Battle of Poison Spring

Part of the American Civil War

Date	April 18, 1864
Location	Poison Spring, northwest of Camden, Arkansas 33°38′19.7″N 93°00′15.6″W / 33.638806°N 93.004333°W / 33.638806; -93.004333
Result	Confederate victory

Belligerents

Confederate States

United States

Commanders and leaders

Samuel Maxey

John Marmaduke

James Monroe Williams

Strength

1,800 cavalry

824 infantry
291 cavalry
4 guns

Casualties and losses

34 dead and 218 wounded or missing

117 dead and 184 wounded or missing

Poison Spring

Location of Poison Spring in Arkansas

Camden Expedition
Mount Elba Elkin's Ferry Prairie D' Ane Poison Spring Marks' Mills Jenkins' Ferry

The Battle of Poison Spring (April 18, 1864) was fought in Ouachita County, Arkansas as part of the Camden Expedition, during the American Civil War. The battle is infamous for the Confederates' slaughter and mutilation of black U.S. soldiers of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry.^[1]

Background

Dwindling supplies for his army at Camden, Arkansas forced Union Army Major-General Frederick Steele to send out a foraging party to gather corn that the Confederates had stored about twenty miles up the Prairie D’ Ane–Camden Road on White Oak Creek. The party loaded the corn into wagons, and on April 18, Colonel James Monroe Williams started his return to Camden. Brigadiers-General John Marmaduke’s and Samuel Maxey’s Confederate forces arrived at Lee Plantation, about fifteen miles from Camden, where they engaged Williams.

Battle

Map of Poison Spring Battlefield core and study areas by the American Battlefield Protection Program.

The Confederates eventually attacked Williams in the front and rear, forcing him to retreat north into a marsh where his men regrouped and then fell back to Camden. During the fight, Williams positioned the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry, a regiment made up of mostly ex-slaves, between the wagon train and Confederate lines; these black troops repelled the first two offenses, but ran low on ammunition and were beaten back by the third. The Confederates refused to take the wounded black soldiers as prisoners, and instead brutally killed, scalped, and stripped them. Confederate Colonel Tandy Walker (commanding Choctaw Brigade) reported:

...the train fell into our hands, and soon a portion of his artillery, which my troops found concealed in a thicket near the train. I feared here that the train and its contents would prove a temptation too strong for these hungry, half-clothed Choctaws, but had no trouble in pressing them forward, for there was that in front and to the left more inviting to them than food or clothing—the blood of their despised enemy. They had met and routed the forces of General Thayer, the ravagers of their country, the despoilers of their homes, and the murderers of their women and children.^[2]

In all, the 1st Kansas lost nearly half of its numbers. The Union lost 198 wagons and all the corn. Estimated casualties were 301 for Williams and 114 for the Confederates.

Aftermath

A few months after the battle, Washington, Arkansas mayor, editor of the Washington Telegraph, postbellum justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court, and important Confederate propagandist John R. Eakin wrote an editorial approving of the massacre of black U.S. soldiers: "They did right [...W]e cannot treat negroes taken in arms as prisoners of war without a destruction of the social system for which we contend."^[1]

The site of the battle, the Poison Spring Battlefield is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is part of the Camden Expedition Sites National Historic Landmark.

In popular culture

The battle is mentioned in the 2012 film Lincoln.

References

1 2 Loewen, James W.; Sebesta, Edward H. (2010). "The Slave Soldiers". The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. pp. 209–211. ISBN 978-1-60473-218-4. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
↑ War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 34, part 1, page 849.

External links

Arkansas in the American Civil War
1861	United States Arsenal at Little Rock seized United States ordnance stores seized at Napoleon United States subsistence stores seized at Pine Bluff Governor refuses to furnish quota of militia to the United States Fort Smith seized Ordinance of secession adopted by Arkansas Convention
1862	Battle of Pea Ridge Action at Whitney's Lane Engagement at St. Charles Action at Hill's Plantation Engagement at Cane Hill Battle of Prairie Grove Skirmish at Dripping Springs
1863	Expedition against Arkansas Post Action at Fayetteville Skirmish at Chalk Bluff Attack on Helena Skirmish at Brownsville Action at Bayou Meto Action at Devil’s Backbone Shelby's raid in Arkansas and Missouri Engagement at Bayou Fourche Action at Pine Bluff
1864	David O. Dodd executed at Little Rock Action at Mount Elba Engagement at Elkin’s Ferry Skirmish at Prairie D'Ane Engagement at Poison Spring Action at Marks’ Mills Engagement at Jenkins’ Ferry Engagement at Old River Lake Action at Massard Prairie Action at Fort Smith Action at Ashley's Station Maj. Gen. Sterling Price, C. S. Army, assumes command of the expeditionary forces at Princeton Price enters Missouri
1865	Negotiations for the surrender of the Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department Gen. E. Kirby Smith, C. S. Army, surrenders troops in Trans-Mississippi Department Indian Council at Fort Smith
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