HISTORY
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The Red River Campaign in spring 1864 initially aimed to take Shreveport, but instead of marching triumphantly to victory, Gen. Frederick Steele and his troops were running for their lives, fending off Confederate forces and worsening flood conditions across the area. The monthold Camden Expedition had already cost the lives of nearly two thousand Union troops. The coming battle at Jenkins’ Ferry would determine whether Union forces would survive their catastrophically poor planning.
Days earlier, caught offguard by their own hunger and desperation, Union forces had fallen into a trap at Poison Springs near Camden and later cut off from reinforcements in Pine Bluff and any hope of escape to the east by disaster at Marks’ Mills.
Confederate troops under the command of Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith swarmed after Steele. Gen. James Fagan and the 1st Arkansas Cavalry rode outward from their victory at Marks Mills while infantry under Gen. Sterling Price and cavalry under Gen. John S. Marmaduke rode northward.
On April 26, Union forces abandoned Camden in the dead of night, hoping to reach the safety of Little Rock. The flooded Saline River now threatened to block their escape.
The Saline River runs west of Little Rock south into what is now western Grant County before curving toward the southeast into Cleveland County. At that time, the area was still considered part of Saline and Jefferson counties. The heavy rains that had dogged the Union effort into southern Arkansas had turned the marshy lands surrounding the Saline into a torrent of muddy water that threatened to sweep away any men or equipment that attempted to cross the river bottom.
Confederate forces sensed Steele’s desperation. It was now a race to see who could reach the river first. Union troops arrived at Jenkins’ Ferry (about 13 miles southsouthwest of present-day Sheridan) on April 29. With no bridge or ferry to bring troops to safety, Union forces desperately tried to piece together a pontoon bridge to get their 12,000 troops across the Saline River while watching the rising floodwaters before them and listening to approaching Confederates behind them.
Nearly 10,000 Confederate troops now charged toward the Saline River, blinded by thick fog and heavy rains and slowed by mud and thick forest. In the confusion, Confederate forces could not communicate with one another to concentrate their attack. They arrived a little at a time, firing all along the way. Marmaduke’s forces were blunted by a spirited rear-guard defense from the 2nd Kansas Infantry, a newly commissioned African-American unit, and the 29th Iowa Infantry. Fagan’s troops continued westward, vainly trying to find the Union Army.
By the morning of April 30, Steele’s forces began crossing the Saline River and had herded themselves into a narrow opening which only a fraction of Confederate forces could attack at one time. The confusion of the Confederate attack and the low visibility from the weather gave Union forces the precious hours they needed to withdraw. Up to the last minute, Union forces held off the Confederates until their entire army slipped away by the early afternoon.
Confederate forces had driven the Union Army out of the area at the cost of over one thousand of their own troops and 700 Union troops. While Union forces would not venture back into the region, the Confederates lost their last, best opportunity to change the tide of the war in Arkansas at Jenkins’ Ferry. The battle site is now a state park.
