Fort Smith: Cradle of The First Southern Free State

(Fort Smith: Cradle of The First Southern Free State - continued)

they were relieved from duty, they pulled the books out and started studying. Cowardice had not been reported even though the black troops had been attacked by three times their number. If wounded or captured, the Negro troops and their officers in the south Arkansas campaign in the spring were treated horribly by the Confederate troops and south Arkansas partisans.
     The history of slavery in Arkansas was rooted in Arkansas beginnings. The Constitution adopted in 1836 legalized slavery. By 1850, Arkansas had closed its mind in respect to any inherent evil in slavery and that year the legislature made it an offense for anyone to say or write that slavery was not right. The punishment for the offense was confinement in the penitentiary. The legislature passed another law in 1859 that provided that no free Negro would be permitted to reside in Arkansas after January 1, 1860.
     The Confederates intense hatred of fighting against Negroes as soldier to soldier probably contributed to the Union defeat in south Arkansas by helping whip the Rebel troops in a frenzy of effort to defeat those who treated Negroes as equals.
     The New Era observed that the prejudice against the employment of Negroes as soldiers was either founded on or was associated with that species of narrow selfishness which sees no value in the colored man, except as a slave, convertible into cash at the pleasure of the owner.
     It wasn't the South alone however, that cherished their prejudices of the Negro soldiers, for many professing Union people echoed the same statements. Many Southern sympathizers who had taken the Union oath, thought it all well and good to put the Negro troops in ditches with spades in their hands, but to arm them and drill them and thus make them equal to the white soldier was an outrage. The radical Unionist of the Fort Smith area felt strongly that since the Negro was a man and deserved to be free, he was under as much obligation as other men to perform the duties and encounter the hazards of the soldier in defense of his liberation and rights of mankind.
     It wasn't until late in the Civil War that the Confederate side realized that they had made a grave error in not utilizing Negroes as soldiers. The South had been caught in a quandary for they knew that they who fight for freedom deserve to be free men and that their women and children then have to be free also. If soldiers, the Negroes would have wanted to enjoy all the civil and political rights enjoyed by their former masters on the grounds they have suffered equally all the dangers and responsibilities of struggle. President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy finally understood in November of 1864, what it had cost the South in not elevating the Negro to the dignity of a soldier.

1864 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

When national election day dawned at the fort, soldiers who were of legal age and were in camp, cast their votes in polls at their various regiments. Judges and clerks of the polls were elected by qualified voters when the polls opened. The members of the out-of-state regiments voted for their own state, county, and township officers. The final vote count in the total encampment for President was 1502 votes for Abraham Lincoln, Republican, and General George McClellan, who had been nominated by the Democrat Convention August 29, 1864, in Chicago, received 32 votes.169 Arkansas citizens were not allowed to vote as Congress still had not recognized Arkansas as part of the union.
There was an election in Fort Smith on November 19th for State Senator from this area. Senator Charles Milor had resigned

and F. H. Wolfe and H. L Holleman were candidates. H. L. Holleman won.

BLUNT RETURNS TO FORT SMITH

     General Blunt came into Fort Smith November 1864, in his usual whirlwind way. He was accompanied by Major General Herron, Colonel Sackett, Colonel Burris, Colonel Moonlight and Colonel Williams.
     The men had been fighting for twenty-three days, marching five hundred miles, day and night in rain and snow in an effort to keep Confederate General Sterling Price out of Kansas. Five battles had been fought. By the time the outnumbered Union troops had pushed the Confederates across the Arkansas River at Webbers Falls, half of that Rebel Army was unarmed, and out of the fifteen pieces of cannon taken to Kansas, only two were left.
     There was a celebration on the evening of November 10th. The different Kansas Regiments and the few Fort Smith citizens left in town. stopped by the houses the visiting officers were staying in called them out along with General's Thayer an Edwards and had a round of speeches and cheers.
      In late November, three Union soldiers who had escaped from the Confederate prison in Tyler Texas, came walking into Fort Smith. Robe Henderson, M. F. Parker, and J. J. Jones had previously been stationed in Fort Smith. They escaped October 27th and were on the road for twenty-six days. Rebels recaptured them near Waldron and robbed them of their clothes. As the Rebels were taking them back to Tyler, they escaped again and lived on acorns and corn until arriving in Fort Smith. The sick but happy soldiers reported that the Tyler prison, Camp Ford had 2,60 prisoners on six acres of campground.
     With winter setting in, it was observed that the troops at Fort Smith were well fixed for the weather to come. Their cabins were as good as, if not better than, two-thirds of the houses in Western Arkansas outside of the towns.
     For the few of Fort Smith civilian's population left though, food costs were exorbitant. A sack of flour that had come in from Fort Leavenworth, cost $40. $28 was for freight,$10 for flour and $2 for insurance.

FORT SMITH ORDERED ABANDONED

With no previous warning, Fort Smith was ordered abandoned on December 5th by Major General Edward Canby, Commander of the Military Division of the West Mississippi which involved Arkansas and the Gulf. This word fell like a thunderbolt. The order followed in the wake of the news that Major General Frederick Steele, Commander of the Department of Arkansas was to be relieved by Major General Joseph Reynolds.
Words condemning this decision erupted like geysers over the Union controlled part of the state. All-out efforts to stop this military decision were sent to anyone in Washington who had influence, by anyone it was felt could influence Washington. The ex-mayor of Fort Smith C. P. Bertrand, wrote President Lincoln on December 12 and said he wanted answers to three loaded questions which were: Does Canby mean to abandon the state? If so, would the President allow this? Did the President know that this meant the abandonment of one entire Congressional District and almost another and that two-thirds of the members and perhaps three- fourths of the Legislature, now in session in Little Rock, came from the district of the country to be abandoned? He further said that such policies came from replacing officers like General Steele who knew how to defend the country with men who were ignorant of the area like Canby!

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