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hearing the firing, he landed and hastened in the direction of its sounds.
He found
Brooks and his men gallantly fighting double their number, so, with his followers, he dashed through the
Confederate lines, joined the colored troops, and assisted them in repulsing their assailants.
Colonel Brooks was killed, and fifty of his men were slain or wounded.
The foe had lost more.
The Union troops fell back to
Helena, followed some distance by
Dobbins.
At about the same time fifteen hundred Confederates surprised
an outpost of
Fort Smith, on the border of the
Indian country, which was held by two hundred of the Fifth Kansas, under
Captain Mefford.
After a sharp fight, in which he lost twenty-five men,
Captain Mefford was compelled to surrender.
The Confederates lost thirty-two killed and wounded. Less than a month later,
Shelby, with about two thousand men, struck
the line of the railway between Duvall's Bluff and
Little Rock, and captured nearly the whole of the Fifty-fourth Illinois, who were guarding it at three points.
Guerrillas hovered in large numbers around
Little Rock and other places, making communications between the military posts dangerous, and requiring heavy escort duty, which wore down men and horses.
Gradually several of these posts were abandoned, and at the close of 1864 only Helena,
Pine, and Duvall's Bluffs,
Little Rock,
Van Buren,
Fort Smith, and one or two other posts in that region, were held by the
National troops.
These being insufficient to protect the Unionists of the
Commonwealth, they became disheartened, silent, and inactive, for the guerrillas, who roamed over the
State, dealt vengeance upon these “traitors” and “renegades,” as they called them.
General Steele, like other old officers of the regular army, was opposed to the emancipation policy of the
Government, and his alleged sympathy with the slave-holding Oligarchy of
Arkansas made the army under his command a feeble instrument in upholding the
National cause in that State.
The consequence was, that, at the close of 1864, that Commonwealth was practically surrendered to the
Confederates.
The disloyal Governor called a session of the Legislature, which met at
Washington,
and chose a Senator (
A. P. Garland) to represent the
State in the “Congress” at
Richmond.
The condition of affairs in
Arkansas was favorable to a long-contemplated scheme of invasion of
Missouri, by her recreant son,
General Sterling Price, which had both a military and political object in view, and, when undertaken, might have been most disastrous to the
National cause but for the sleepless vigilance of
General Rosecrans, who, late in January, had arrived
at
St. Louis as commander of the Department of Missouri.
He soon discovered that the
State was seriously menaced by openly armed foes on one side, and by hidden and malignant ones on the other, and within its bosom, in the form of secret associations, known as “Knights of the
Golden Circle,” and “American Knights,” or “Sons of Liberty.”
1 He employed competent and trustworthy spies, who reported that these secret organizations were numerous and powerful; that they were preparing to join
Price, when he should invade
Missouri, in numbers not less than twenty-three thousand strong, each man of whom was sworn to perform
