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

‘ [58] could fight more effectively for Arkansas east of the Mississippi than anywhere else.’ By September 1st he had withdrawn his forces to Pitman's Ferry. On September 17th he notified General Polk that he had ordered Colonel Cleburne to move with his regiment and repair the road to Point Pleasant. His morning report that day showed 900 sick out of 4,529 present, not including 1,100 at Pocahontas. On September 24th, Hardee dispatched to Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston: ‘The last detachment of my command will start to-morrow for Point Pleasant, on the Mississippi, which place I hope my entire command will reach in nine days from that date.’ Crossing the Mississippi, he led his Arkansas troops to join the Central army of Kentucky, in which Hindman, Cleburne and Shaver soon became brigade commanders.

Before leaving Pitman's Ferry, General Hardee ordered the transfer of all stores to Pocahontas, and left a force there under Col. Solon Borland, consisting of seven companies of Borland's cavalry, four companies of McCarver's infantry regiment, and Captain Roberts' independent company. Maj. D. F. Shall, with 230 men, moved to near Ironton, Mo., to cooperate with M. Jeff Thompson, late in October. The defeat of Thompson exposed the posts at Pitman's Ferry and Pocahontas to an expedition soon afterward attempted by Col. R. J. Oglesby, of Illinois, from Bird's Point. In apprehension of this, November 5th, Colonel Borland wrote to General Polk that he had but 700 men and half a dozen discarded cannon. Needing artillerists, he had ordered back Roberts' company, which Hardee had called into Kentucky. Fortunately, the Federal expedition was turned aside in Missouri.

Governor Magoffin, of Kentucky, on August 19th addressed a letter to President Lincoln, begging that the neutrality of that State might be respected through his orders as President, and that the soldiers that had been enlisted in the United States army and collected in the central part of Kentucky, and there armed and supplied