9
The capture of Little Rock, Arkansas, by Federal forces in fall 1863 naturally necessitated its supply, and at that time and to that end the only practical way to handle the required logistics was by water. This was not as simple as it may have looked on a map because one of the two major rivers in the state, the Arkansas, was generally avoided as a shipping route. Though wide toward its mouth, its hydrology fostered so many narrow channels, snags, and treacherous sandbars that it was non-navigational for much of the year for most vessels. Using a cut-off to it from the Arkansas, the White, with wider channels, then served as the principal shipping route up to towns such as St. Charles, DeValls Bluff, Des Arc, Augusta, and Jacksonport. As elsewhere, steaming hazards on both streams were exacerbated by other natural hazards, annually low water, and, during the conflict, hordes of Confederate irregulars.
So it was that most of the men and supplies for Maj. Gen. Frederic Steele’s Little Rock garrison were sent up the White River to the garrisoned village of DeValls Bluff—the closest river community to Little Rock—and warehoused. As required, they were then forwarded 45 miles on to the state capital by the Little Rock and DeValls Bluff Railroad, Arkansas’ only working railway.
DeValls Bluff, Arkansas. Most of the men and supplies for the Union garrison of Little Rock, Arkansas (captured in September 1863), were sent up the White River from its mouth to the levee of the garrisoned village of DeValls Bluff—the closest river community to Little Rock—and warehoused. As required, they were then forwarded 45 miles on to the state capital by the Little Rock and DeValls Bluff Railroad, Arkansas’ only working railway. The supply center, under constant threat of attack through much of 1864, also based USN vessels, which not only escorted steamers but were considered part of the town’s defensive assets (Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield).
Concentrating on the White, Lt. Cmdr. S. Ledyard Phelps, USN, commanding the Mississippi Squadron’s Seventh District from the lumbering old timberclad Lexington, but who often used as flagboat the far-speedier tinclad Hastings, had a small task group based at the mouth of the White to protect river shipping and local bases or communities. Given operational and maintenance requirements, he, like other district captains, had no extra vessels, though reinforcement could be requested.
Beginning about the time of Little Rock’s capture, one tinclad, the Linden, was stationed to protect the key depot port of DeValls Bluff and was held back from escorting most shipping. Meanwhile, the light draughts Queen City, Naumkeag, Covington (before her loss during the Red River campaign), and Fawn were spaced out (usually between Clarendon, 20 miles below, and St. Charles, further down) while the timberclad Tyler provided big-gun backup. These four tinclads alternated on convoy duty.
From late summer 1863, convoys were operated up the White River to DeValls Bluff thrice weekly. No steamers proceeded unescorted and the presence of gunboats near the merchantmen was believed the major reason irregulars, at this point, did not often attack. True or not, it was low-water season and the vessels proceeded slowly up the torturous waterway for only eight to ten hours per day, taking three days for a trip. If a steamer missed the convoy sailing date, it was required to lay over and wait for the next, leaving all aboard the usually cramped boats completely bored during the layover.
Providing escort on the Arkansas and White was especially difficult during the low-water period in late winter of 1863–1864, causing RAdm. Porter to oppose any shipments up the former. However, army quartermasters and the commanders of the various river ports repeatedly petitioned Phelps to relax his superior’s rules and allow provisions through on that stream. The USN district commander eventually relented and agreed.
The Linden arrived at Pine Bluff on the Arkansas from DeValls Bluff on February 19, 1864, to take a group of contract and private steamers up to to DeValls Bluff, but found them unready because of the falling river. The gunboat’s captain learned that, while en route further downstream, one of the supply-filled civilian craft, the Ad. Hines, was snagged and immobile. Departing to her rescue, the Linden snagged on approach 15 miles above the mouth of the Arkansas River and also sank, 400 yards from the transport, a total loss.
USS Linden. A veteran of the Vicksburg campaign, this Third District tinclad was assigned to guard the Union post at Devalls Bluff, AR. From time to time, she would also escort vessels arriving independently at or departing that location via the difficult Arkansas River. On February 19, 1864, she steamed to the rescue of a vessel stranded below Pine Bluff, but coming within 400 yards of the stricken vessel, was snagged and sank, a total loss (Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield).
There was no movement on the river for weeks thereafter as convoys halted and private sailing was prohibited. When merchantmen were again permitted to steam alone, they once more became targets. One of them, the Lloyd, was fired into by irregulars on April 11 and her pilot badly wounded.
The activities of the various Confederate cavalrymen riding through Arkansas after the Red River campaign in May 1864 reached Federal ears through rumors or intelligence. As with Col. Colton Greene in Chicot County, news circulated concerning the whereabouts of the well-known Brig. Gen. Joseph O. (“Jo”) Shelby. For example, while ascending the White River to DeValls Bluff covering a convoy, Lt. Cmdr. Phelps’ boats learned that the horseman was nearby, but so far was busily engaged in eliminating outlaws and recruiting soldiers.
Union leaders and newsmen were confident that the Southerners would not attack Steele upon his return to Little Rock, but as a New York Times correspondent put it on May 14, even with vessels like the Naumkeag on the White, they could destroy or “capture the boats in the river.” Still, a lull seemed to exist on that stream at the beginning of June. A writer for the Chicago Daily Tribune reported on June 2, “Boats from White River were not molested, but the Rebels were thick as blackberries in the region.”
The U.S. Quartermaster Department was always quite insistent and persistent in pushing supplies up the chalk-colored White or, less often, its sister stream, the Arkansas. However, as was the case on the Mississippi and elsewhere, when Union steamers proceeded alone or nearly so, they were often peppered by Rebel small arms.
Consequently, in the face of regular Southern opposition, gunboat protection was normally sought and it was provided in organized and scheduled convoys. Sometimes security was not arranged. For example, on June 12, Jo Shelby’s soldiers captured the stern-wheeler New Iago, “loaded with cotton,” on the Arkansas River between Pine Bluff and Napoleon. Alarms immediately sounded in Union circles that the boat might be employed to ferry marauding Confederates under Fagan across the river.
Occasionally local area Federal military commanders suddenly demanded escort of waterborne troop movements. When naval leaders protested, they were met by a gnashing of teeth and barrages of complaint from the logisticians or thoughtless generals. Added to the political difficulty or the lack of extra warships was the fact that the local Mississippi Squadron district commanders, whether on the White, or Arkansas, or Tennessee, or Cumberland, were not always informed of steamer movements.
Just such an occurrence took place at the mouth of the White on the evening of June 18. Both Lt. Cmdr. Phelps and his White River deputy, Lt. George Bache, were dumbfounded when, toward dusk, a convoy of nine troop transports emerged from the White River to go up the rising Arkansas. Maj. Gen. Steele wished to move some of his men around to Little Rock from DeValls Bluff and believed the trips would not be overly difficult to make.
