3rd Arkansas Infantry Regiment (Confederate States)


The 3rd Arkansas Infantry Regiment was a regiment of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, and the most celebrated unit from the state. Formed and initially commanded by Colonel Albert Rust, and later falling under the command of Colonel Van. H. Manning, the regiment was part of the Army of Northern Virginia, serving under General Robert E. Lee. The 3rd Arkansas Infantry Regiment served for the duration of the war, from the late months of 1861, through to its surrender at Appomattox Court House in 1865. It was the only regiment from the state of Arkansas to serve the entire war in the Eastern Theater, where most of the major Civil War battles were fought. It was also the only Arkansas regiment to initially sign up for the duration of the Civil War, with all other regiments from the state signing on for a one-year enlistment.

Formation

The regiment was formed in May and June 1861, initially by Dr. W. H. Tebbs, who would be appointed a captain, and Van. H. Manning who would later command the regiment. Early in May, 1861, Dr. W. H. Tebbs, Captain of a volunteer company raised on Bayou Bartholomew, in Ashley county, and Captain Van. H. Manning, the captain of a company organized at Hamburg, in Ashley County, went to Vicksburg, Mississippi, in order to tender the services of their two companies, for service in the Confederate Army. They contacted Leroy P. Walker, Confederate Secretary of War, at Montgomery, by telegraph and received his reply declining the offer of the two companies, separate from a regiment. They then went to Montgomery, and Manning enlisted the help of Arkansas Confederate Senator Albert Rust. Rust help gain the acceptance as a part of the Confederate Army, conditioned on his raising the remaining companies needed to form a regiment. Rust, returned to Arkansas, and organized nine additional companies, and joined Captain Tebbs and Capt Manning in Virginia, where the regiment was mustered into service for the period of the war. The addition of nine companies made eleven when the regiment was organized. Tebbs' Company and Captain Mannings' were perhaps the first and only companies denied admission into the Confederate service, even for a day, and were the first companies enlisted for the war. When organized, the regiment was composed of 11 companies:
Albert Rust was appointed Colonel, and the regiment was sent to Lynchburg, Virginia, for military training. While in Virginia, command level officers with formal military training were assigned to the regiment, to include West Point graduate Seth. M. Barton who was assigned as Lieutenant-Colonel, and with Virginia Military Institute graduate Thomas Middleton Semmes assigned as regimental adjutant. The regiment was then attached to General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, and deployed to the area of what would soon after become West Virginia. By mid-1862, the regiment was under the command of Van. Manning following Albert Rust's promotion to Brigadier-General, with William H. Tebbs being promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel.

