Retracing history ...

I’m heading over to the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History in a bit to board a bus taking a group of us in a day-long tour. We’ll trace the route of Major General Frederick Steele’s ill-fated campaign during the Camden Expedition, a part of the Red River Campaign. Federal troops left the site of the Museum on this date in 1864 and came back in May, let’s just say: less than successful.

We'll trace the old Military Road past Elkin’s Ferry and Poison Springs, the latter the sight of debacle that resulted in an entire wagon train of goods being captured and members of the First Kansas Colored Infantry being savaged by Confederate troops.

We’ll lunch at the site of Steele’s headquarters in Camden and proceed back toward Little Rock as did a deflated Union Army. After stopping at Mark’s Mill, site of another Union disaster, we’ll arrive at Jenkin’s Ferry where the Union Army finally stood its ground, and the Second Kansas Colored Infantry exacted some revenge for the treatment of their brothers at Poison Springs. A reconstructed scene of the battle formed the introduction to the film Lincoln of a few years back.

I’ve read that my great-grandfather’s Confederate unit took part in the Battle of Jenkins Ferry. If so, he was only about 50 miles away from where my other maternal great-grandfather was stationed with the First Indiana Cavalry. One’s daughter would marry the other’s son after the war and the family would be a bit confused forever thereafter.

If standing on the spot where history occurred doesn’t make your nerve-ending jingle a bit, I pity you. Here’s Great Grandpa Coats of the 23^rd Arkansas Infantry. He farmed and served as a part-time preacher after the war. His obituary noted that “… he never took part in a neighborhood brawl.” There’s something to be said for that.