Lt. George Mifflin Bache, USN. Nephew of RAdm. David Dixon Porter, Bache assumed command of the timberclad Lexington in late spring 1863. Assigned to the Third District of the Mississippi Squadron, he participated in the Federal campaign that resulted in the occupation of Little Rock, Arkansas, that September, organizing a convoy system for the White River. Following his service in the Red River expedition in March–May 1864, he took command of the timberclad Tyler and a task group that attempted to rescue the tinclad Queen City and battled the forces of Confederate Brig. Gen. Joseph O. “Jo” Shelby at Clarendon in June (Porter, The Naval History of the Civil War).
Welcomed aboard Phelps’ flagboat Hastings, Col. William P. Fenn informed the two naval officers that he was charged with getting his men and supplies upstream to Little Rock and beyond to Fort Smith while the river was in good stage and rising. He then handed over dispatches from Steele and Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans, the St. Louis commander, indicating that large risks should be taken to get the personnel through. On top of these, he produced an order from RAdm. Porter authorizing the desired protection if the water stage made it prudent.
Lt. Cmdr. Phelps found himself in a box. Wanting to make certain that the rivers were covered against Confederate brigadiers Shelby and John S. Marmaduke, plus Col. Colton Greene, he had nevertheless to provide escort. After conferring with Bache, Fenn was told that Bache would provide escort from the mouth of the Arkansas up the most dangerous 25 miles to South Bend, but only one small gunboat would ascend beyond that point. And, of course, if the naval guardian learned that the enemy was blockading the river, he was authorized to turn the combined fleet back immediately. The Tyler, in company with the tinclads Fawn and Naumkeag, started up the Arkansas the next morning with Col. Fenn’s transports, leaving the Lexington to protect the little fort at White River Station. The Queen City was shifted up to guard Clarendon, but before she departed, her 2nd Assistant Engineer, George W. Shallenburger, noted that seven, not nine, steamers ascended the Arkansas with Bache.1
After ferrying the Cache River and wading the mires of Bayou de Vue, Brig. Gen. Shelby paused on June 20 to review his options. DeValls Bluff, he knew, was the closest Northern-held point to Little Rock on the White River and its railroad to the capital was vulnerable. Consequently, that logistical hub was fortified, contained a good-sized garrison, and was constantly watched by gunboats. Attacking it directly would be difficult.
On the other hand, this heart in the Union supply chain could be killed if the vital watery artery to it could be cut below. It was obvious from the map that the point d’appui should be the town of Clarendon, 14 miles downstream from the Bluff. Easy to reach or escape from, the largely deserted community offered a good position at which to plant cannon and blockade movement up or down the river.
Shelby led his regiments toward Clarendon the next day. The trek was hard. It rained incessantly, resulting in swift streams without bridges, roads without bottoms, and endless swamps and muck.
Brig. Gen. Joseph Shelby, CSA. While Col. Colton Greene entertained Federal shipping on the Mississippi during May–June 1864, Brig. Gen. Shelby attempted to block the White River at Clarendon, preventing vital convoys from reaching Devalls Bluff. In late June, he personally led a force to that town and sank the guardship Queen City. Within hours, he fought and withdrew from a USN counterattack led by Lt. George M. Bache (U.S. Army Military History Institute).
Also on the afternoon of June 21, Col. Robert R. Lawther’s 10th Missouri Cavalry (CSA) launched a visit to White River Station, where the just completed stockade was manned by a small 50-man garrison from the 12th Iowa Infantry. Leaving their horses on the opposite side of the Arkansas River, 300 Rebels crossed the stream in small boats or skiffs and marched all night to the outskirts of the National camp, which they charged just after sunup. Musket volleys from the bluecoats and shrapnel from the Lexington caused Lawther to retire.
A few days later, the Memphis newspapers, in a report republished by The New York Times, briefly noted that 600 of Marmaduke’s marauders attacked the two Iowa companies and were repulsed after severe fighting. Not knowing that the assault was part of a larger Confederate anti-logistics operation, the newspapers opined that “the removal of the gunboat Tyler from that station probably emboldened the rebels.” Continuing, they noted “but for the fortunate arrival of the gunboat Lexington, the result might have been unfavorable to us.”2
While Brig. Gen. Shelby was en route toward Clarendon and the Lexington was safeguarding White River Station, Lt. Bache was ascending the Arkansas with his convoy. Reaching Red Fork Landing some 25 miles upstream, he found Gen. Marmaduke in possession of the spot, preparing to cross over and threaten St. Charles. The steamers were consequently turned back and redirected up the White River under escort to DeValls Bluff, where their passengers were off-loaded and sent to Little Rock by train.
Maj. Gen. Steele happened to be at the Bluff when Bache’s vessels arrived on June 23 and angrily confronted the sailor as to why they had not gone up the Arkansas River as he wanted. When the Tyler’s commander explained that it was blocked by Rebel cannon, Steele refused to believe him and indicated his desire that the 12 empty boats then in port be turned around the next day and sent back down the White and up the Arkansas to Little Rock with the next draft of men. Of course, Steele added the matter at that point was left to Bache’s judgment.
In reporting this interview, Lt. Bache, perhaps having heard of similar charges of non-support leveled by the army against other USN officers earlier, noted he would fulfill the general’s wish and return as suggested. “Not wishing that the army should think us backward in cooperation,” he indicated, “I determined to shove them there as far as the gunboats could go and let them trust to luck afterwards!”
While Shelby’s cavalry and horse artillery rested near Clarendon on that sultry Thursday afternoon, an advance party of scouts went forward to reconnoiter. Carefully, the men examined the town and the nearby woods, finding them nearly devoid of activity. The river was a different matter; about 170 feet (10 rods) from the wharf lay the wooden side-wheel gunboat Queen City, “dark sentinel of the place.”
Advised of the situation ahead, Brig. Gen. Shelby ordered his advance riders to throw a cordon around the town. To maintain secrecy, anyone entering or attempting to leave was to be arrested. By dark, the remainder of the command was quietly stationed within the community and in the trees along the riverbank within 100 yards of the gunboat.
Just before his craft buttoned up for the night, the gunboat’s captain, Acting Volunteer Lt. Michael Hickey, sent a reconnaissance through the streets of Clarendon. The check was thorough and just missed Shelby’s advanced skirmishers, who were able to duck out of the way while maintaining their vigil.
Shelby’s plans made earlier to surprise the Queen City at dawn and capture or destroy her progressed to the next stage. Just after midnight, while the unmounted horsemen rested beneath the gigantic cottonwoods, the four-gun Missouri Battery of Capt. Dick Collins drew up to Clarendon’s outskirts on its main road. At a point out of earshot of the water, the guns were unlimbered and their horses led away. Then, aided by the sweat of a hundred soldiers, the cannon were stealthily and noiselessly dragged by hand to within 50 feet of the river’s edge.
Once the guns were in position, “crouching and clinging to the shadows of the houses,” the troopers also advanced to the shore of the White. “Silence, like a tired queen, brooded in the whisperings of the leaves.” The “thug-like” warriors watched ahead, some with “suppressed breathings.”
