12th Arkansas Cavalry Regiment


The 12th Arkansas Cavalry Regiment was a Confederate Army cavalry regiment during the American Civil War. The unit was first organized as the 2nd Battalion, Arkansas State Troops.

Organization

12th Arkansas Cavalry Regiment was originally organized as a group of Volunteer Companies raised from the militia regiments of southern Arkansas, immediately following the fall of Little Rock, Arkansas, to Union forces in September 1863. Governor Harris Flanagin began organizing a new force of state troops issuing a proclamation on August 10, 1863, just a month before the capitol fell, announcing that he had been authorized to raise new regiments of state troops and that by special agreement these new units could not be transferred out of the state by Confederate authorities.
After the fall of Little Rock, recruiting was far more difficult than it had been in the first years of the war. The constant transfer of Arkansas troops into the eastern theater of the war, across the Mississippi River from their homes, was a major objection by the remaining population of men eligible for military service. With Federal forces now occupying the state capitol, the Confederate state government had no way of enforcing conscription laws in the counties behind the Union lines, except during raids by Generals Sterling Price and Joseph O. Shelby in 1864. The remaining Confederate regiments were plagued by desertions.
On September 16, 1863, in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the state capitol, Governor Flanagin issued General Order No. 6 from Arkadelphia, which called into service the militia regiments of the counties of Clark, Hempstead, Sevier, Pike, Polk, Montgomery, La Fayette, Ouachita, Union, and Columbia in order to resist the Federal army. The Governor's order directed the regiments to march to Arkadelphia, Arkansas, at the earliest possible day. Companies were to be mounted and commanders were to compel persons evading the call to come to the rendezvous. The intent was to form companies of twelve-month mounted volunteers. Only six physicians, one druggist, millers to supply the wants of the country, clerks, sheriffs, postmasters, and persons in the employ of the Confederate States were exempted from the order.
In describing this call in a letter to General Theophilus H. Holmes dated October 18, 1863, from Washington, Arkansas, the new Confederate state capitol, Flanagin stated that he issued the order calling out the militia, as an experiment, expecting to get volunteers. The order succeeded so well as to get companies organized in the counties where the call for the militia was enforced which resulted in seven companies being collected under the call. Flanagin also stated that "the troops raised by the State are more than double all the troops raised by volunteering, or by the conscript law, within the past few months".

2nd Battalion, Arkansas State Troops

John Crowell Wright, lieutenant colonel of the 26th Arkansas Infantry Regiment, resigned from that regiment to take command of a newly organized battalion of cavalry. On December 17, 1863, the 2nd Battalion, Arkansas State Troops, was organized with seven companies from southern Arkansas.
There is one extant muster roll for the Field and Staff, covering the period January 1 to February 29, 1864, when the regiment was stationed at Cut Off, Drew County, Arkansas. The other regimental officers were Lieutenant Colonel James W. Bowie, Major George M. Wright, Surgeon John H. Saunders, Assistant Quartermaster Algernon S. Crute and Sergeant-Major Howell Johnson. The unit was composed of the following volunteer companies raised from southern Arkansas:
There is one extant muster roll for each company covering the period January 1–February 29, 1864, when the regiment was stationed at Cut Off, Drew County, Arkansas.

12th Arkansas Cavalry Regiment

By mid-January, 1864, three additional companies had been attached to Wright's battalion, and, on February 15, 1864, the battalion was officially enrolled in Confederate service as the 12th Regiment Arkansas Cavalry. The regiment was assigned to Colonel William A. Crawford's Brigade of Brigadier-General James F. Fagan's Cavalry Division in Major-General Price's Cavalry Corps of the Confederate Army of the Trans-Mississippi Department. The other units assigned to the brigade were the 1st Arkansas Cavalry Regiment, Poe's Arkansas Cavalry Battalion and McMurtrey's Arkansas Cavalry Battalion.

History

Wright's Cavalry was engaged in the battles associated with the Camden Expedition in the spring of 1864, particularly in the actions at Poison Spring and Marks' Mills. The regiment took part in Price's Raid in Missouri during the fall of 1864. During this operation, it engaged in the following battles:
Returning to southwestern Arkansas in November, 1864, following Price's Raid, the regiment served in that area until the end of the war. The 12th Arkansas Cavalry Regiment was included in the general surrender of Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi Department on May 26, 1865.