Too often when we think about the tragic battles during the Civil War, we tend to conceptualize the violent and bloody battlefields in places like Shiloh, Gettysburg, Antietam, and others.
But the state of Arkansas saw more than its fair share of wartime activity during the War Between the States. In fact, Civil War sites and books list somewhere in the neighbor of 260 battles and minor skirmishes in the state from 1861 when the arsenal at Little Rock was seized by state troops all the way through May 24, 1865 when the final action in Arkansas occurred at Monticello.
In between the most significant battles in the state included Pea Ridge, Prairie Grove, attacks on transports on the White River, and various actions along the Arkansas River border with Tennessee.
But lesser known confrontations, like two separate incidents that occurred in late May and early April, 1864 near the Logan County community of Roseville all figured into the colloquial ideal of winning smaller battles contributing to winning the overall war.
A monument was erected in 2015 by Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission, Main Street Ozark, Arkansas Humanities Council/National Endowment for the Humanities, Arkansas Historic Preservation Program in Ozark to commemorate the main action of the Civil War that occurred in Logan County.
In late March, 1864, Companies D and E of the Second Kansas Cavalry, led by Captain John Gardner of Company E, were dispatched from their post at Jenny Lind in Sebastian County to protect Union supplies and a cache of cotton at Roseville in Logan County.
Roseville was an important port on the Arkansas River, forty-five miles southeast of Fort Smith. During territorial days and throughout the century, Roseville, a thriving community, played a vital role in river transportation of goods and passengers.
The companies either joined or were joined by Company D of the Sixth Kansas Cavalry, making a force of about 200 men during part of part of the War Between the States that is known to historians as the Camden Expedition.
At about the same time, Confederate Brigadier General Samuel Bell Maxey ordered Colonel Nicholas Battle to take a detachment of 400 to 500 men of his Thirtieth Texas Cavalry “to proceed to Roseville, destroy all cotton and commissary stores and the grounded boats, producing as much consternation by a movement of this kind in rear as possible,” as Maxey led other Texas troops into southwestern Arkansas to confront Union major general Frederick Steele’s invasion of the area.
On March 29, 1864, a party of Confederates—probably a mix of Battle’s Texans and local partisans—attacked the Union post at Roseville, burning 133 bales of cotton and destroying two cotton gins before the Kansas cavalrymen and local Unionists drove them away from town.
No casualties were reported in this skirmish.
Colonel Battle returned and attacked in force on April 4, driving the Kansas troops back to their cotton bale barricades on the Arkansas River, where they made a stubborn defense.
After a severe engagement, the Texans were driven from the field, having lost between six and ten men killed and around twenty wounded.
Company D of the Second Kansas reported one man dead and three wounded, while Company E lost five dead and eleven wounded. Battle’s attacks, combined with persistent and violent guerrilla activity in the area, led Federal authorities in Fort Smith to transport the cotton at Roseville to Fort Smith.
The Kansas cavalrymen left Roseville on April 29. Battle’s Confederates continued south, joining the rest of the Thirtieth Texas Cavalry in time to participate in the Engagement at Poison Spring.
The skirmishes at Roseville reveal the difficulty faced by Union forces in protecting government supplies and operations along the Arkansas River around Fort Smith, an area infested with guerrillas who made troop movements risky.
Although organized military action in the part of the county that now belongs to Franklin County was limited to that minor skirmish and one other during the war, the region was ransacked by both armies foraging for supplies while lawless bushwhackers raided and terrorized the area. While the only other significant engagement was a skirmish at Haguewood Prairie, the population suffered tremendous hardships, and families who could afford it moved to other states for the duration of the war.
Confederate forces would continue to attack Union operations in the region throughout the summer of 1864, including a successful attack on the Sixth Kansas Cavalry at Massard Prairie in July and assaults on Fort Smith in July and August.
What little remains of the Roseville Community is approximately ten and one-half miles southeast of Ozark on the southern side of the Arkansas River. To access the area you cross the Arkansas Rover bridge on Highway 23 at Ozark and go south through Webb City before turning east on State Highway 309. The now-census-designated place of Roseville sits near the intersection of AR 309 and AR288.
The historical marker documenting the event is at 103 East River Street in Ozark, east of South 1st Street located just to the east of the Ozark Area Museum (Depot Museum).
