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. . . . Great efforts are making to collect an army at Little Rock.
Galveston and Houston forces are ordered up, and 10 Texan regiments have arrived with artillery.
Hindman was to start from Corinth on the 28th, and all the Arkansas and Missouri troops were to come with him. If the Corinth hive swarms this way, I must concentrate on this side of White river and be reinforced immediately. . . . The enemy is moving; we must be on the alert.
I have spread my force to hold my lines of communication, which have been cut for ten days. . . .
Hindman's organization was progressing rapidly, and although deficient in arms, his new levies amounted to several regiments, which, added to the
Texas forces arriving daily, began to form a respectable army.
Their increasing numbers caused the enemy to believe he had received reinforcements from
Corinth, which belief was industriously encouraged by rumors to that effect, and exaggerated estimates of the number of his forces, intended to be conveyed to
Curtis by disloyal informers.
The news that
Van Dorn had arrived with 30,000 men, told by a citizen to
Colonel Brackett, was a feature of this invention circulated through every channel likely to reach
Curtis.
General Hindman, in his report, mentions his initiatory operations with forcible brevity:
On June 5th I pushed my cavalry boldly against Curtis' advance, which outnumbered them as three to one.
I had previously endeavored to impress Curtis with the belief that a large force came with me from Corinth, and that heavy reinforcements had reached me from Texas.
After a very feeble resistance, the Federal cavalry fell back beyond Bayou Des Arc.
I then ordered the Maurepas gunboat up White river to capture or destroy the supplies collected at Grand Glaize and Jacksonport, and to alarm the enemy by threatening his communications with Batesville.
Capt. Joseph Fry executed these orders with admirable promptness and complete success.
[It was this gallant Captain Fry, who, in 1873, was butchered by the Spaniards at Santiago, as the leader of the Virginius expedition for the relief of the Cubans.] At the same time the enemy was attacked in front.
He retired in confusion to