Personally curious, Shelby himself went up close to the tinclad to check its state of preparedness. It seemed ready, with steam up and its guns loaded. Right after the war, Shelby’s friend and adjutant John Edwards painted the picture:
A low, large moon, lifting a real of romance out of the waves, lit up the scene with a weird light, and crested the “stars and stripes” that flapped in melancholy motion against the painted gaff…. The drowsy sentinel paced his narrow beat…. Somber as an iron island, with all her red lights in gloom, and the deep peal of her time-bell sounding solumn and chill, the doomed craft sat upon the water unconscious of the coming daylight.
The nights were shorter now as the earth approached its summer equinox, but still the hours after midnight passed slowly for the sleep-deprived Southerners. There were no clouds and the only sounds that could be heard were the waves in the river as they “sobbed on the beach, and curled and sparkled in sheer wantonness around the iron beak of the river falcon.”
At approximately 4 a.m., “little shreds of daylight” poking up in the east, Brig. Gen. Shelby ordered his men to open fire on the Queen City, while, at the same time in his words, he “notified her commander of my approach and intentions.” Caught in as complete a surprise as any in U.S. naval history, the tinclad was immediately subjected to a heavy barrage of musketry from two regiments and shells from 10-pounder Parrott rifles and 12-pounder smoothbores.
USS Queen City. A converted ferryboat, the Queen City was a victim of a June 24/25, 1864, attack at Clarendon, Arkansas, by Confederate cavalrymen under Brig. Gen. Joseph O. (“Jo”) Shelby. Captured, she would be destroyed before a USN task group could reach and save her. This excellent photograph gives the reader an excellent perspective of size. Note the crewmen on deck and the cannon protruding from the casemate (Naval History and Heritage Command).
The first or second round from Collin’s guns smashed into the Queen City’s starboard engine. A piece of it flew on into the steam pipe of the starboard power plant, which fortunately did not burst. The one-sided contest continued for about 15 minutes during which, a Memphis newspaper later stated, the gunboat was struck 45 times by artillery shots “and her pilot house was completely torn away.”
The St. Louis Daily Missouri Democrat July 2 coverage indicates that the Queen City attempted to drop down with the current to get a range for her cannon. This was a goal she was unable to accomplish.
It was not long into the fight before Acting Volunteer Lt. Hickey knew that he would have to surrender. Writing about the white flag years later, RAdm. Porter was contemptuous of Hickey for “not having the bravery to fight it out as many of his contemporaries would have done.”
As the ship was riddled with cannon shell and rifle bullets, the able men in the crew (Shelby’s count was 65, but it was far less) were advised by their captain to give up or dive overboard and swim to the freedom of the opposite bank. The ethnic makeup of the crew is not certain, but it was not the band of “devil-may-care Irishmen” John Edwards later reported. There were many African Americans and the fate of any of those tars who gave up was very uncertain. Rumor had it that Shelby routinely ordered such prisoners shot.
With one seaman dead in the fight and nine wounded, Hickey signaled his surrender and Shelby’s men stopped shooting. The wreck of the heavily perforated tinclad was pulled to shore, where Hickey was taken prisoner, along with four officers, 20 seamen (four wounded), and eight African American contrabands. The latter, reported the Chicago Daily Tribune on Independence Day, “were immediately put to death.” The remainder of the crew had escaped to the opposite shore, though one white crewman and one African American were drowned. As late as July 12, the Memphis Argus would report that 23 men got away and 11 were killed or remained missing.
While the crewmen were interrogated and the officers paroled preparatory to their release to Helena authorities, Confederate horsemen ran aboard the ransacked the gunboat. Immediate prizes included in excess of $10,000 just drawn by the paymaster a few days earlier, the paymaster’s stores, wearing apparel, small arms, most of the ammunition, and a brass 12-pounder wheeled boat howitzer. Fearing that there were other gunboats in the vicinity that could arrive before he was finished, Shelby cancelled plans to unship the 24-pounders and a 32-pounder and use them in a formidable blockading battery ashore.
Within a half an hour of the time Shelby’s gunners opened fire on the Queen City, Lt. Bache’s troop convoy departed DeValls Bluff for Clarendon. Puffing slowly ahead in standard escort formation with the Fawn in the lead, the Naumkeag in the center, and the Tyler at the rear, the fleet paddled along peacefully for almost 30 miles.
As daylight intensified, the leading steamer was hailed from the western shore by two officers, a powder monkey, and five African American “contrabands” who had escaped the Queen City. Putting in, the transport picked up the men and took them out to the Fawn, where they told their story to her captain.
Signaling the following vessels to pause, Fawn came to and awaited the arrival of Naumkeag and Tyler, which sped ahead to learn what was holding up the procession. Following the 9 a.m. rendezvous of the three guardians, now less than 10 miles from Clarendon, the news was passed that the Queen City was captured and that Shelby occupied the town with 2,700 men.
Decisive ever since his days aboard the Cincinnati during the Vicksburg campaign, the intrepid Bache immediately ordered the merchantmen back to DeValls Bluff to escape possible entrapment and to let the U.S. Army know what was happening. Realizing that it was only five hours since the Queen City was seized, the officer knew that Shelby could not have already gotten much out of her, particularly her cannon. On the other hand, it was possible that she could be manned by butternut artillerymen and employed, in conjunction with the Rebel guns on the bank, against him or any force Lt. Cmdr. Phelps might send from the mouth of the river.
Fresh from combat against shore-based cannon on the Red River just over a month earlier, Bache was determined that Shelby and his cavalrymen would face the wrath of his big guns and so ordered his warships into line of battle, Tyler, Naumkeag, and Fawn. There would be action this day as Confederate horsemen, like those at Blair’s Landing on the Red, were engaged by the aggressive gunboatman.
While the Federals assessed the situation upstream, Brig. Gen. Shelby made his own preparations for the fight all in his command knew to be coming. To make his pieces less vulnerable to massed naval gunfire, Capt. Collins dispersed and concealed his battery while the remainder of the brigade deployed as skirmishers, lining the bank in front of the town and down around a bend and on both sides of its wharf.
It was understood, from their whistles, that the Union boats were being kept close up and in good order. How many there were was unknown. Was there a transport fleet or just warships? In addition, Shelby did not know if his enemy would attempt to run by or whether they would actually engage.
John Edwards in his colorful account of the Clarendon skirmish makes it perfectly clear that the Confederates knew that Bache was coming long before he arrived. For over an hour, they could hear the whistles of the leading vessel. As the morning grew warmer, “louder and louder sounded the dull puffing of the advancing boats.”
Knowing that he could get no more out of the captured tinclad before the Yankee rivercraft arrived, Shelby ordered her destroyed. When within a few miles of Clarendon, Lt. Bache and his crews heard two successive reports, which they later learned were the sounds of the Queen City blowing up.
