1824: The Arkansas War

CHAPTER 34

Arkansas Post

By the time Sheff 's 3rd Infantry got close enough to get a good view of Arkansas Post, the fort was already under siege by the United States Army. Had been, in fact, for at least two hours. They'd been able to hear the cannons from miles away.

Now that Sheff could actually see the Post, he realized that the U.S. forces had begun a mass assault. He'd been puzzled by the fact that the Laird had been moving them so slowly this morning until the quick march of the last two miles. The regiments had needed less than four days to complete the march from New Antrim to their camp upriver the night before. They'd been up and ready by five o'clock this morning and could certainly have reached the Post before the siege had barely gotten under way. Instead, the Laird had taken four hours to cover less than ten miles. For Arkansas regiments, except for the last stretch, that amounted to a leisurely promenade.

Now, fitting the sight with what he already knew of their battle plan, he understood. Sheff wondered if he'd ever learn to be that cold-blooded and calculating.

He wasn't sure. But he'd work on it.

It all made sense, of course. Half of the U.S. forces would be tangled up in the assault on the Chickasaws forted up in the Post when the Arkansas regiments got within fighting distance. Harrison would have to match an equal number of regiments against his Confederate opponents until he could call off the assault-which was a lot easier said than done. By delaying the march, Driscol had partially nullified the Americans' numerical advantage.

It was tough on the Chickasaws, of course. But Sheff didn't see where the army of Arkansas was under any obligation whatsoever to sustain worse casualties in order to rescue them from their own pigheadedness. And he suspected the Laird's cold-bloodedness ran still deeper than that. The Chickasaws were notorious all over the frontier for their pugnacity and independence. Sheff was pretty sure the Laird had no problem at all with the idea of bleeding them half dry before letting them into the Confederacy.

Neither did Sheff, come down to it. The Chickasaws were also notorious-among black people, anyway-for being the one southern Indian tribe that had taken to slavery wholeheartedly. More precisely, they'd traditionally used lots of slaves. The only change in the past few decades was that most of their slaves were now black people purchased on the market instead of other Indians captured in battle.

With their ingrained warrior culture, much more akin to that of Plains Indians than tribes like the Cherokees or the Choctaws, Chickasaw men didn't do much work. Except for fighting and hunting, they thought the proper role for a man was to loll about while the women did all the real labor. So it was hardly surprising that Chickasaw women wanted as many slaves as they could get their hands on.

In short, as far as Sheff was concerned, the Chickasaws were the southern Indian equivalent of South Carolina gentry. Sheff was just about as likely to shed tears over their plight as he was to shed them over the difficulties of men like John Calhoun.

Let 'em bleed. Better them than the regiments. The Arkansan soldiers would bleed plenty enough before this day was over.

"Oh, God damn it," muttered General Harrison. "I didn't think they'd get here this soon."

From his vantage point on one of the artillery berms east of Arkansas Post, he'd just gotten a glimpse of the oncoming Arkansas forces. They were using the well-built military road that followed the north bank of the Arkansas, which placed them on the same side of the river as most of his own army.

He indulged himself in one of those moments of silent cursing that seemed thus far inseparable from the Arkansas campaign. Curses aimed, this time, at the American legislatures of times past.

Congress, in its infinite wisdom, had drastically reduced the size of the U.S. Army in 1815 and again in 1820. The reductions had cut infantry and artillery to the bone and had eliminated the cavalry altogether as an independent branch of service. Not even dragoon units had been kept.

The measure had seemed sensible at the time. Cavalry was expensive to maintain, and neither the War of Independence nor the War of 1812 had seen much in the way of cavalry action. The American military tradition was an infantry and artillery tradition, with cavalry as an afterthought.

That might be fine and dandy, fighting in the relatively cramped terrain of the eastern seaboard amidst a largely friendly populace. Here, fighting in the Delta across the Mississippi, in a countryside whose population was implacably hostile, Harrison was feeling a desperate need for strong cavalry forces.

He was blind, damnation! He had no way to determine what might be happening in the surrounding terrain, much farther than his own or his officers' eyes could see with an eyeglass. He'd learned quickly that sending out the small dragoon units he had in his command was pointless. They'd either get killed within five miles or be sent in hasty retreat.

