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    Countering Irregular Activity In Civil War Arkansas - A Case Study
    Countering Irregular Activity In Civil War Arkansas - A Case Study
    Countering Irregular Activity In Civil War Arkansas - A Case Study
    Ebook74 pages51 minutes

    Countering Irregular Activity In Civil War Arkansas - A Case Study

    By Colonel C. Collett

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    Civil War Arkansas endured many forms of irregular or guerilla warfare including activity that approached insurgency. It was a complex arena that resembles the present day and it illustrates much of contemporary counterinsurgency doctrine.
    Arkansas was a Southern state with a significant Unionist population and this divide fueled and shaped much of the conflict. Arkansas was unique in that the Confederate commander seeking to make up for conventional weakness, initiated guerilla warfare directed at Union forces. In response, Union commanders who were merely to protect lines of communication responded with punitive actions against individuals and communities which did little to reduce guerilla activity and served to alienate the local population.
    As the war progressed, however, guerilla bands shifted from military targets becoming progressively more terrorist, criminal, and once a Unionist state government was installed, insurgent. The Union army’s role also changed as the main war moved on from the Mississippi basin and Arkansas became an early field for Lincoln’s plan to reincorporate rebel states. The army’s emphasis thus shifted to extending Federal authority and its organization and tactics evolved into a successful combination of locally raised troops, intelligence led operations, isolation of the guerillas, and political reconciliation.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGolden Springs Publishing
    Release dateAug 15, 2014
    ISBN9781782896425
    Countering Irregular Activity In Civil War Arkansas - A Case Study
    Author

    Colonel C. Collett

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      Book preview

      Countering Irregular Activity In Civil War Arkansas - A Case Study - Colonel C. Collett

       This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHING—www.picklepartnerspublishing.com

      To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books – picklepublishing@gmail.com

      Or on Facebook

      Text originally published in 2007 under the same title.

      © Pickle Partners Publishing 2014, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

      Publisher’s Note

      Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

      We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

      Countering Irregular Activity in Civil War Arkansas—A Case Study

      By

      Colonel C. Collett

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Contents

      TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

      ABSTRACT 5

      COUNTERING IRREGULAR ACTIVITY IN CIVIL WAR ARKANSAS—A CASE STUDY 6

      Context 8

      Outline of the Regular War in Arkansas 10

      Outline of the Irregular War in Arkansas 15

      The Union Response 20

      Conclusions 37

      Diplomatic 40

      Military 41

      Economic 42

      Information 43

      REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 45

      ABSTRACT

      Civil War Arkansas endured many forms of irregular or guerilla warfare including activity that approached insurgency. It was a complex arena that resembles the present day and it illustrates much of contemporary counterinsurgency doctrine.

      Arkansas was a Southern state with a significant Unionist population and this divide fueled and shaped much of the conflict. Arkansas was unique in that the Confederate commander seeking to make up for conventional weakness, initiated guerilla warfare directed at Union forces. In response, Union commanders who were merely to protect lines of communication responded with punitive actions against individuals and communities which did little to reduce guerilla activity and served to alienate the local population.

      As the war progressed, however, guerilla bands shifted from military targets becoming progressively more terrorist, criminal, and once a Unionist state government was installed, insurgent. The Union army’s role also changed as the main war moved on from the Mississippi basin and Arkansas became an early field for Lincoln’s plan to reincorporate rebel states. The army’s emphasis thus shifted to extending Federal authority and its organization and tactics evolved into a successful combination of locally raised troops, intelligence led operations, isolation of the guerillas, and political reconciliation.

      COUNTERING IRREGULAR ACTIVITY IN CIVIL WAR ARKANSAS—A CASE STUDY

      During the American Civil War the Confederate states initiated many forms of irregular military activity. First, at one end of the spectrum, were the operations of regular cavalry raiders against the operational depth of the Federal armies. Such operations were considered legitimate by both sides, were discrete actions, and the Union army countered them by essentially conventional ways and means. Second, there were protracted operations by legally constituted partisan ranger units behind Union lines who, while melting into the population when necessary, nevertheless targeted the military capability of the enemy and performed under the direction of the conventional force. A third category, however, operated exclusively at the other end of the spectrum; several states experienced vicious and chaotic turmoil produced by independent groups of un-uniformed, well-armed men professing to act in the name of the Confederacy and in defense of their homeland against the Union invader. Uniquely in Arkansas, such bands originated in an official attempt to generate an insurgency and unhinge the Union effort to capture and then govern the state. Nevertheless, most of these bands soon drifted outside formal control and even acted against Confederate government authority. Consequently, here emerged a complex mix of activities tending to anarchy and more reminiscent of the modern day environment in Iraq than to the little war of Napoleonic Peninsular Spain or the revolutionary insurgencies of the twentieth century. Some activities were targeted directly at Union forces while others were aimed at undermining the Federal regime’s authority by, for example, attacking the mail system. Furthermore, in Confederate attempts to seize back territorial power, enclaves of Union supporters were deliberately terrorized to force them to flee the state. Similarly, both Union and Confederate civilian populations were frequently subjected to robbery, intimidation, and sometimes murder. On occasion, such actions were to sustain a band logistically, but frequently they were purely lawless acts for personal gain.{1}

      This variety of activities and the diversity of Confederate motivations behind them have led to a confusion of terminology both at the time and in the histories written subsequently. Clearly, the actors were irregular

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