Fort Smith: Little Gibraltar on the Arkansas (review)

286civil war history not likely to exert much influence north of the Red River nor east of the Sabine. The brevity of the selections, including Professor Nunn's twopage summary of Texas in the Civil War, militates against the possibility of original disclosures. This reviewer is forced to the conclusion that the avowed purpose of the publisher in filling a long existing void in Texas history has not been accomplished. Jack B. Scroggs North Texas State University Fort Smith: Little Gibraltar on the Arkansas. By Ed Bearss and Arrell M. Gibson. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969. Pp. 349. $6.95.) The subtitle of this book is an indulgence in hyperbole—Quartermaster Depot on the Arkansas would have been more accurate. But Fort Smith has been fortunate in its chroniclers. Bearss and Gibson have put together a well-researched and well-written account of a federal installation which existed in some form or other from 1817 to 1896. Drawing on the National Archives, the Territorial Papers, and files of Arkansas newspapers , they have given us more than this, however. The history of Fort Smith is clearly related to the development of the Southwest. From its origin in the trouble between the Osages and the Cherokee intruders, Fort Smith is seen in the broad context of the history of the area. We observe the application of our Indian policy, the development of a frontier community, and the role of the area in the Civil War. If the difficulties between the Osages and the immigrant Indians led to the establishment of Fort Smith, its location was due to the fact that Belle Point on the Arkansas represented the head of steamboat navigation on that river. This made it a natural site for a quartermaster depot for the Southwest. Other factors contributed to Fort Smith's longevity, particularly the lobbying powers of Arkansas politicians. They were mobilized to keep as large a garrison as possible at the fort, and as much construction underway as Congress would finance, thus providing the community which grew up around Fort Smith with a steady influx of federal money. The authors single out John Rogers, a typical frontier promoter type, and members of the Stokes Commission, as individuals who advanced the importance of Fort Smith in order to profit themselves. Certainly it would have been difficult to explain otherwise how money could have been poured into the construction of an elaborate fortification after the frontier had moved far beyond Belle Point. After a busy career in the 1840's and 1850's as a supply depot for the Mexican War and for California bound wagon trains, Fort Smith was seized by Arkansas troops weeks before the state seceded. It fell to a Union force in September, 1863. The Confederate troops, mostly Indians and frontiersmen, had been unable to halt the Union advance clue to BOOK REVIEWS287 their poor training and lack of equipment. Bearss and Gibson make clear that not conventional warfare but guerilla operations were their specialty . They made liie miserable for the Union garrison at Fort Smith and impeded efforts to keep open to it communication and supply lines. There is a little something in this book for everyone interested in the frontier Southwest and the Civil War. Here one can discover the cost of mules in 1860 and their superiority to oxen for freighting, get some insight on army life at a frontier post, and sympathize with government efforts to protect the interests of its Indian charges from the avarice of its own citizens. Admirers of True Grit and John Wayne will be pleased to learn that there is a Dardanelle in Yell County, and that an old barracks at Fort Smith provided the courtroom for Judge Isaac Parker and the jail from which he sent seventy men to the gallows. William T. Hagan State University College Fredonia, New York ...