Draft:Action at Wallace's Ferry

The Action at Wallace's Ferry took place on June 26, 1864, near Big Creek, in Phillips County, Arkansas. A force of over 1,000 Confederate cavalry surprised a contingent of U.S. Army troops breakfasting at the crossing. Federal forces held on for several hours, despite being pinned against the creek with the Confederates placed between them and their base of operations in Helena. Eventually, a contingent of U.S. cavalry arrived on the battlefield, surprised the Confederates, and provided a corridor for the infantry and artillery to escape through.

The battle was notable for being one of the few during the American Civil War that had exclusively African-American troops on the U.S. side.

Background to the Action

The Arkansas Delta, in 1864, was a heated battleground between Confederates and U.S. military personnel, who were largely based in Helena, on the Mississippi River. Helena was a major recruitment and training center, particularly for African-American troops, who would constitute nearly half of U.S. forces in the Mississippi River basin by war's end.

Logistical issues, among other factors, pushed Federal commanders in Helena to seek methods to feed troops and refugees in Helena while also providing some patronage and benefits to connections in northern states. One of the methods used to meet these needs was the leasing of plantations owned by Confederate officers. African-Americans would be hired out to those plantations to help raise crops that would feed the people in and around Helena. It also ensured that Confederate allies would be deprived of their homes, property, and support from those farms.

Angered by this development, Confederate commanders began attacking their former plantations, burning or otherwise breaking up the buildings and driving off the people working there. One of those commanders was Colonel Archibald Dobbins, who would command Confederate troops at Wallace's Ferry.

To defray that threat to the plantations, a force was sent from Helena to Big Creek in hopes of breaking up Confederate forces in the area. That force would consist primarily of troops from the 56th U.S. Colored Infantry, 60th U.S. Colored Infantry, and Battery L, 2nd U.S. Colored Light Artillery. The 56th was originally the 4th Arkansas Infantry, African Descent, though it consisted of men drawn from Missouri. The 60th was originally the 1st Iowa, African Descent, and the artillerymen were originally enrolled as a Louisiana unit, though they were in fact from the Arkansas delta area. They left Helena on the night of August 25, marching through the night to arrive at Wallace's Ferry on Big Creek by morning.

Dobbins was one of two Confederate commanders in the area, the other being Gordon. The two met near Trenton and, aware of the U.S. presence, opted to cross Big Creek below the Federals and attack them at dawn.

The Action at Wallace's Ferry

The action took place beginning around dawn on August 26th, 1864. Having arrived at the ferry crossing, the U.S. commander took a small party across the creek to reconnoiter, then, finding no Confederates, re-crossed his men to the east side of the river and had them sit down to breakfast.

While breakfasting, Confederates attacked the U.S. troops. The initial assault created some confusion, but Federal forces rallied, formed fighting lines, and mounted a determined resistance. Confederate troops may have preferentially targeted white officers, as the overall commander, surgeon, and battery commander all died at the very outset of the fighting. In their stead, several non-commissioned officers stepped into leadership roles, creating one of the first instances in U.S. history where African-American soldiers had field command over units or portions of units under fire.

Despite outnumbering the U.S. force substantially (estimates place Federal strength at around 350 men to the Confederate's 1,000), Southerners were not able to overrun the federal position. After several hours of fighting, a column of U.S. cavalrymen, who had been sent downriver to Old Town Landing the night before, arrived behind the Confederates and mounted a surprise attack. Disorganized by this unexpected threat, Confederate forces were held at bay long enough for the trapped U.S. troops to retire in good order back towards Helena. On the way, they met reinforcements, including the 4th Minnesota Infantry, who had been hurrying out from Helena in response to the sounds of fighting. A smaller rear-guard action took place in the vicinity of modern-day Lexa before all troops were able to retire.

U.S. casualties were around 63 killed and wounded. Confederate losses are unknown but estimated by U.S. officers who participated in the battle to be substantially higher than those of the Federal forces engaged.

Aftermath

Conflict in the Delta continued after the action, but its ramifications were widely reported. In many instances in the history of African-American military service, Black units had to prove their fighting prowess when white units did not, and frequently praise for successful battles would be given to white units and not their Black allies. Wallace's Ferry was one of the few cases where there were not other white units on the field until the very last minutes, so the fighting skill and resolve could not be shunted to another unit. The engagement was reported in the New York Times as an example of what Black troops were capable of.

After the war, Archibald Dobbins appears to have moved to Brazil in hopes of establishing a community in a country where slavery was still legal. Though the details of his fate are unknow, he is believed to have died during one of the trips into the hinterland in hoped of establishing a colony for ex-Confederates.

Published Accounts

The engagement's importance to the conflict, despite its small size, is reflected in the full treatment of the engagement that appears in Joseph T. Wilson's history of black military service titled The Black Phalanx and published in 1890.

Conversely, there is an account of the battle written by John Newman Edwards, who published a biography of Confederate General Joseph O. Shelby, commander of forces in the vicinity of Wallace's Ferry, in 1867. In a heavily racially-tinged account, Edwards makes no mention of the Federal cavalry appearing behind the Confederate lines and credits only the white officers on the field among all U.S. Army personnel for maintaining order in a desperate situation, which he relates as being a brief but sharp affair.

Archaeology

In the 2011 and 2016, the Arkansas Archeological Survey made several attempts to locate and characterize the battlefield through systematic metal detector surveys in fields on the west side of Big Creek. Traces of the engagement were found, in the form of St. Louis Arsenal pattern bullets and other militaria, though the main scene of the fighting has yet to be identified.