The Delta here in Arkansas was still mostly natural wilderness. The thick woods and underbrush seemed to be crawling with Choctaws. They were quite at home in the terrain and were burning for revenge on the Americans who had just driven them out of Mississippi.

Brown's Raiders were out there, too, somewhere. Harrison's soldiers, especially the militiamen who were usually their target, had developed a real dread of the fanatical abolitionist irregulars.

"Should we call off the assault, sir?" asked Lieutenant Fleming.

Harrison's eyes went back to the fort. He'd spent the first two hours after daybreak bombarding the east wall of Arkansas Post with most of his artillery. Field guns, unfortunately, not one of them bigger than twelve-pounders, and only three of those. Still, they'd done an adequate job of clearing a way in for the infantry, once they got past the outer fortifications. The walls were wooden logs, after all, not stonework. Harrison had been able to move his guns up to what amounted to point-blank range for artillery, since there was no counterbattery fire coming from the Post. Either the Chickasaws didn't know how to use cannons, or-more likely-the Arkansans had taken them out when they'd abandoned the fort. No point leaving the valuable guns in the hands of savages who'd ignore them anyway.

The infantry assault was now in full steam, with both the 3rd and the 5th Infantries engaged. They'd suffered some casualties, but they'd gotten the fascines in place and were on the verge of storming into the fort through the breaches made by the artillery bombardment.

That would be bloody fighting, in there, against Chickasaws. But Harrison was quite confident the two regiments could manage the task. He'd had all of his howitzers raining shells into the Post during the artillery bombardment. Between that and the inevitable tendency of Indian forces to disintegrate into small units under pressure, the Chickasaws would not be able to put up a well-organized and centrally directed defense.

As individual warriors they'd be ferocious enough, as Indians normally were. But it didn't matter. It never had and it never would. Harrison couldn't think of a single battle between coherent and well-led white military forces and Indians in two hundred years that hadn't ended with a victory for the whites and enormous casualties for the Indians. Leaving aside cases of ambush or surprise, or poor leadership, or completely disproportionate numbers-none of which applied here.

"No, Lieutenant. We'll have Arkansas Post within two or three hours. I want that fort. We need a solid base from which to continue the campaign upriver, and it's far better to seize one of the enemy's-especially something this well built-than have to construct one of our own."

He turned to summon the commanders of the 1st and 7th but saw that Colonels McNeil and Arbuckle were already trotting up.

"You've seen them, I assume?" McNeil and Arbuckle had enjoyed a perch on the next berm over.

McNeil simply nodded. Arbuckle, as usual, was verbose.

"Two regiments, I figure, General. They'll be up to strength better than ours, they being so close to home and us so far away. Call it twelve hundred men to our thousand. But John and I can stand them off, long enough"-here came a sneer and a backward wave of the hand-"for that horde of militiamen to finally work up the nerve to join the fight. After that-"

Harrison disliked talkative officers in general, and Arbuckle in particular. "Spare me the obvious, please," he said impatiently. "The militias won't be much good, but there are three thousand of them. If you and Colonel McNeil can fix the enemy in place, Colonel Arbuckle, I can get the militias up soon enough to simply overwhelm the foe. I'll give you artillery support, also, once the 3rd and the 5th are into the fort. As much as I can, at any rate, keeping in mind that I need to hold most of the guns by the river in case the Arkansans bring down their steamboats."

Arbuckle opened his mouth, but Harrison cut him off. "Be about it, gentlemen. Now."

Sheff Parker was attached as a second lieutenant to the leading company of the 3rd Infantry, commanded by Captain Charles Dupont. And the 3rd was leading the march down the road to Arkansas Post, with the 2nd following behind. So he had as good a view as anyone of the evolutions of the American forces as they drew near Arkansas Post. He also had a better angle from which to examine the enemy now, since the military road curved to the north, here, just half a mile from the Post. Most of the American units were no longer out of sight behind the bulk of the fort.