Great clouds of smoke, heavy and dark in the light blue of the morning sky, could be seen up the river by the Confederates just before and certainly after their enemy advanced to a spot a little over a mile away. Soon, the first pitch-black object, not quite distinguishable to those without field glasses, loomed into sight followed by several more. Banners streamed out in the wind from their tall vertical staffs that looked for all the world like flagpoles.
“The leading boat, gigantic and desperate, forged slowly ahead,” wrote Edwards, “every port closed, and a stern defiance on her iron crest.” This was the Tyler, “scarred and rent in previous fights, but wary and defiant still.”
As the gunboats (“a noble trio” according to the Daily Missouri Democrat) came abreast of the Cache River at 9:45 a.m., Brig. Gen. Shelby gave the order to his artillery chief to open fire on the leading timberclad. Collins’ men were good; Bache later reported that one of their “first shots went through the pilot house.”
“A white puff of smoke burst suddenly from the bow of the Tyler,” Edwards relates, “and curled gracefully in thin wreaths far astern.” A large shell then “passed overhead with a noise like an express train and burst in the river half a mile away.” Even though the approaching timberclad could initially reply to Shelby’s overtures only with a bow Parrott, the ball was truly opened as the Fawn and Naumkeag also joined in with their forward guns.
The three Federal gunboats paddled defiantly toward the Confederate guns, coming within an easier range. “With a bravery worthy of a better cause,” said a St. Louis scribe, “the rebel general with his men worked their batteries.”
Early in the engagement, shrapnel from a 12-pounder flew through the port shutter of the Fawn’s pilothouse, mortally wounding her pilot and carrying away the bell system. This rang the bells and the engineers thought they were to stop the boat, which they did—directly under the Rebel guns. At least 10 shells or heavy pieces of shrapnel found the little tinclad, to say nothing of musket balls. She was fortunate to escape, but could offer little more immediate aid to her consorts.
In the meantime, the Tyler, followed by the Naumkeag, steamed slowly past the batteries, pumping out broadside after broadside of one-half second shrapnel and canister. When she came abreast of the town wharf, Shelby, who was riding between pieces encouraging his gunners, was heard to shout: “Concentrate fire of every gun on the Tyler.”
To some it appeared that the big dark craft now, indeed, “staggered over the water like a drunken man.” The defiant old timberclad and the Naumkeag continued through the fiery gauntlet, and after they passed by it, a number of Confederates thought that the two would continue on down the river toward its mouth. Thus it was they were amazed when both craft rounded to and steamed up at them again. Bache was later told that “the rebels now exclaimed in despair, ‘There comes that black devil again!’”
The ship vs. shore contest had now eaten a half hour, with, according to Brig. Gen. Shelby, his men on open ground “and not 60 yards from the boats.” The masked batteries ashore dished out considerable punishment, but the gunboats scored as well. The Queen City’s captured howitzer, for example, manned by Rebel crew near the bank, was only able to get off a couple of shots before gunboat shooting drove everyone from it.
USS Tyler. During the Queen City relief campaign of June 1864, the portside paddle wheel of the timberclad Tyler picked up a huge log that badly damaged the wheel. The tree trunk also tore off the wheelhouse outside and quarter gallery. Lt. Bache, who could not swim, was thrown into White River, but was able to grasp wreckage until saved. The vessel was repaired at the riverbank using planking from a barge and was able to resume her mission (Naval History and Heritage Command).
Moving ahead, the Naumkeag and Tyler were joined by the Fawn, now restored and steaming above the wharf. Together, the three boats captured Shelby in a crossfire. The Tyler, of course, being the larger vessel with the biggest guns, remained the center of butternut concern, even as the tinclads poured in their own enfilading fire of grape and canister.
“Full broadside to the wharf she [Tyler] stood sullenly at bay, giving shot for shot and taking her punishment like a glutton.” Edwards suggests that one two-gun battery was destroyed in a cloud of dust and smoke by one of her broadsides that sounded “like the rush of 500 steeds in motion.”
As 10:30 a.m. approached, Lt. Bache, from his position aboard the Tyler, her head pointed upstream and her guns continuing to blaze, thought he discerned some of the briskness pass out of the Rebel fire. “The result was the usual one between field batteries and gunboats,” opined Duane Huddleston and his colleagues over a century later.
Bache was probably not surprised at this. The Red River veteran found that the pace of shooting by his own command had thus far been “terrific; the trees on shore for the space of a mile” were marked by its projectiles “and that low down.”
Caught in a gunboat trap, Jo Shelby threw in the towel and ordered his men to withdraw to their “former camp, some two miles from town.” Watching from his pilothouse, Lt. Bache “had the pleasure of seeing them skedaddling from the field.” Clarendon was back in Union hands. Under protection of the Tyler’s big guns, a landing party from the Naumkeag went ashore to assess.
During their exit from the scene, the butternut troopers abandoned nearly everything they took within 300 yards of the riverbank. The Queen City’s wheeled boat howitzer, somewhat the worse for battle, was recovered, along with a significant quantity of ammunition, her cutter and four oars, and an anchor. Five crewmen (two badly wounded) from the sunken tinclad, all reportedly stripped naked, were rescued while several wounded Confederates, left behind, were also saved.
Parts of the wreck of the Queen City herself could be seen in the water about a mile below the town, completely burned out and with her casemates tumbled in. Soon, men from the Union vessels began attempting to salvage some of her guns. During the afternoon, the Fawn and the Naumkeag patrolled up and down the river for a mile or two, occasionally being subjected to musketry. Every time they were shot at, they replied “with one-half second shrapnel.”
The Confederates liked to believe that the Tyler was hard hit and “bled fearfully with half her crew dead.” In fact, even though she was hit 11 times, the old gunboat stood up fairly well. It was later pointed out that an extra 24 inches of protective iron recently installed around her boilers was instrumental in her protection.
The tinclads, on the other hand, lived up to their own reputations as death traps, an unenviable status earned by units of their class fighting in the Red River and with Col. Greene over the past few weeks. Not meant to stand against land batteries, they were hurt. It was fortunate for them, as well as the Tyler, that Brig. Gen. Shelby located his guns on nearly level banks. The three vessels were not faced with the effects of plunging shot, as, for example, the Cricket was on the Red River.
Still, the Naumkeag was hit at least twice with one man killed. She suffered serious damage from the concussion of her guns, which caused her to leak and the eyebolts of the casemates to break. Fortunately, the engine room was defended by 24 inches of extra iron, a move later praised. The Fawn suffered 10 hits during the battle, with the pilot dead and ten other crewmen casualties, including her acting surgeon.
Bivouacked on the other side of the community, Brig. Gen. Shelby, anticipating that the gunboats would be gone, plotted his Clarendon return the next day. If he could throw up somewhat better temporary earthworks and hold the spot for 10 days, he would duplicate Greene’s achievement out on the Mississippi and seriously disrupt the Union’s White River navigation. Even as it was, communications, according to the Northeastern newspapers, had been cut off between Little Rock and Memphis.
