Bayou Fourche
Little Rock
Civil War Arkansas

American Civil War
September 10, 1863

On September 10, 1863, Major General Fred Steele, Army of Arkansas commander, sent Brigadier General John W. Davidson's cavalry division across the Arkansas River to move on Little Rock, while he took other troops to attack Confederates entrenched on the north side.

In his thrust toward Little Rock, Davidson ran into Confederate troops at Bayou Fourche.

Aided by Union artillery fire from the north side of the river, Davidson forced them out of their position and sent them fleeing back to Little Rock, which fell to Union troops that evening.

Bayou Fourche sealed Little Rock's fate. The fall of Little Rock further helped to contain the Confederate Trans-Mississippi theater, isolating it from the rest of the South.

Result(s): Union victory

Location: Pulaski County

Campaign: Advance on Little Rock (1863)

Date(s): September 10, 1863

Principal Commanders: Brigadier General John W. Davidson [US]; Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke

Forces Engaged: Cavalry Division, Army of Arkansas, Arkansas Expedition [US]; District of Arkansas [CS]

Estimated Casualties: Total unknown (US 72; CS unknown)


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Arkansas Civil War History Book Club Reading Titles


Into the Mouth of the Cannon: A Historical Biography of the 18th Arkansas Infantry and the Civil War in the Western Theater from 1861 to 1863
No one knew the truths of slavery better than the slaves themselves, but no one consulted them until the 1930s. Then, recognizing that this generation of unique witnesses would soon be lost to history, the Works Progress Administration's Federal Writers' Project acted to interview as many former slaves as possible. In a continuation of the project's interest in the life histories of ordinary people, writers interviewed over two thousand former slaves, more than a third of them in Arkansas. These oral histories were first published in the 1970s in a thirty-nine-volume series organized by state, and they transformed America's understanding of slavery.
With Fire And Sword: Arkansas, 1861-1874 provides a scholarly examination of just how the events of the Civil War and the Reconstruction so heavily devastated the state of Arkansas, its population and its economy, that this southern state was never to fully regained the level of prosperity it had enjoyed prior to the war. A candid and detailed retracing of crucial decisions, their interplay, and their lasting legacy, With Fire And Sword is a welcome contribution to the growing library of Civil War literature and Reconstruction Era reference collections and reading lists.

Sources:
U.S. National Park Service
U.S. Library of Congress.