Col. John M. Harrell, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 10.2, Arkansas
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

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[408] acted well its part in the desperate battle, which ended in the repulse and retreat of the Confederate army. During the campaign between Price and Steele in Arkansas at the same time that Banks was conducting his ill-starred Red river expedition, McRae's brigade formed a part of the force under Price, which impeded the march of Steele, and being reinforced after the defeat of Banks, turned upon the Union army of Steele, forced its retreat from Camden, and drove it back to Little Rock after the battles of Marks' Mills and Jenkins' Ferry. Throughout the year of 1864, McRae's brigade was active in the marches and battles of northern Arkansas and Missouri. The services of this gallant officer ceased only with the close of hostilities and the return of peace.

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Brigadier-General Albert Pike

Brigadier-General Albert Pike was born in Boston, Mass., December 29, 1809. He received his early education at Newburyport and Framingham, and in 1825 entered Harvard college, supporting himself at the same time by teaching. He only went as far as the junior class in college, when his finances compelled him to continue his education alone, teaching, meanwhile, at Fairhaven and Newburyport, where he was principal of the grammar school, and afterward had a private school of his own. In later years he had attained such distinction in literature that the degree of master of arts was bestowed upon him by the Harvard faculty. In 1831 he went west with a trading party to Santa Fe. The next year, with a trapping party, he went down the Pecos river and into the Staked Plains, whence with four others he traveled mostly on foot until he reached Fort Smith, Ark. His adventures and exploits are related in a volume of prose and verse, published in 1834. While teaching in 1833 below Van Buren and on Little Piney river, he contributed articles to the Little Rock Advocate, and attracted the attention of Robert Crittenden, through whom he was made assistant editor of that paper, of