Battle actions

From its induction into the Confederate Army, the Third Arkansas would go on to become one of the most distinguished and well respected Confederate regiments of the war. However, prior to their first battle actions, the first impressions of them by their fellow Confederates were, by written accounts since, not good. In several accounts, relayed by author and historian Mauriel P. Joslyn, the regiment was first seen as a poorly dressed and poorly equipped lot of ignorant country boys. Once proven in combat, however, those opinions of them would change dramatically.
The regiment was ordered to the mountains of West Virginia, where it performed arduous and discouraging service in the campaign on the Gauley and Cheat rivers. The regiment was engaged in the battles of Greenbrier and Allegheny. This was followed by hard marching under Stonewall Jackson in the Valley Campaign. Under General Jackson at Winchester, in January, 1862, the Third Arkansas marched to Bath and Romney, returned to Winchester, and was ordered thence to Fredericksburg and assigned to the brigade of Gen. Theophilus H. Holmes. Colonel Rust was promoted to Brigadier-General about this time, and was transferred to a command in the western armies. Van. Manning was promoted to the Colonel of the regiment succeeding Rust.
The Third Arkansas was engaged in the battles of White Oak Swamp, June 3, 1862, in J.G. Walker's brigade, on July 1, 1862, participated in the battle of Malvern Hill.
In July, 1862, the ranks of the Third Arkansas was augmented by the addition of nearly 140 soldiers from the 2nd Arkansas Infantry Battalion. The Second Arkansas Battalion had been organized in October, 1861, from three companies of volunteers from El Dorado, Hot Springs and Pine Bluff. In June, 1862, the 2nd Arkansas Battalion was decimated while leading an assault on the Federal position at Beaver Dam Creek, and its commander, Major William Naylor Bronaugh, mortally wounded. The War Department disbanded the battalion and transferred its survivors to the Third Arkansas.
On September 17, 1862, at the Battle of Antietam, Companies A and L of the Third Arkansas were decimated. On September 25 the few survivors of Company L were transferred into Company A and Company L ceased to exist. Thus the regiment was reduced to ten companies, the normal complement for an infantry regiment. Col. Manning was seriously wounded during the battle.
In November, 1862, the Third Arkansas was assigned to the famous Texas Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia. The Confederate War Department had determined that the troops would benefit from being brigaded with regiments from their home States. At this time, the standard brigade organization consisted of four regiments. There were three Texas regiments in the Army—the 1st, 4th and 5th—and only one Arkansas regiment. It was therefore decided to group these four western regiments together. The Third Arkansas remained an integral part of Hood's Texas Brigade until the end of the war. The first engagement that the unit participated in as part of the Texas Brigade was the Battle of Fredericksburg in December, 1862. The regiment was not engaged at Chancellorsville, being detached with the rest of Longstreet's Corps at Suffolk.
The Third Arkansas acquired a reputation as tenacious fighters, often finding themselves in the thickest fighting on the battlefield, such as their presence at the "sunken road" during the Battle of Antietam. Their most famous action was while serving as a part of the Texas Brigade during the Battle of Gettysburg, at the Devil's Den, where they took heavy casualties while serving under General John Bell Hood. Its place in the front of Hood's assault meant it was one of the first units, if not the first, to be heavily engaged during the second day of the battle. The regiment was commended for gallantry in that action, while under the direct command of Brigadier General Jerome B. Robertson, fighting in and in the vicinity of the "Devil's Den".
The regiment was transferred with Longstreet's Corps to Tennessee in September, 1863 in time to fight at the Battle of Chickamauga. The unit went on to participate in the battles of Chattanooga, Wauhatchie, and in the siege of Knoxville, Tennessee, returning to the Army of Northern Virginia in the spring of 1864.
The regiment suffered heavy casualties later in the Battle of the Wilderness, during which they lost many of their commanding officers in addition to heavy losses in their ranks. In that battle they lost Colonel Van. H. Manning and Lieutenant-Colonel Robert S. Taylor, both of whom were badly wounded and captured, in addition to Major William K. Wilkins who was killed in action.
The regiment continue the fight at Spotsylvania, and on to Cold Harbor. The regiment was at Deep Run on August 6, 1864; at Petersburg during the siege by Grant, at High Bridge and Farmville during the closing day of the war in 1865.
By the end of the war, the Texas Brigade as a whole, which included the 1st, 4th, and 5th Texas, and the Third Arkansas, had only 617 men remaining out of a total of 5,353. The 3rd Arkansas Infantry Regiment is entitled to the following campaign participation credit:
The 3rd Arkansas is generally understood to have had at least four different regimental colors during the war, and there are at least three surviving examples of the battle flags of the 3rd Arkansas Infantry Regiment:
The first flag of the Third Arkansas was probably a First National Confederate Flag issued to either company C, the Confederate Starts, or Company K, the Ashley Volunteers. The unit carried this first flag during the Battle of Sharpsburg. If this flag has survived, it has not been identified.
Author Glenn Dedmondt identifies the second flag which was carried by the Third Arkansas as a three-foot-square flag which is currently in the collection of the Old State House Museum in Little Rock Arkansas. The Old State House Museum, Little Rock, identifies this flag as an artillery guidon. The flag was donated to the Old State House Museum by the family of Private R. Jessie Bailey, 3rd Arkansas Infantry, regimental band. The flag was allegedly made for the unit by the ladies of Fredericksburg, Virginia, while the regiment was stationed there in the winter of 1862. It is likely that regimental color bearer James M. Johnson was killed while carrying this flag at the Battle of Chickamauga, 19 September 1863. The flag, an Army of Northern Virginia Battle Flag, is inches × inches square; orange border; 5-inch stripe of the St. Andrew's cross; and thirteen stars made of bunting and cotton with a canvas lead.
The third flag carried by the Third Arkansas is an Army of Northern Virginia Battle Flag pattern made of bunting and cotton with canvas lead, 47 inches × 46 inches. Glenn Dedmondt identifies the flag as a 3rd bunting issue flag made by the Richmond Depot. The flag was issued to the unit on September 20, 1863, on the field of Chickamauga, and was probably carried until approximately 1 January 1865. Private Spencer Young, who was wounded carrying the flag in the Battle of the Wilderness, saved the flag and carried it back to the state. It remained in his custody until donated to the Old State House Museum, Little Rock in the 1920s.
The fourth and final flag of the Third Arkansas was a Richmond Depot 4th Bunting issue flag which is currently in the collections of the Museum of the Confederacy, in Richmond, Virginia. The 51-inch by 50-inch flag has a red bunting field crossed with 7-inch blue bunting bars in a St. Andrew's Cross with -inch white cotton fimbriation. There are thirteen -inch stars on the cross. This flag was surrendered by the regiment at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia and was assigned capture number 411.

Surrender

When General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, only 144 men of the Third Arkansas remained out of the 1,353 mustered into it from the start of the war.