Battle Of Pine Bluff Essay
The Battle of Pine Bluff took place in Jefferson county. At 8:00 am, October 25, Col. Powell Clayton sent a company of cavalry toward Princeton which ran into Brig. Gen. John S. Marmaduke’s men advancing. After some fire, the Rebels, under a flag of truce, came forward demanding surrender. Lt. M.F. Clark answered that there would be no surrender. Clayton slowly retreated back into Pine Bluff. In the meantime, about 300 African-American soldiers rolled cotton bales out of the warehouses for barricades to protect court square. After failing to take the square by force, the Rebels attempted to burn out the Union forces but to no avail. The Confederate forces retired, leaving Pine Bluff to the Federals. There were 4 forces that engaged in this
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Newton’s division to approach Pine Bluff from the southeast while Marmaduke led the remaining Confederate troops in from the west, trapping the Yankees between the converging Confederate forces and the Arkansas River.A patrol from the Fifth Kansas encountered Marmaduke’s advance on the Princeton Road at about nine o’clock in the morning on October 25 and sent word to Clayton in Pine Bluff. The Union commander ordered most of the horses of his two regiments corralled within the courthouse square and sent for about 300 freed slaves within Pine Bluff’s contraband camp (contraband being freedmen or slaves who had been brought within Union lines) to roll cotton bales from the city’s warehouses and form breastworks to block the streets leading into the courthouse square.Outlying Union forces, many of whom had been sniping from houses within Pine Bluff at the approaching Rebels, fell back toward the courthouse area before steady pressure from Marmaduke’s troopers. The makeshift cotton-bale fortifications proved a formidable obstacle, and the Confederate attack stalled before the Union rifle and artillery fire that commanded the roads leading into the courthouse square. Clayton made further use of the contraband camp, dispatching some 200 black men to haul enough water from the Arkansas River to enable the Yankee garrison to hold out for forty-eight hours if cut off from their water
Newton’s division to approach Pine Bluff from the southeast while Marmaduke led the remaining Confederate troops in from the west, trapping the Yankees between the converging Confederate forces and the Arkansas River.A patrol from the Fifth Kansas encountered Marmaduke’s advance on the Princeton Road at about nine o’clock in the morning on October 25 and sent word to Clayton in Pine Bluff. The Union commander ordered most of the horses of his two regiments corralled within the courthouse square and sent for about 300 freed slaves within Pine Bluff’s contraband camp (contraband being freedmen or slaves who had been brought within Union lines) to roll cotton bales from the city’s warehouses and form breastworks to block the streets leading into the courthouse square.Outlying Union forces, many of whom had been sniping from houses within Pine Bluff at the approaching Rebels, fell back toward the courthouse area before steady pressure from Marmaduke’s troopers. The makeshift cotton-bale fortifications proved a formidable obstacle, and the Confederate attack stalled before the Union rifle and artillery fire that commanded the roads leading into the courthouse square. Clayton made further use of the contraband camp, dispatching some 200 black men to haul enough water from the Arkansas River to enable the Yankee garrison to hold out for forty-eight hours if cut off from their water