They were:

Reacting pretty much the way the Laird had predicted. Driscol, either because of his own temperament or because of Robert Ross's coaching-both, most likely-was not in the habit of keeping his officers in the dark regarding his plans. He'd thought that Harrison would take the risk of dividing his forces rather than ignoring the Chickasaws altogether and concentrating everything against the Arkansans.

That was foolish. Concepts that had seemed abstract and half unreal in Ross's seminars now took on real life and concrete weight. It wasn't just simply that "division of forces" lowered the numerical strength of a military force. Now that Sheff could see an enemy actually doing it, on a real battlefield, he could fully understand something else Ross had told them.

Battlefields were incipient chaos, just waiting to happen. The noise alone-they were still hundreds of yards from the fighting-was numbing to the mind as well as deafening to the ears. Add to that the clouds of gunsmoke that would soon be obscuring everything, the shrieks and screams of injured and frightened men, the confused and half-heard orders of officers trying to maintain control in a tornado "Dividing your forces" meant doubling the demands on your brain and nerves at the same time as you lessened your ability to act. It wasn't impossible, as a tactic. In fact, the Laird was planning to do it himself if the opportunity arose. But it did require, as a supposition, that your army was not only well trained but also had an officer corps that was accustomed to working together and operating independently when needed.

The first might be true of the American regulars, here. They'd find out soon enough. But the second wouldn't be.

Couldn't be. Until a few months ago, these American regiments had been scattered in posts all over the country, and it was a country that filled a good part of a continent. Many of those officers had never worked together, and even the ones who had, hadn't done so since the end of the war with Britain ten years ago.

"Never forget something, gentlemen," Robert Ross had told them in one of the seminars. "When you read accounts of a battle written afterward, it all seems very primitive. The actions of men with, it would seem, not much more in the way of sagacity than a six-year-old child."

He stood, then, and began gesturing. His right hand straight out, forefinger pointing down. "You, remain here."

His left hand, forefinger pointing out. "You, move around to the left-that way-and go over there."

He brought both fingers together. "Then, attack the enemy together."

He dropped his hands and gave them a smile. "Doesn't seem like much, does it? Walk a straight line while rubbing your stomach. Any child can do as much."

There'd been a little titter of a laugh. Ross had shared in the humor for a moment. But the smile faded soon enough.

"Yes, very simple indeed. But you'll be trying to do it under the worst imaginable conditions. Conditions that are literally impossible to describe adequately in mere words. Conditions that will hammer your senses, hammer your body, and certainly destroy bodies around you, if not your own; conditions that will leave your mind grasping for sanity. And all the while, as officers, you'll be expected and required to think and act coherently. Not only for yourself, but as leaders of men. Imagine, if you will, trying to walk a straight line while rubbing your stomach, in the middle of a house on fire and collapsing around you-and making sure all the men following you are doing the same."

The British general resumed his seat at the table. "And now-O ye military geniuses-you propose to divide your forces as well. So you have twice as much to keep track of, and worry about, in the middle of all that."

The laugh that time had been more than a titter.

Ross shrugged. "It can be done, mind you. Even done brilliantly. But it's the sort of thing that requires a good, experienced army and very good officers-and all of them with the mutual confidence that comes from joint experience. To put it another way, it's no trick for amateurs, or even professionals who are no longer or never were in peak condition."

They were five hundred yards off, now. Sheff could see the lead companies of the nearest American regiment trying to form a line across the road, barring the Arkansans from coming to the fort's relief.

They weren't going to manage it in time, he didn't think. Colonel Jones would follow standard Arkansas practice of coming to within three hundred yards of the foe before ordering the regiment into line formation. That was something General Ross had his doubts about, Sheff knew. But it was a tactical issue that the British general wasn't going to argue with a soldier of Driscol's experience if the Laird thought his army could move quickly enough to manage the risky maneuver. The Americans didn't have that much more in the way of cavalry than the Arkansans, after all.

The terrain wasn't bad, once you got off the road. Not soggy at all, this far into summer. There weren't any trees, either, and not much in the way of brush, since the garrison of the Post had kept the terrain clear within half a mile of the fort's walls. But it was still rough enough that not even the American infantry would be in good position when the clash came, much less their artillery.

