Honoring the Women of the Confederacy

Monument to the Women of the Confederacy, Camden, Arkansas

Standing prominently in front of the Ouachita County Courthouse, Camden, Arkansas, is this Unusual monument which gives much deserved homage to "Our Confederate Women."  The eloquent inscription on one side reads: 

TO THE CONFEDERATE WOMEN
WHOSE PIOUS MINISTRATION
TO OUR WOUNDED SOLDIERS,
SOOTHED THE LAST HOURS OF THOSE
WHO DIED FAR FROM THE OBJECT
OF THEIR TENDEREST LOVE;
WHOSE DOMESTIC LABORS
CONTRIBUTED MUCH TO SUPPLY
THE WANTS OF OUR DEFENDERS
IN THE FIELD; WHOSE ZEALOUS
FAITH IN OUR CAUSE SHONE
A GUIDING STAR UNDIMMED
BY THE DARKEST CLOUDS OF WAR;
WHOSE FORTITUDE SUSTAINED
THEM UNDER ALL THE PRIVATIONS
TO WHICH THEY WERE SUBJECTED;
AND WHOSE PATRIOTISM
WILL TEACH THEIR CHILDREN TO
EMULATE THE DEEDS OF THEIR SIRES.

On the other side of the monument are these words:  

THEIR INSPIRATION TRANSFORMED

THE GLOOM OF DEFEAT INTO THE

HOPE OF THE FUTURE AND THEIR
MEMORY SHALL NOT BE FORGOTTEN
EVEN IN THE HOURS OF PEACE. 

A third inscription states that the monument was erected by the veterans of the Hugh McCollum Camp 778, aided by the Grinstead Chapter, United Daughters of the Confederacy and Ouachita County, Camden, Arkansas in 1914.

A similar but much more ornate monument to the Women of the Confederacy stands on the grounds of the Arkansas state capitol in Little Rock. 

 

Confederates are Victorious at the Battle of Poison Spring, Arkansas

In the spring of 1864, invading Union troops, led by Major General Fred Steele, occupied the town of Camden, Arkansas. Upon learning that the Confederates had stores of corn about twenty miles up the Prairie D’Ane-Camden Road on White Oak Creek, General Steel sent a “foraging party” to take the food supplies from the Southerners. The foragers, 600 strong, took four cannon and 198 wagons with them. Led by Colonel James M. Williams, they sacked and plundered Confederate provisions they found on farms and plantations.

With their wagons groaning under 5000 bushels of corn, plus other contraband they had stolen, the Union raiders regrouped at White Oak Creek. Early the next day they were joined by a 501-man relief force of infantry, cavalry and two additional artillery pieces. But even with reinforcements, the Yankee thieves would prove to be no match for the defending Southerners.

On the morning of April 18, the despoilers were stopped by a roadblock near Poison Spring. There they faced Confederate Brigadier General John Sappington Marmaduke with 3,600 cavalrymen with twelve cannon. The horsemen were from Arkansas, Missouri and Texas, as well as Colonel Tandy Walker’s Choctaw Brigade from the Indian Territory – now Oklahoma.

The entire Yankee force was put to flight, being chased for two and a half miles before the Confederates stopped their pursuit.

The Union lost all of their 198 wagons; the Confederates got back all of their corn. Northern casualties were 301 men killed, wounded and missing. Confederate losses were estimated at 114.

Some the captured Yankee Infantrymen from Kansas did not make it back due to revenge killings by Confederates from the border regions and scalpings by Native Americans in Confederate service whose homes in the Indian Territory had been raided by the Kansas troops.

According to Civil War Historian Dale Cox, "One Confederate participant wrote after the battle that he saw black Union soldiers being killed by Choctaw warriors fighting with the 1st and 2nd Choctaw Regiments of the 2nd Indian Brigade. These warriors were outraged over raids carried out by Union soldiers from Fort Smith, Arkansas, into the Choctaw Nation earlier that year. Homes had been burned, crops destroyed, family possessions looted, women and children harmed or left homeless and men killed...."

Reports of other eyewitnesses of the Battle at Poison Spring tell of Union soldiers of the 1st Kansas Colored desperately clinging to their weapons as they fled the battlefield. These men would still have been considered armed combatants, not prisoners of war. This is reminiscent of reports from Fort Pillow, Tennessee, where black Union POWs were allegedly killed by Confederate troops.

Today, Poison Spring Historic Battlefield near Bragg City, Ouachita County, Arkansas, preserves a small portion of the site.

Photos and story by J. Stephen Conn

Southern Eloquence

On the north side of the Harrison, Arkansas town square is this monument to you young men from Boone County who fought and died, defending their homeland from northern aggressors during the War Between the States.

The inscription on the monument speaks not only for the fallen heroes of the Lost Cause, but also of a lost noble mindset and eloquence which is seldom seen or heard in today's world:

THIS MONUMENT PERPETUATES THE MEMORY

OF THOSE TRUE TO THE INSTINCTS OF THEIR BIRTH

FAITHFUL TO THE TEACHINGS OF THEIR FATHERS

CONSTANT IN THEIR LOVE FOR THE STATE

DIED IN THE PERFORMANCE OF THEIR DUTY

WHO HAVE GLORIFIED A FALLEN CAUSE

BY THE SIMPLE MANHOOD OF THEIR LIVES

THE PATIENT ENDURANCE OF SUFFERING

AND THE HEROISM OF DEATH

AND WHO IN THE DARK HOURS OF IMPRISONMENT

IN THE HOPELESSNESS OF THE HOSPITAL

IN THE SHORT SHARP AGONY OF THE FIELD

FOUND SUPPORT AND CONSOLATION IN THE BELIEF

THAT AT HOME THEY WOULD NOT BE FORGOTTEN

LET THE STANGER WHO MAY IN FUTURE TIMES

READ THIS INSCRIPTION

RECOGNIZE THAT THESE WERE MEN

WHOM POWER COULD NOT CORRUPT

WHOM DEATH COULD NOT TERRIFY

WHOM DEFEAT COULD NOT DISHONOR

AND LET THEIR VIRTUES PLEAD FOR JUST JUDGMENT

OF THE CASE IN WHICH THEY PERISHED

LET THE ARKANSAWYER OF ANOTHER GENERATION

REMEMBER THAT THE STATE TAUGHT THEM

HOW TO LIVE AND HOW TO DIE

AND THAT FROM THEIR BROKEN FORTUNES

SHE HAS PRESENTED FOR THEIR CHILDREN

THE PRICELESS TREASURE OF THEIR MEMORIES

TEACHING ALL WHO MAY CLAIM THE SAME BIRTHRIGHT

THAT TRUTH, COURAGE AND PATRIOTISM ENDURE FOREVER