Unfortunately for the Rebel brigadier, the gunboats did not all leave. The Naumkeag and Fawn remained off the town to prevent any further mischief while the Tyler, with the wounded and shipless aboard, steamed back up to DeValls Bluff. Bache hoped to personally persuade Maj. Gen. Steele to send a force to “capture the guerrillas.”3
It did not take much effort for the Tyler’s commander to convince Steele that an expedition should return to Clarendon right away. Brig. Gen. Eugene A. Carr, commander of the District of Little Rock, was ordered to take men from within and near the DeValls Bluff garrison and push the Rebels away from the river. The next morning, June 25, approximately 2,000 infantry and 750 cavalry, with an artillery battery, boarded two transports and prepared to depart downstream under escort of the timberclad.
While the Federals embarked at the Bluff, Brig. Gen. Shelby went ahead and made his effort to return to Clarendon and throw up some earthworks, or rifle pits. Patrolling the river, the Naumkeag and Fawn rounded a point and discovered the Confederates at work digging. Puffing into easy range, they fired over 50 shells at the butternuts, who retired into some woods.
During the ship-shore fights between Shelby and the gunboats, Lt. Cmdr. Phelps finished an unproductive reconnaissance some 40 miles up the Arkansas and, upon his return, began hearing news of events upstream on the White. Early on Sunday morning, June 26, Bache proceeded up that river with the Hastings and Lexington, coming within 15 miles of Clarendon before learning of the duels. Seeing no sign of Bache and fearing that Shelby had trapped the sailor above, Phelps returned to Helena and sought aid from RAdm. Porter, then at Mound City. His petition brought Memphis its first news that the White was now blockaded.
Meanwhile, the little Bache-Carr cavalry armada had started off from DeValls Bluff at 2 p.m. on Saturday, but was unable to proceed more than 10–15 miles before an accident halted progress. The three boats lay to as repairs were made and finally reached Clarendon on the Sabbath. Landing unopposed, Carr’s force pushed on to the town of Pikeville and engaged Shelby, driving him back several miles and capturing two guns, including one formerly aboard the Queen City.
The Confederates retreated further and over the next two days the opposing troops maneuvered without fighting deeper into the Arkansas Delta. Having accomplished at least a part of his goal, Carr turned his men back to Clarendon. With the Southern cavalryman gone from the river for the moment, the bluecoats, after torching the all but deserted community, reboarded their steamers and, under escort, returned to DeValls Bluff on the evening of June 29.4
The situation on the White River remained explosive and no traffic was able to operate on it for a week. In his appeal for aid on June 27, Lt. Cmdr. Phelps gave his assessment of Marmaduke’s force and intentions and asked RAdm. Porter for the White River loan of the famous old ironclad Carondelet and the monitor Neosho. With the river falling, neither would be needed long.
Advantaging himself of a fast packet, Phelps rushed to Memphis in person two days later. There he made arrangements for the Essex to cover for the Carondelet and for the latter to return with him. He also messaged his superior assuming responsibility, against standing orders, of moving a vessel from one district to another (Eighth to Seventh) without authorization.
Even as the former Eastport captain was rearranging the heavy pieces of two districts, Porter confirmed Phelps’ action on June 30. Simultaneously, he ordered Phelps to not only halt shipping on the Arkansas River, but to remove his gunboats; otherwise, “we will lose them all.” Efforts would, for now, be concentrated on the White, where the Naumkeag and Fawn patrolled off Clarenden.
While naval relief was arranged, press members of the so-called “Bohemian Brigade” scrambled aboard willing steamers headed for the mouth of the White River. Among them was the noted New York Daily Tribune scribe John L. McKenna, whose boat arrived below on June 30 in company with the ironclad Carondelet.
The veteran gunboat, led by the tinclad Silver Cloud and three transports, departed up for DeValls Bluff on July 1. They were followed later in the day by Phelps and Hastings. The boats ascended without incident and anchored at dark in midstream off Clarendon. Here the Carondelet was stationed as guardship, from which point it was suspected the declining river stage would soon force her to leave.
Observers aboard the Carondelet remarked that only one building was now standing on shore, though hundreds of chimneys gave evidence of a nice larger city days earlier. She was located in “a good position to work our guns advantageously,” wrote Executive Officer Ensign Scott D. Jordan, “if it becomes necessary.” The big cannon were loaded with one-half second shell and shrapnel; it was expected that any fight would be at very short range (about 200 yards) and this shotgun approach would ensure the enemy was not “overreached.” Upon his arrival at the Bluff, Phelps assured Maj. Gen. Steele that the river was safe for transports under convoy and that his heavyweight gunboat would remain off Clarendon as long as possible. “I fancy Shelby will have a good time,” he added, “if he runs against her.”
On July 3–5, the Hastings and Fawn returned downstream, convoying eight steamers from the Bluff. A little above St. Charles on Independence Day, irregulars hiding in trees 25 yards distant opened brisk rifle fire upon the tinclads. No one was hurt on the naval or charter vessels. Lt. Cmdr. Phelps later reported that he had been seeking a way to salute the holiday and that the attack gave him “an opportunity of at once punishing the enemy and celebrating the day by firing cannon.”
The Tribune man McKenna made the trip to and from DeValls Bluff in one of the transports guarded by Phelps’ gunboats. Once back to White River Station, he wrote up his observations and took early passage back to Memphis, from which he filed his account with “the satisfaction of being able to report the final raising of the blockade of White River.”
USS Fawn. Commissioned in May 1863, the Fawn spent most of her career on the White and Arkansas Rivers, conducting convoy escort, patrols, and special missions. She was a participant in the June 1864 effort to save the tinclad Queen City from Confederate Brig. Gen. Joseph O. (“Jo”) Shelby at Clarendon, and a month later, in a notable escort, helped convoy a $2 million payroll with 19 paymasters to Devalls Bluff. It would be forwarded to Little Rock to pay Union soldiers (Naval History and Heritage Command).
Simultaneously, the Fawn immediately turned around and began back up, helping to guard the old timberclad Tyler, which was transporting to the Bluff a $2 million payroll in charge of 19 paymasters who would distribute it to Steele’s soldiers. After safely delivering the cash, Tyler was ordered back to the river’s mouth because of low water. Before she arrived on the eighth, she hit a snag which tore away the outside of a wheelhouse, forcing her out of action for makeshift repair. Lt. Bache, who could not swim, was thrown overboard during the incident, but was quickly rescued.
The Carondelet remained at Clarendon four days, her crew performing the ancient chore of painting the boat’s exterior; no Rebels tested her mettle. On July 6, the ironclad, accompanied by the two tinclads, guarded the three transports up the river about 42 miles to DeValls Bluff. The next day, the trio convoyed them back down to Clarendon, from where they would continue downstream. Surprisingly, no opposition was encountered during either leg of the trip, not even snipers, though one of the Carondelet’s rudders was carried away.