Sheff could see American artillerymen in the distance, struggling to move some of the cannons from the berms where Harrison had positioned them to bombard the Post. The enemy commander must have separated his artillery units from the infantry regiments they'd normally be attached to, in order to mass all of his guns for the assault on the fort. It had probably seemed like a good idea at the time. But he'd pay the price for it now.

"Quick march!" came Colonel Jones's piercing voice from behind. "Artillery, up! "

Sheff doubled the pace while he and Captain Dupont led the men off the road itself-Dupont to the left, away from the river, Sheff to the right-so the field artillery could pass through the ranks and take up position at the front. Even with their rougher footing, the 3rd was still advancing very rapidly. The Laird always thought like a sergeant. Whatever else his army could or couldn't do, the one thing it could do superbly was move.

Harrison was dismayed to see how quickly the two Arkansas regiments were coming into position. He'd been warned about that by Colonel Zachary Taylor-both in person, shortly before the colonel had left for Missouri, and in his written reports of the clash with Crittenden.

Harrison had discounted most of it. Taylor had a reputation among some circles in the U.S. officer corps-the ones who were concentrated in Harrison's own army, as it happened-for becoming obsessed with minutiae at the expense of the bigger sweep of things. That made him a superb trainer of garrison troops, granted, as even his longtime antagonists Colonels McNeil and Arbuckle would admit. But they'd also pointed out to Harrison, when he'd discussed Taylor's reports with them, that Zachary Taylor had not much of a reputation as a fighting commander. Certainly nothing compared with Harrison's own demonstrated skills.

Most of that latter, Harrison had also discounted as the inevitable flattery of subordinate officers to their commander. Still, it was all true enough. Taylor's combat record in the war with Britain had been respectable but hardly distinguished. Whereas Harrison had been the victor in two of the major battles of the war, Tippecanoe and the Thames.

Today, watching the celerity and precision with which the Arkansans were maneuvering their infantry and their artillery, Harrison was developing an uneasy feeling. He'd thought of this war as being, in its essence, not much different from the campaigns he'd fought against the British and their Indian allies in the northwestern theater during the War of 1812. A mass of Indians-fundamentally undisciplined and disorganized, even if fired with zeal by Tecumseh-with a small core of British regulars who'd been as much exasperated as helped by the actions of their allies.

But he hadn't yet seen a single Indian since he'd arrived in Arkansas, except for the Chickasaws who'd so foolishly gotten themselves trapped in Arkansas Post. That was, of course, another predictable trait of the savages. No matter how many times the United States proved to them otherwise-you'd think Jackson at the Horseshoe Bend would have settled the matter for all time-Indians still had a near-mystical faith in the value of fortifications.

Which, admittedly, did well enough against militias-just as the forts of settlers were usually good enough to withstand Indian raids. But against trained and disciplined regulars, supported by artillery, not even something as well built as Arkansas Post could be held against a superior force.

That there were Indian warriors out there in the Arkansas countryside around him, Harrison didn't doubt in the least. If nothing else, he had the ambushes encountered by his small mounted reconnaissance parties to prove it to him. But that was how they were fighting-as irregulars, not as an integral part of the Arkansas Army. If the Americans broke and ran, their Choctaw and Cherokee allies would savage the fleeing troops. But so long as Harrison's men stood their ground, it would be a straight-up fight between regular armies.

Very much, in short, the sort of war that Jacob Brown and Winfield Scott had fought farther east on the Niagara front. And Harrison was now pretty sure, watching the oncoming enemy, that beneath Brown's claim of illness when he retired, and Scott's histrionic claims of political principle when he did the same, something much more darkly practical had been lurking.

They didn't think the Arkansas War was going to be anything but a bloodbath. The sort of bloodbath they'd faced willingly at the Chippewa and Lundy's Lane when they'd seen the survival of the nation at stake. But not something they felt the need or desire to go through again, for purposes that were considerably less sublime. As even Harrison-even President Clay, for that matter-would readily admit. Only John C. Calhoun, on the American side, thought this war was being fought over fundamental principles.

"Move it!" Harrison bellowed at the two artillery batteries he'd ordered out of the berms in support of McNeil's and Arbuckle's regiments. "God damn you, move it!"

1824: TheArkansasWar