Party Time in Fort Smith, Arkansas

Of late, I have been reading volume one of The Butterfield Overland Mail, 1857-1869, part of a three-volume work by Roscoe P. Conkling and Margaret B. Conkling. Reading about old trails and other transportation routes has always been fascinating to me, but the books also give some insight into trans-Mississippi culture on the eve of the Civil War. The following passage tells about the reaction of Fort Smith residents to a historic moment in time:

“The first west-bound Overland Mail from Saint Louis arrived at Fort Smith at five minutes after two o’clock on the morning of Sunday, September 19, 1858. As already stated, the passenger list included John Butterfield Sr.; Hugh Crocker, Waterman L. Ormsby, and Judge J. F. Wheeler and family of Fort Smith. Mr. Butterfield was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Memphis mail had arrived fifteen minutes in advance of the mail from Saint Louis. Though both mails arrived at such an early hour on Sunday morning, the news spread rapidly and soon house windows were illuminated, horns were blown and general excitement prevailed. Many of the inhabitants crowded around the mail coach to get a glimpse of the first west-bound mail bags….” The Conkling’s continue by quoting from the Fort Smith Times of September 22, 1858: “’While the mail was being made ready a general salute in honor of the event was fired from the canon [sic] of the city by a party stationed for the purpose, after which the mail for California was started, amidst the cheering and rejoicing of a large number of our citizens, who soon afterward adjourned to champagne at Everle’s where all spent a pleasant time till broad daylight, answering the first salute by a volley of ‘popping corks’ from sparkling Catawba. Each one felt well satisfied that he had done his part’” (pp. 219-220).

Less than three years before the outbreak of the Civil War, Fort Smith residents were glowing with civic, and perhaps even national pride. Reading passages like the one above emphasizes even more to me the great tragedy of our Civil War.

Hard Times near Fort Smith, Arkansas

Today the “tour” of dangerous, disease ridden places in the trans-Mississippi continues. I can’t help but notice that the topic of disease is not often discussed in blogs, and yet many Civil War soldiers had more days of sickness than days spent in combat.

I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m picking on Arkansas in this series, but a place in Arkansas is again the topic. While Confederate soldiers suffered at Camp Nelson in the latter part of 1862, southerners also experienced a biological disaster in encampments near Fort Smith. Dr. William L. Shea in his award-winning, Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign (2009) details conditions in an area where soldiers from Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas camped. Shea quotes a Texan named John C. Williams who wrote that his encampment near Fort Smith “was the ‘unhealthiest camp we were placed in during the war’” (p. 83). Men died of typhoid, dysentery, and various camp illnesses in the Arkansas River Valley. Shea estimates that as a result of disease at these encampments “the loss of manpower could not have been less than a brigade” (p. 84).