After falling for a week, the river level reached a depth on July 7 at which by prearrangement the Carondelet was required to withdraw to the river’s mouth. Five hours down, around 9 a.m., just after the crew was beat to quarters for gunnery drill, 25 Confederate riflemen hiding in a canebrake on the side of the river 30 yards distant opened up as the ironclad passed. Aiming at the spot where smoke from the Rebel rifles rose, the gunners cut swathes with one-half second shrapnel. There was no second Southern volley.5
Rebel attacks on transport steamers passing up and down the White and Arkansas continued through the month and into August as Marmaduke and his lieutenants joined local irregulars in haunting their banks, as well as the counties to their north and south. Not only river transport and garrisons, such as those at DeValls Bluff and Little Rock, were threatened but plantations and perceived Federal sympathizers near Helena as well. Sickness was widespread among soldiers and sailors alike, adding to the Union’s military and naval challenge.
This situation continued as the summer heat bore down on the entire state, with temperatures only a few degrees lower on the waters than the 100 degrees registered at DeValls Bluff on July 10. The same day, there was but four and a half feet over the bars of the White, making it navigable for only the smallest steamers. Getting supply boats up and down was difficult. Fawn and Naumkeag were able to get a convoy though from the river’s mouth to the Bluff that afternoon, but the Tyler, along as heavy escort, could only ascend some 20 miles.
In order to help facilitate aggressive Union Army reconnaissance expeditions from DeValls Bluff and continue support for river shipping, Lt. Cmdr. Phelps nevertheless requested additional ironclad support. In early July, the Carondelet’s sister ship, Mound City, dropped anchor off White River Station. Unhappily, the low water also prevented her from ascending the White. Indeed, as the New York Daily Tribune reported on July 14, the White was “very low and so difficult to navigate that gunboats and transports frequently ran aground and were disabled.”
USS Mound City. In order to help facilitate aggressive Union army reconnaissance expeditions from Devalls Bluff and continue support for river shipping, Mississippi Squadron reinforcements were requested in late June 1864. In early July, Mound City, one of the original seven “City Series” ironclads, dropped anchor off White River Station near the river’s mouth. Unhappily, low water prevented her from ascending the White in support of an important upriver convoy. Eventually able to reach Prairie Landing, where the water was deep enough for her to remain as guardship, the veteran was withdrawn from the White in early August (Naval History and Heritage Command).
The light draught monitor Neosho, together with the tinclad Peri, were likewise temporarily transferred from another district just north and arrived early on July 15, by which time an extra large supply convoy was assembled for travel upriver. With Phelps’ Hastings leading, the vessels immediately departed up the White, although the Mound City was able to proceed only a few miles. Upon reaching Clarendon, the flagboat turned back, allowing the Neosho and Peri to lead the eight charters to the Bluff. On her way back down, the Peri guarded the transport Dickey, loaded with 160 refugees, many of whom were sick; several of those fleeing died during the trip.
The continuing river fall forced the monitor to transfer down to Clarendon two days later, where she became station guardian. From that point on, until the river rose again, the White River task force guarded the stream in segments, with the heavy units as anchors at the mouth and Clarendon and heavily patrolling with tasked light draughts. Although Northern newspapers like the Chicago Daily Tribune reported the river quiet, with guerrillas only occasionally showing themselves “along the bank to take a shot at passing boats,” take shots they regularly did. During the third week of the month, about six miles above St. Charles, the ferryboat America and the steamer St. Cloud were both unsuccessfully attacked; no damage was done “with the loss of only a horse shot on the latter.” Meanwhile, brigades from Shelby’s command swept across areas inland of the White all the way up from Helena to near Little Rock, aiding irregulars in demolishing Federal stocks and the plantations of sympathetic Southerners. About this time, it was decided that the railroad from DeValls Bluff would be targeted by one large raiding group while on July 26 the cavalry general himself set out to resume his river blockade with another.
Two days later, Lt. Cmdr. Phelps reported the White River quiet, though considerable Confederate activity was believed possible at Helena, where the Tyler was the lone guardship. It was expected that the Mound City could continue protecting Prairie Landing, where the water remained high enough for the ironclad, but responsibility for St. Charles now belonged to the Federal army.
On July 31, Shelby, with 800 men, many of whom were new, and several cannon arrived on the banks of the White some seven miles below Clarendon. The Fawn and Naumkeag, patrolling the stream, narrowly missed his deployment. Perhaps unaware Northern transports were not steaming independently, the Confederates, not finding passing targets, were forced to wait for their next opportunity.
Shelby’s plan for a steamboat blockade was foiled by the strikes made by his other force a few days before upon the DeValls Bluff–Little Rock rail link, which was by now protected by five small forts. The move elicited an uncharacteristically large Union response, bringing hundreds of soldiers pouring out in pursuit and causing the butternut units to rapidly retreat. Learning of this and fearing he would be caught, Shelby later admitted that he: “raised [the] blockade of the White River, for I could not wait there for a heavy force in my rear.”
Lt. Cmdr. Phelps, having resigned his commission at the beginning of August, was temporarily succeeded by Lt. Bache. Neither man had known for certain that Shelby attempted to resume a blockade of the White, where only three feet 10 inches remained in the main channel. The Fawn, Naumkeag, Silver Cloud, and newly repaired Exchange were able to patrol the 30-mile St. Charles–Clarendon segment, while Neosho remained above. As it did with the military at DeValls Bluff and Little Rock, the weather caused much suffering and sickness aboard the gunboats, with Bache hard pressed to find more than half a healthy crew for any of them.
In what would turn out to be his final attack of this Arkansas summer, Brig. Gen. Shelby led 2,500 men from Searcy, Arkansas, on August 20 to hit the DeValls Bluff–Little Rock railroad while preparing a linkup with Maj. Gen. Sterling Price, then preparing to invade Missouri. Four days later, the Confederates captured three of the Federal protective forts, and besieged a fourth, Ashley’s Station. Relief forces were dispatched by Brig. Gen. C. C. Andrews, DeValls Bluff garrison commander, and after pitched fighting, Shelby withdrew. Learning that some of the fighting had approached within eight miles of the depot town, Lt. Bache, who believed it a diversion in favor of Price, dispatched the Fawn and Exchange to the port as a precaution. At the same time, St. Charles was evacuated by order of Maj. Gen. Steele, bringing a temporary halt to tinclad patrols above that point.6
As August turned into September, Union forces in Arkansas remained puzzled over the mission of Generals Marmaduke and Shelby. Many believed they were continuing to lurk near the rivers while others believed them departing for a larger raid into Missouri. Whatever their plans, Maj. Gen. Steele wanted the Southern regulars found and destroyed even if local irregular forces then continued to resist, particularly along the White River.
Several expeditions were sent out by the Second Division of the U.S. VII Army Corps. from Devalls Bluff in an effort to come up with the elusive Shelby or to assist other Union forces known to be after him. Immediately on the heels of an unsuccessful September 2 advance up the river from DeValls, orders were received for a second. At daybreak on September 3, the transports Commercial, Celeste, and Nevada, carrying 1,000 officers and men from Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois regiments and escorted by the Fawn, shoved off.
