(Fort Smith: Cradle of The First Southern Free State - continued)
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the spring of 1863, these
bushwackers, dressed as Federal soldiers, shot
eight Federal soldiers and one citizen in cold blood.
For the execution, the four young men were loaded
into wagons, each sitting on his own coffin.
Chaplains Springer, McAfee and Wilson
accompanied them as they were taken out of town
outside of the rifle entrenchments. As the Judge
Advocate read charges, the prisoners knelt with the
Chaplains, eyes were bandaged and hands tied and
forty-eight muskets ended the four’s bushwacking. The next day, Sunday, July 30, 1864, Rebel forces once again approached Fort Smith. They appeared about four miles from town in considerable numbers and using howitzers they drove in the Union pickets. Part of the Second Kansas Battery an 1stKansas Colored took their position about a mile in advance of Fort #2 on Texas Road. The Rebels finally retreated with three wagonloads of dead and wounded. Skirmishes continued in the Poteau River bottoms. The Union side had one picket killed, one wounded and one taken Prisoner. July 31, Colonel Judson was wounded in the leg by shell fire. Many of the attacking Confederates were former Fort Smith people. Union houses outside of the picket lines were plundered and then burned down. The Rebels then fell back about twenty miles to Rock Creek. There were estimated to be eight thousand rebels at this time although several Union prisoners who later escaped said it was more like ten thousand. UNION CIVILIANS FLEE FORT SMITH The exodus of Union citizens from Fort Smith to other parts of the Union that had begun in early summer was stepped up. Every steamboat or wagon train that left was full of refugees. Marcus Boyd who ran the ferry worked day and night to help teams cross the crowded levees.On August 8, 1864, a refugee wagon train of fifteen hundred began their exodus from Fort Smith, leaving the mountains and valleys of Arkansas they grew up and toiled in. In the words of The Fort Smith New Era, the exodus was "The results of a war forced upon the nation by a slave aristocracy. With Fort Smith almost empty of citizenry and filled with soldiers, routine assignments became very monotonous. General Orders were posted that said no liquor, wholesale or retail was to be sold. There was also a reminder that officers would camp with their companies. On September 1, 1864, as the pickets were posted to Texas Road, about three hundred Indians attacked the pickets and killed one Union man. The other pickets were driven into Fort Smith and within one mile of the town, an old man making molasses was killed. At least three Fort Smith boys were seen among the guerillas and when the pickets' body was recovered, it had been stripped and a finger that had sported a gold ring has been cut off. Orphaned children, products of all wars, were beginning to be numerous in Fort Smith. Reverend Springer, Post Chaplain, U. S. A., began pleading for all citizens of the state to help give funds to set up a children's orphanage. ARMY CHURCH ESTABLISHED As more stress was manifested around the fort, an Army church was instituted September 21. The regular meeting of the church was held at the Methodist Episcopal Church, later changed to the Episcopal Church, Tuesday and Friday evenings at 6:30 P.M. and Sundays at 10:30 A.M. Reverend J. H. Leard, Chaplain of the 1st Arkansas Infantry led the services. Those attending services were told "volunteers in noble service of our |
country are here presented with an invitation to volunteer under the captaincy of the
Prince of Peace. On the Confederate side. there were some ministers, particularly of the Methodist Episcopal Church who had been playing major secessionist roles. Russell Reneau of Grand Prairie, Franklin County, Minister of Methodist Episcopal Church -South had been instrumental in leading efforts to leave the union. He recommended a war of extermination and played a double role after the Federal Army came back into Fort Smith. Rev. G. C. McWilliams of Ozark Methodist Episcopal finally "took to the brush" along with Reverend Reneau in June of 1864. SECOND MILITIA ENROLLMENT On September 24, 1864, General Orders were issued concerning the enrolled militia. First Class Militia consisted of those aged 18-45 who were listed as active, while 2nd class had ages 45-60 and they were put in the reserves. It was decided that if an emergency came up, there would be a signal of six taps given in couplets on the Methodist Church bell, and then everyone would report to the garrison immediately.Four days later, a detail of the 14th Kansas Cavalry was with a forage train gathering corn, fourteen miles out of Fort Smith on the Little Rock Road when they were attacked by four or five times their number. They were overpowered after fighting seven hours. When the dead were retrieved, they were found to have been shot, stabbed and stripped. Even a crazy old man living near the corn field was shot and his pantaloons were stolen. In mid-October, 1864, wagon trains of refugees from Texas arrived in Fort Smith and then departed hurriedly for Kansas.! Most Fort Smith farmers and mechanical people were gone by this time and the Fort Smith New Era wondered in print how long it could continue after it's first anniversary of October 8, 1863, with most of it's subscribers gone. The New Era was being printed by a newspaperman turned soldier, Mr. Bigelow of the 12th Kansas Volunteer Infantry doing double duty. NEGROES IN THE ARMED SERVICES The Negro troops stationed in Fort Smith were really something new in army life. The New Era reported there had not been a single incident of ill feeling or violence among the troops. Early on in the history of the nation, Blacks served in the armed forces, first in the Patriot armies of 1776, fighting in the same ranks as the whites. In the War of 1812, New York raised two regiments of Negroes. It had been but a short two years since Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation that Negroes were fighting for the United States Army and then months after that before they were fully organized troops under white officers. Since the war began by the firing by the Rebels on the Star of the West and Fort Sumter, no event had been more damaging to the Rebels than the proclamation of freedom to the slaves. That proclamation of freedom had with it the necessary requirements of arming the Negroes in the cause of the nation and the liberation of their own bondage. The Union Army had had problems in recruiting white officers to command the Negro troops. Assassination of the white officers by Rebels was certain if they were captured. The Rebels said the Negro soldier was a coward, wouldn't fight and that one white man with a whip in his hand could run through a dozen blacks armed with a minie. Observers of the regiments of Negro troops in Fort Smith felt differently and reported that the Negro troops were as well drilled as any white troops. Negro soldiers in Fort Smith were observed in the camps with spelling, reading and arithmetic books stuck inside their belts. As soon as |