Indian 14, for President Lincoln to issue the first call to put Territory during the Civil War are treasures for down the rebellion in the United States. researchers. To my secretary, Wilma Jameson, who patiently went through five drafts of this story with And so, a nation was plunged into a dark, cruel me and my indecipherable handwriting. To the war by those, as General Sherman said "who dared librarians at the Fort Smith Library, Arkansas and badgered us to battle, insulted our flag, seized Historical Society and Arkansas History our arsenals and forts, . turned loose their Commission, my thanks for help when I needed it. Carolyn Pollan BLUNT REGROUPS TO CARRY THE WAR TO CHOCTAW NATION xJULY 22, - AUGUST SCALE RIVERS *=&=^ TOWNS STREAMS — E^&ft&EMENTS PRINCIPAL ROADS --^--- HEAD9UARTtRS TROOP MOVEMENTS CONFEDERATE Map Courtesy Edwin C. Bearss and the Arkansas Historical Association. 3 FORT SMITH: CRADLE OF THE FIRST SOUTHERN FREE STATE Fort Smith was a beacon of light for the freedom troops from the San Bois in Indian Territory to guard of all men during the dark Civil War years. The city Fort Smith from attack by the Federals. All total deserves a place of honor that has heretofore not there were approximately nine thousand Confeder- been bestowed on it in the history of the United ate troops in the Indian Territory and Fort Smith, led States of America. by Generals Steele, Cabell, Douglas, Cooper and It was in Fort Smith, October 30,1863, that the first Stand Watie.5 meeting was held in any seceded Confederate state As ordered, Cabell moved his troops to the Poteau to attempt to bring that revolting state back to the nine miles southwest of Fort Smith and began union.1 blocking the roads to the fort. Ordinance stores of This mass meeting of Union Sympathizers from all kinds, along with quartermaster and commissary twenty Arkansas counties took place after Fort supplies were loaded in ox-drawn wagons ready to Smith was recaptured2 by Union troops, September be moved from the fort. On the 31st of August, 1, 1863.3 information led Cabell to abandon the fort. The The story of the capture of Fort Smith started retreating supplies were sent down the south road several weeks earlier in August, 1863. across the Devil's Backbone towards Waldron. At 9 For the Union side with four thousand troops, P.M., the same day the retreat was given by Cabell Major General James G. Blunt and his Army of the and the remaining troops deserted Fort Smith. Upon Frontier had been at Fort Gibson since early June. fording the Poteau River, early in the morning of In late August, dashing Colonel William Cloud left September 1st, General Blunt discovered a great Fayetteville with fifteen hundred light artillery deal of troop movement by the tracks which were troops and met with Blunt.4 left by the retreating army. The 2nd Kansas, the 5th On the Confederate side, General William L. Missouri State Militia Cavalry, and Colonel Cloud's Cabell had been directed by his superior General 2nd Kansas "flying column" were sent to try to catch William Steele on August 19th to move Cabell's up with Cabell's troops.6 The Fort Smith New Era, February 27, 1864. ordinance of secession of the State of Arkansas from the Federal 8 Union." Strong opposition prevailed. But after ten days of friction 'ibid, November 10,1863. Much of the recorded Information we there was a compromise with a decision to have a statewide vote have on this period in Fort Smith is from the New Era. When Fort In August on secession. The convention adjourned March 21. On Smith fell back to the United States, one of the first things that April 12, Confederate forces under General P.G.T. Beauregard took place was an attempt to print a newspaper to give the United successfully attacked.Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina States point of view. For two years, the only newspapers allowed and Lincoln called for 780 Union volunteers from Arkansas. to be printed and circulated in the Fort Smith area, were those Governor Henry Rector refused Lincoln's request and began with a Confederate viewpoint. Valentine Dell, a loyal Union man negotiating with Confederate officers without reconvening the who had continued to live in Fort Smith under Rebel rule, felt It state convention. Governor Rector allowed the Confederacy to was his duty to see that the Union's viewpoint was printed - - post troops near Helena, Arkansas to hinder Union movement on never mind there was no newsprint available to do so. Mr. Dell the Mississippi. Governor Rector further committed treason obtained from a 'patriotic friend' copies of Washington's Farewell against the United States by sending three hundred militia troops Address which had been printed and circulated at the beginning from Little Rock and one company from Van Buren to capture the of the war as a last ditch effort to turn Fort Smith Rebel Federal Post of Fort Smith.