Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[149] Pritchett, was lying there, ready to give support. The main work, near the town, was called Fort Curtis. The exterior defenses, on bluffs a mile in rear of the town, were under the immediate command of General F. Salomons, at whose suggestion they had been constructed.¹

Holmes's entire force — the remnants of armies decimated by the war — was less than eight thousand effective men. He was ignorant of Prentiss's real strength, and when, on the 3d of July,

1863.

he and his army were within four miles of Helena, they were marching to certain defeat and humiliation. They advanced at midnight, and took position within a mile of the outer works;

July 4.

and at daylight moved to the assault in three columns: Price, with the brigades of Parsons and McRae, over three thousand strong, to attack a battery on Graveyard Hill; Fagan, with four regiments of infantry, to assail another on Hindman's Hill; and Marmaduke, with seventeen hundred and fifty men, to storm a work on Righton's Hill.

Price was accompanied by Harris Flanagan, the Confederate Governor of Arkansas, as volunteer aid-de-camp. His troops, under cover of artillery firing, moved up gallantly to the attack, in the face of a heavy storm of bullets, and grape and canister shot, captured some of the guns, and turned them upon the Nationals. But these were useless, owing to a lack of matches, or friction tubes. Then, with a wild shout, they charged down the hill upon Fort Curtis, six hundred yards distant, exposed to a terribly galling fire from the other batteries, and especially from the Tyler. So fearfully were they smitten, that one-third of them were lost.²

Fagan, meanwhile, under the immediate direction of Holmes, had attacked the battery on Hindman's Hill with his little force. He left his artillery at the first obstructions, and with his infantry rushed up ravines and steep acclivities and over abatis, driving the National sharp-shooters from their rifle-pits, and pushing on to carry the battery by assault. The assailants fought desperately but uselessly, and suffered fearful loss. Toward noon Holmes ordered a retreat, to save this little force from utter destruction. Marmaduke, at the same time, was attempting to take the battery on Righton's Hill, but failed on account of a heavy fire from artillery and musketry from behind the levee, and a lack of co-operation on the part of some cavalry. At three o'clock in the afternoon the assailants were repulsed at all points and withdrew, with a loss, reported by Holmes, of twenty per cent. of his entire force.³ Holmes hastily retreated with his shattered army, and thence-forth Confederate soldiers never molested Helena. There was quiet for some time along the eastern borders of the Mississippi, likewise, for the attention and the material forces of both parties were drawn toward Chattanooga,