Progress was steady and, as the convoy passed Peach Orchard Bluffs the next morning, the first Confederate pickets began shadowing it along the left bank. Finally, while passing Gregory’s Landing about 4 p.m., the leading steamer Commercial was blasted by an estimated 300–400 men concealed in bushes. Hundreds of balls hit the steamer, killing one man and wounding eight others, including the Union commander, Col. William H. Graves. From 40–50 butternut soldiers opened fire from the right bank immediately afterwards. As was often common in these ship-shore incidents, the number of attackers was greatly overstated.
The Confederate attack drew a quick response from the Fawn, which, with black smoke pouring out of her chimneys, ran up and began pouring howitzer fire into the woods and shrubbery on both sides of the White. Aboard the Commercial and the other two steamers, troops, after the initial shock, barricaded themselves behind boxes and other fixtures and briskly returned fire. During the exchange, one man was wounded aboard the Nevada.
News of the encounter quickly spread. Within a day or so, word of the fight, “confirmed through rebel sources in Helena,” reached Union circles in Memphis and was sent out for publication in the Eastern press. As was often the case, the brief summary was an instance of Civil War “fake news.” On September 9, The New York Times told its readers “that the gunboats Hastings and Naumkeag had been captured by the rebels below Clarendon, on the White River.”
Soldiers from the three Union transports went ashore on September 5 and captured the town of Augusta, about a mile and a half from the landing beach. There it was learned that the Confederates that had fired into the task group had gone toward Jacksonport. As the water continued low and with the enemy elusive, no one aboard the Federal boats was disappointed when orders arrived for a curtailment of the adventure. The three troop boats and the Fawn returned to DeValls Bluff on September 6.
By this time, the Confederate force of Maj. Gen. Sterling Price, accompanied by Shelby’s cavalry, was well on its way toward Missouri. Federal concern over the real and supposed sightings of Confederate forces under generals Price and Shelby in the DeValls Bluff area continued throughout September, even as the number of actual Rebel attacks on river transport fell off.
On September 30 in a bend of the White River near Clarendon, a lurking irregular band attacked Capt. James Maratta’s stern-wheeler Emma No. 2 as she made her way to the mouth of the river. Navigational requirements forced the boat to approach the shore, where she made an easy target. An estimated 200 musket shots rang out, with more than 60 balls striking the cabin. Many passengers and crewmen had narrow escapes from them, but the vessel safely emerged from her ordeal.
After the September beginning of Price’s Great Missouri Raid, the intensity and scale of fighting between gunboats of the Mississippi Squadron and Confederate military units on the White and to a far lesser extent the Arkansas greatly declined. This is not to say that there were not the occasional newsworthy incidents.
While ascending the White toward Little Rock aboard the tinclad Cricket to confer on campaign matters, Maj. Gen. Edward R. S. Canby was wounded in the thigh by a sniper on November 6. Immediately returned downstream and hence to New Orleans, there was great concern for his well-being in the press; however, he would mend in time to lead a new Federal campaign against Mobile, Alabama, in early 1865.
The few naval boats available in the area now concentrated exclusively on the White, leaving it to the military to cover, after its opening to independent operations, civilian traffic on the Arkansas, particularly late in the conflict. Rebel assaults from the shore of that stream remained ferocious. In November, the steamer Alamo, en route alone to Fort Smith, was pursued by numerous graycoat horsemen along a six-mile stretch of relatively open riverbank. Hundreds of rounds of pistol and musket fire were sent at the vessel, but only 87 hit it, doing no damage.
The South would make one last push to blockade that stream in the new year. On January 17, 1865, the last major attack on Arkansas River traffic occurred in the narrow channel at Ivey’s Ford, about two miles below Roseville and 18 miles above Clarksville. Four USQM charter steamers, each with a small armed guard aboard and which had just dropped off Federal troops at Dardanelle, were continuing up to Fort Smith when they were assaulted by elements of a Confederate brigade (1,500 men and one cannon) under Col. William H. Brooks. The lead boat, New Chippawa, was captured after a shot across her bow with all aboard taken prisoner. She was pillaged, and quickly burned. The following vessel, Annie Jacobs, attempted to run by, but was so badly damaged by cannon and musket fire that she grounded on the north bank. A similar fate found the Lotus, next in line.
The soldiers and other survivors from the Jacobs and Lotus were consolidated by Col. Thomas Bowen, who immediately sent a warning messenger to the fourth steamer, the Ad. Hines, and another for Union reinforcements. Fortunately for the bluecoats, the axle of Col. Brooks’ cannon now broke and he could not otherwise attack Bowen’s people. When Northern cavalry shortly thereafter arrived, Brooks retreated, leaving the Ad. Hines and repaired Lotus to return Bowen’s group to Dardanelle. A few days later, Chaplain A. B. Randall of the 54th U.S. Colored Troops, present aboard the Annie Jacobs, wrote a detailed letter describing the incident to the Chicago Daily Tribune.
Although the USN continued to provide riverboat protection and army cooperation on the White, attacks on Federal nautical assets declined as effective Union economic and military and counterinsurgency policies, including the substantial use of loyalist Arkansas soldiers, took root. What remained of the fighting minus regular Southern battalions was viciously small scale and often very personal.7
1. U.S. Navy Department, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion (31 vols.; Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1894–1922), Series I, Vol. 25: 652, 774–785; (cited hereafter as ORN, followed by the series number, volume number, part number, if any, and the page[s]); ORN, I, 26: 392–393, 414, 464, 562, 791; U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (128 vols.; Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1880–1901), Series I, Vol. 34, Pt. 1, 783, 946–953 (cited hereafter as OR, followed by the series number, volume number, part number, if any, and page[s]); OR, I, 41, 1: 191–192; The New York Times, April 14, May 14, 1864; Chicago Daily Tribune, November 14, 1863; June 2, 28, 1864; W. Craig Gaines, Encyclopedia of Civil War Shipwrecks (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008), 10; “Where We’ve Been: U.S.S. Queen City Sinking,” Clarendon, Arkansas, homepage, http://www.clarendon-ar.com/been/uss_queen_city/index.html (accessed July 6, 2007); Thomas A. DeBlack, With Fire and Sword: Arkansas, 1861–1874 (Histories of Arkansas; Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2003), 66–67, 118; Bobby Roberts, “ Rivers of No Return,” in Mark K. Christ, ed., “The Earth Reeled and Trees Trembled”: Civil War Arkansas, 1863–1864 (Little Rock, AR: Old State House Museum, 2007), 74–76, 84; Mark K. Christ, “‘The Queen City was a Helpless Wreck’: J. O. Shelby’s Summer of ’64,” in Mark K. Christ, ed., “The Earth Reeled and Trees Trembled”: Civil War Arkansas, 1863–1864 (Little Rock, AR: Old State House Museum, 2007), p.137; David Dixon Porter, Naval History of the Civil War (New York: Sherman Publishing Company, 1886; reprint, Secaucus, NJ: Castle Books, 1984), 562; Jay Slagle, Ironclad Captain: Seth Ledyard Phelps and the U.S. Navy (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1996), 383–384; John N. Edwards, Shelby and His Men; or, The War in the West (Cincinnati, OH: Miami Printing and Publishing Co., 1867; reprint, Waverly, MO: General J. O. Shelby Memorial, 1993), pp 317–320; George W. Shallenburger, Diary, June 18, 1864, Gilder Lehman Collection, Gilder Lehman Institute of American History (cited hereafter as Shallenburger Diary). Despite Christ’s fine volume, the most helpfully detailed and illustrated overall review of events relative to the war on this river is the chapter “Steamboats, 1861–1865,” in Duane Huddleston’s Steamboats and Ferries on the White River: A Heritage Revisted (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1998), 41–65.
