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52 3 This Godforsaken Town July to October 1862 Curtis’s march through central Arkansas became known as “one of the most arduous and fatiguing of any made during the [C]ivil [W]ar.” Newspapers in Chicago and New York described the horrible conditions the soldiers endured while moving through the state, where Confederates blocked roads, using slave labor to fell trees across narrow passages to hinder the army’s progress. Plantation wells, the only source of cool, fresh water for the troops, were filled up or poisoned with dead animals. The Federals fought and cut their way through cypress swamps and cane breaks, where the Rebels took every opportunity to harass and delay the Union army’s advance.1 At Bayou de View, the Confederates fired the bridge, “but our boys drove them off and put out the fire,” allowing the prairie boys to reach the eastern shore on 8 July. As they moved through the bottomland swamp, where tupelo and cypress grew to enormous heights out of chalk brown water, the men caught their first glimpses of Spanish moss and cypress knees. On reaching the high ground near a plantation two miles south of the bayou, Wilson established camp. Swarms of mosquitoes attacked the men, exposing the vulnerable soldiers to malaria. Their only hopeful thoughts were of the supplies and transports awaiting them at Clarendon, twenty miles south on the Cache River.2 Already on half rations, and “nothing but ‘swamp’ water to drink and it most wretched,” the weakened Federal soldiers remained vulnerable to Rebel attacks. A sweltering sun greeted Curtis’s seven-mile-long column of troops on 8 July, and humidity from waterlogged ground weakened both infantryandcavalry,withtheformercausingmoreproblemstothefootsoldiers due to the dust created by the horses. Officers often moved the cavalry off the main road, taking long detours so as not to suffocate the infantry.3 July to october 1862 53 The heat and the dust created such suffering as only a drink of cold water could alleviate, but the men found nothing to quench their thirst. “Oh how we Suffer[ed] for want of Water,” wrote Packard, “and provisions on the long Marches. I Sucked water through the mud where the tadpoles were all Sort[s] & Sises and nothing in My Haversack to Eat but a few cracker crumbs for three days.” John Burke described a more desolate picture for his sister: On our march we suffered mor[e] for water than anything else. [O]n every plantation there is generely two or three wells which might have afforded us tolerably cool water[,] but our enemies would . . . fill up the wells with logs and dirt on our approach leaving only the muddy swamps and Bayous along the road. [T]his water was perfectly hot and almost putrid for the [S]ecesh would drive hogs and cattle into these places and then shoot them and leave them to season the water for us to drink[,] but it was the only chance for us and it was rendered palatable by a burning sun and dust that flew so thick that sometimes we could not see the horses on which we rode.4 The horror of the march faded for the Illinois cavalrymen near the junction of the Military and Cotton Plant Roads, where they “passed through a very small prarie, and the boys set up a shout of joy as if they had found an old acquaintance.”5 Taking the Military Road, the column moved slowly toward Clarendon, and what the Illinoisans thought would be provisions and water. The men reached the outskirts of the little river town by the evening of 9 July and went into camp, falling asleep as soon as they dismounted. The army entered an area of Arkansas known for black, sluggish bayous that appeared out of nowhere. Often clogged with logs and weeds, the banks overgrown with tangled vegetation, the mournful spots became breeding ground for mosquitoes and alligators. Clarendon rose out of the brambles on the east bank of the White River near the mouth of the Cache River. The town thrived as an important river port and overland trading center, and it quickly became the focal point of both Confederate and Union armies. The Fifth visited the town often while stationed at Helena. When the prairie boys woke the next morning, they learned that the navy’s boats had not deposited any supplies but had left Clarendon due to low water and moved farther south on the White River. The...

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