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

[104] army. By permission obtained, as he stated, from General Beauregard, he also impressed from the banks of Memphis $1,000,000 in Confederate currency. At Helena, Ark., his own place of residence, he seized all the ammunition, shoes, blankets and medicines on sale, fit for the army, and at Napoleon, from the government hospital there, he appropriated all the medicines he could find. He appointed Surg. J. M. Keller his medical director, and put him in charge of the medicines and surgical implements appropriated. On his way down the river he stopped all steamboats ascending, because he was certain they would fall into the hands of the enemy, to be used against him, and caused them to be run into the Arkansas river, where they proved valuable in transporting subsistence, troops and munitions. He also, on his way down the Mississippi river, caused thousands of bales of cotton to be burned, under the general order of the war department, to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy, and on the way up the Arkansas made contracts for the delivery of large numbers of cattle for furnishing beef to the camps of his recruits, yet to be collected.

Fortunately, several regiments of Texas cavalry, on the way to Corinth, had been permitted to remain at Little Rock, with General Roane, who, in command at Pine Bluff and Little Rock, had eight unarmed companies at Little Rock, and a six-gun battery without artillerymen. General Roane was the embodiment of good nature, and would not, to become generalissimo of the armies, have ordered one of his ‘citizen soldiers’ out of bed. He beheld the measures adopted by General Hindman with consternation, but had great confidence that Hindman would vindicate himself, and gave them his approval.

On the arrival of General Hindman at Little Rock, he formally assumed command, May 31st, of the TransMis-sissippi district, ‘and of all the forces which now are or may be therein;’ and the same day issued an address,