2. OR, I, 34, 1: 1044–1045; ORN, I, 26: 402–403, 415–417, 791; Slagle, Ironclad Captain, 385; Chicago Daily Tribune, June 28, 1864; The New York Times, June 29, 1864; New Haven Daily Palladium, June 29, 1864; Hartford Daily Courant, July 2, 1864.
3. ORN, I, 26: 417–433, 447, 451–454, 461, 464; OR, I, 34, 1: 1050–1052; Shallenburger Diary, June 24–27, 1864; Edwards, Shelby and His Men, 321–326; St. Louis Daily Missouri Democrat, July 2, 1864; Chicago Daily Tribune, July 3–4, 6, 22, 1864; Baltimore Sun, July 4, 1864; Cleveland Daily Herald, July 5, 1864; Hartford Daily Courant, July 4–6, 1864; Chattanooga Daily Gazette, July 12, 1864; Memphis Argus, July 12, 1864; “Where We’ve Been: U.S.S. Queen City Sinking,” Clarendon, Arkansas, homepage, http://www.clarendon-ar.com/been/uss_queen_city/index.html (accessed July 6, 2007); Coleman Smith, “Capture and Sinking of the Gunboat Queen City,” Confederate Veteran, XXII (March 1914), 120–121; Christ, “‘The Queen City was a Helpless Wreck,’” 137–139; DeBlack, With Fire and Sword, 118; Alfred T. Mahan, The Gulf and Inland Waters, Vol. 3 of The Navy in the Civil War (New York: Scribner's, 1883), 212–213; Porter, Naval History of the Civil War , 562–563; Duane Huddleston, Sammie Cantrell Rose, and Pat Taylor Wood, Steamboats and Ferries on the White River: A Heritage Revisited (Conway: University of Central Arkansas Press, 1995; reprint, Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1998), 63; Daniel O’Flaherty, General Jo Shelby: Undefeated Rebel (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1954; reprint, 2000), 212–214. There is a difference in the estimated length of the ship-shore Clarendon battle. Bache claimed 45 minutes, Shelby in his OR report said an hour and a half, and Edwards reported that it took two hours. ORN, I, 26: 424; OR, I, 34, 1: 1050; Edwards, Shelby and His Men, 325. For the latest review of the encounter, see Don Roth’s 62-page account, General J. O. Shelby at Clarendon, Arkansas: The Capture and Destruction of the U.S.S. Queen City (Iowa City, IA: Camp Pope Publishing, 2017).
4. ORN, I, 26: 425–428; OR, I, 34, 1: 1047–1052; Hartford Daily Courant, July 6, 1864; Chattanooga Daily Gazette, July 12, 1864; New York Daily Tribune, July 13, 1864; Mark K. Christ, “‘Sun Stroke & Tired Out’: Chasing J. O. Shelby, June 1864,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly, LXVIII (Summer 2009), 201–212; Christ, “‘The Queen City was a Helpless Wreck,’” 139–140.
5. OR, I, 34, 1: 1044–1045, 1051–1052; ORN, I, 26: 330, 375, 402–403, 415–434, 437–438, 447–448, 451–454, 453–454, 461, 463–464, 467, 469–470, 478, 480, 791; Scott D. Jordan, Civil War Letters of Scott D. Jordan, Produced for Eleanor Jordan West, CD-ROM (Glendale, AZ: doug@bellnotes.com, 2007), June 10, 25, 28, July 3–4, 1864; Slagle, Ironclad Captain, 385; The New York Times, June 29, 1864; St. Louis Daily Missouri Democrat, July 2, 1864; Hartford Daily Courant, July 2, 1864; Chicago Daily Tribune, July 3–5, 1864; Baltimore Sun, July 4, 1864; Cleveland Daily Herald, July 5, 1864; Chattanooga Daily Gazette, July 12, 1864; Memphis Argus, July 12, 1864; New York Daily Tribune, July 13, 1864; “Where We’ve Been: U.S.S. Queen City Sinking,” Clarendon, Arkansas, homepage, http://www.clarendon-ar.com/been/uss_queen_city/index.html (accessed July 6, 2007); Mahan, The Gulf and Inland Waters, 212–213; John N. Edwards, Shelby and His Men, 321–326.
6. ORN,I, 26: 471, 477–478, 482, 484, 494–496, 502, 518, 520, 528; OR, I, 41, 1: 28, 191–192; OR, I, 41, 2: 191–192; New York Daily Tribune, July 14, 1864; Unconditional Union, July 23, 1864; Chicago Daily Tribune, July 22, 25, 27–29, 1864; Slagle, Ironclad Captain, 386; Christ, “‘The Queen City was a Helpless Wreck,’” pp.142–146; Scott A. Porter, “Thunder Across the Arkansas Prairie: Shelby’s Opening Salvo in the 1864 Invasion of Missouri,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly, LXVI (Spring 2007) 43–56; The Mound City was withdrawn from the White on August 9. ORN, I, 26: 502.
7. ORN, I, 26: 529–532; OR, I, XLI, 504, 947; Chicago Daily Tribune, September 16, October 3, 1864 and February 1, 1865; The New York Times, September 9, October 4, November 15, 1864; Robert R. Mackey, The Uncivil War: Irregular Warfare in the Upper South, 1861–1865 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004), 63–71; Jayme Milsap Stone, “Brother Against Brother: The Winter Skirmishes Along the Arkansas River, 1864–1865,” in Anne J. Bailey and Daniel E. Sutherland, Civil War Arkansas: Beyond Battles and Leaders (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000), 195–212; Carl Moneyhon, “1865: A State of Perfect Anarchy,” in Mark Christ, ed., Rugged and Sublime: The Civil War in Arkansas (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1994), 150–151. The overviews used here for Price’s role in the Trans-Mississippi were Albert Castel, General Sterling Price and the Civil War in the West (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968) and Michael J. Forsyth, The Great Missouri Raid: Sterling Price and the Last Major Confederate Campaign in Northern Territory (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., Inc., 2015).