Confederate Letter from Capt. John Stark, 13th Texas Cavalry w/ Battle of Pine Bluff

“I tell you, it made me feel bad to walk around the lines and think how many a poor fellow would bite the dust—or rather the swamp mud…”

Autograph letter signed by Capt. John Thomas Stark (1821-1893) to his wife Martha Ann Skidmore Stark (1831-1863). In camp 7 miles below Pine Bluff, Arkansas, 20 January [1863]. 2 pages, with integral address panel with Little Rock postmark.

John Tomas Stark was a native of Preble County, Ohio but emigrated to San Augustine County, Texas, and by 1850 to Burkeville, Newton Co., Texas. After secession, Stark enlisted on 1 February 1862 and was commissioned into Co. H of the 13th Texas (Burnett’s) Cavalry. Raised in eastern Texas with around 900 men, it was assigned to O. Young’s Brigade in the Trans-Mississippi Department in the summer of 1862. They saw action in Louisiana and Arkansas, including the Battle of Jenkins’ Ferry.

While stationed in Arkansas, Stark writes home to his wife Martha with laments over Confederate leadership, logistics, and results. To start: “In the first place, we started from Little Rock to relieve Arkansas Post but like everything General Holmes does, we got there too late—or rather we got in about 20 miles of there and found we were too late. Then learning that the Feds were advancing up the river, we threw up a breastwork and prepared to receive them. I tell you, it made me feel bad to walk around the lines and think how many a poor fellow would bite the dust—or rather the swamp mud—but all my feelings on the subject were thrown away for the enemy from some cause backed out and we then left too and came back up the river 18 miles to our present camp.”

He continues with a vivid description of the miserable conditions: “The snow was about ten inches deep and lay on the ground four or five days. All the time we were expecting to be attacked every hour. The cavalry was galloping backwards and forwards bringing in a few prisoners and news from the enemy. The artillery lumbering by and taking post fatigue parties by the hundreds at work on the breastwork and everything as lively as possible—Generals, Colonels, and the Governor of Arkansas [Harris Flanagin] riding up and down the lines. I shall never feel more certain that we were going to have a fight even if I hear the firing commence.” 

He concludes with his astute understanding of their recent defeat: “We certainly have the poorest management that ever was seen all this time. We have been marching and countermarching up and down the river. The steamboats are passing us as if to tantalize our misery. If Holmes had put the troops on board the boats, they could have relieved the [Arkansas] Post and given the Yankees another lesson but instead of that, after we started, we lay one day at Little Rock, then came on at easy stages of about 12 miles a day to Pine Bluff. Then we lay up another day and then went on at the same easy gait until we met the news of the fall of the Post.”

An eloquent and dire letter with a tragic understanding of leadership’s shortcomings.

Condition: some separations with neat repairs, original wax seal present.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate, Texas, Pine Bluff, Manuscripts]