"All Cut to Pieces and Gone to Hell": the Civil War, Race Relations, and the Battle of Poison Spring."All Cut to Pieces and Gone to Hell": The Civil War, Race Relations, and the Battle of Poison Spring The Battle of Poison Spring was fought during the American Civil War on April 18, 1864, in Ouachita County, Arkansas as part of the Camden Expedition. Dwindling supplies for his army at Camden forced Maj. Gen. . Edited by Mark K. Christ. (Little Rock, Ark.: August House Publishers, Inc., 2003. Pp. 147. Paper, $14.95, ISBN 0-87483-737-5; cloth, $23.95, ISBN 0-87483-736-7.) On April 18, 1864, an engagement took place to the west of Camden, Arkansas, that left dead and mutilated mu·ti·late tr.v. mu·ti·lat·ed, mu·ti·lat·ing, mu·ti·lates 1. To deprive of a limb or an essential part; cripple. 2. To disfigure by damaging irreparably: mutilate a statue. a disproportionate number of the First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Arkansas's equivalent to Tennessee's Fort Pillow Massacre serves as a Trans-Mississippi microcosm of the rise in levels of racial hatred evident once black troops became conspicuous in battle. The six essays collected in this book emerged from a conference held to discuss a recently discovered private letter describing the determination of the Confederates involved not to take black prisoners. Poison Spring (or Springs. perhaps a better choice in that water emerges from more than one place) supposedly got its name from a horse that died on the spot. But the events of April 18 were anticipated by a previous engagement, the Battle of Honey Springs The Battle of Honey Springs was an American Civil War battle, an important victory for Union forces in their efforts to gain control of the Indian Territory. The battle was also unique in the fact that white soldiers were the minority in both forces. , when the early Confederate belief that ex-slaves would not fight was rudely contradicted. The battlefield atrocities set in motion a black-flag mentality that continued even after the Civil War. The six essays cover different aspects of the story. Arkansas Tech University  This article or section is written like an .Please help [ rewrite this article] from a neutral point of view. Mark blatant advertising for , using . historian Thomas A. DeBlack puts the battle into the overall context of the Red River campaign The Red River Campaign or Red River Expedition consisted of a series of battles fought along the Red River in Louisiana during the American Civil War from March 10 to May 22, 1864. in Louisiana. University of Arkansas at Little Rock Established as Little Rock Junior College by the Little Rock School District in 1927, it became a private four-year institution, called Little Rock University, in 1957. It returned to public status in 1969 when it was merged into the University of Arkansas System under its present name. historian Carl H. Moneyhon shows that a heat-of-battle interpretation is inadequate when the wounded were executed and the dead mutilated. Ronnie A. Nichols, a former head of the Old State House Museum and an African American reenactor, begins by pondering the 1861 request of a Helena, Arkansas, white man that a company of blacks be raised to fight for the South and then follows the changing attitudes of both North and South. Frank Arey traces some of the motives of the Confederates back to the Honey Springs engagement, while Mark K. Christ analyzes the newly found letter. Lastly, Gregory J. W. Urwin of Temple University traces the continuing violence that followed the Poison Spring engagement. Notes appear at the end of each essay, and useful maps and illustrations are included. The index seems adequate. In short, the book fulfills its object of placing a vicious but little-known episode of the war into a broader context. Students of the war and of race relations will find these contributions useful. The springs of American history have all too often been poisoned by racism, so perhaps it was foreordained fore·or·dain tr.v. fore·or·dained, fore·or·dain·ing, fore·or·dains To determine or appoint beforehand; predestine. fore that troops on two sides, of different colors and nationalities (Choctaws were present, too), would come to this place to enact rituals of hate. Arkansas State University Arkansas State University, at Jonesboro; coeducational; chartered 1909; named State Agricultural and Mechanical College, 1925–33. In 1933 the school became Arkansas State College, and in 1967 it achieved university status and adopted its present name. MICHAEL B. DOUGAN |
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