47th Arkansas Infantry (Mounted)

The 47th Arkansas Infantry (Mounted) (1864–1865) was a Confederate Army Mounted Infantry regiment during the American Civil War. While authorized by the State Military Board as an infantry regiment, the unit was mounted for Price's Missouri Expedition and was officially designated as mounted infantry. Due to its mounted status, the unit is sometimes referred to as the 47th Arkansas Cavalry when a numerical designation is used. The unit is most often referred to as Crandell's Arkansas Cavalry Regiment, after its commander Colonel Lee Crandell.

Organization
In May 1864 General J. O. Shelby occupied Northeast Arkansas, well behind Union Army lines. In early June 1864, General Shelby commissioned Colonel Thomas Hamilton McCray, among others, to begin raising regiments in Northeast Arkansas. By June 13 Shelby reported to General Sterling Price that McCray's efforts were bearing fruit. Colonel McCray's efforts led to the recruitment of at least three regiments, the 45th, 46th and 47th Arkansas Infantry Regiments. These 40-series regiments consisted mostly of conscripts, and absentees from existing units, organized around a small cadre of veterans detailed from infantry regiments, which were expected to be idle during the fall and winter of 1864.

The decreasing availability of fodder for horses in 1864 led the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department to issue an order proscribing the raising of additional mounted regiments in Arkansas. However, when General Sterling Price received authorization to conduct a campaign in Missouri that fall, several of the new regiments were mounted in order to accompany him. As a result, the 44th, 45th, 46th, 47th, and 48th were officially mounted infantry regiments instead of cavalry regiments. They were rarely referred to in contemporary reports and orders by numerical designation. Price referred to them as McGehee's Cavalry, Crabtree's Cavalry, etc., which eventually resulted in their later being referred to as 44th Cavalry, 46th Cavalry, etc.

There are no known muster rolls of the 47th Arkansas Mounted Infantry and no record of enlistments. Apart from a few prisoner of war records, the records of this regiment consist of paroles of soldiers who surrendered at Jacksonport, Arkansas on June 5, 1865.

Officer appointments in the 40-series regiments date from the June to August 1864 time frame, so it is assumed that the regiments were mustered into service about the same time at various points in northeast Arkansas. The list of regimental officers follows:


 * Crandall, Lee - Colonel
 * Davis, R.M. - Lieutenant Colonel
 * Graves, T.D. - Surgeon
 * Nanna, W.S. - Major
 * Hewitt, E. - Captain Adjutant
 * Brady, S.H. - Surgeon
 * Walker, C.M. -  Assistant Surgeon
 * Clayton, R. - Commissary
 * Mayberry, Randolph P. - Commissary Sergeant

Colonel Crandall was originally from South Berlin, New York, but he entered the Confederate army as captain of Company I of the 8th Louisiana Infantry. He took part in the first battle of Bull Run. He was with General Stonewall Jackson through the Valley Campaign in Virginia, and at the Battle of Cross Keys was wounded in the wrist. He was promoted to Major by General Jackson and later the Confederate Secretary of War ordered him to report to Major General Sterling Price at Little Rock, Arkansas.

Battles
The 47th Arkansas Mounted Infantry was assigned to Colonel Thomas H. McCray's brigade and operated as part of General Shelby's division in northeast Arkansas in the summer of 1864. The regiments organized by Colonel McCray were apparently ready for operations by July 25, 1864 when Brigadier General Shelby ordered McCray's Brigade to move south and attack the railroad near Brownsville, in current day Lonoke County, Arkansas. The purpose of these attacks were to cut off supplies to the Union army under General Steele in Little Rock, which was dependant on supplies flowing up the Arkansas River and down the rail road from Duvall's Bluff, Arkansas. In response to Colonel McCray's movements, Union Brigadier General Joseph R. West conducted an expedition from Little Rock to the Little Red River, August 7-14, 1864 in antempt to destroy McCray's forces. Wests forces encounterd some of McCray's forces at Hickory Plains, Arkansas on August 7, 1864 and captured seven prisoners. Shelby reported that McCray succeeded in tearing up track and buring several tresels.

In late August 1864, Colonel McCray and his brigade accompanied General Shelby in a raid against Union hay cutting operations in west of DeValls Bluff in Prairie County, Arkansas. The purpose of this operation was draw union forces east of Little Rock, in order to provide a diversion for General Sterling Price's crossing of the Arkansas River west of Little Rock. McCray's brigade functioned as the reserve for Shelby's attack on Ashley's Station and four other hay cutting stations west of DeValls Bluff, in which Shelby succeeded in capturing Colonel Greenville M. Mitchell, and over 500 troops of the 54th Illinois Infantry Regiment. General Price crossed the Arkansas River near Dardanelle on September 7, 1864on his way to link up with General Shelby at Batesville in order to preapare for his raid on Missouri.

The 47th and Colonel McCray's brigade, was assigned to Maj. Gen. James F. Fagan's division, of Sterling Price's Army of Missouri, for Price's Missouri Expedition (commonly referred to a Price's Raid). The 47th was assigned to Colonel Thomas H. McCray's brigade, of Maj. Gen. James F. Fagan's division, of Sterling Price's Army of Missouri, for Price's Missouri Expedition, September–October, 1864 (commonly referred to a Price's Raid).


 * Battle of Fort Davidson (September 27, 1864)
 * Fourth Battle of Boonville (October 11)
 * Battle of Glasgow (October 15)
 * Battle of Sedalia (October 15)
 * Second Battle of Lexington (October 19)
 * Battle of Little Blue River (October 21)
 * Second Battle of Independence (October 21–22)
 * Battle of Byram's Ford (October 22–23)
 * Battle of Westport (October 23)
 * Battle of Marais des Cygnes, Linn County, Kansas, (October 25)
 * Battle of Mine Creek (October 25)
 * Battle of Marmiton River (October 25)
 * Second Battle of Newtonia (October 28)

At the Battle of Mine Creek, Colonel Crandall, with five other field officers, was captured by the Union forces and sent to Johnson’s Island, Ohio, where he remained a prisoner until the close of the war.

After the completion of Price's raid, the 47th was furloughed to return to the area from which it was recruited in order to forage and recover absentees and to return to the army at a prescribed date.

A scouting report made by Major Harris S. Greeno, of the 4th Arkansas Cavalry (U. S. Army), November 15, 1864, made from Devalls Bluff relayed information on the post raid condition of the 45th Arkansas Cavalry. Maj. Greeno had just learned from deserters and captured Confederate soldiers who had served in Price's Army that Colonel T. H. McCray was en route by way of White River to Jacksonport with the 45th, 46th, and 47th Arkansas Regiments. He gave the strength of the 45th Arkansas as about 250 men, his description of the morale of the men in this regiment, as well as the others, was probably very accurate:

Surrender
Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson, Commander of the Military Sub-District of Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri, to which the 47th Arkansas was assigned at the close of the war, surrendered his command at Chalk Bluff, Arkansas on May 11, 1865, and agreed to have his men assemble at Wittsburg and Jacksonport, Arkansas to lay down their arms and receive their paroles. Thompson's command was widely dispersed throughout northeast Arkansas, more for reasons of available forage than anything else. About a third of his men refused to surrender. Many men simply went home. The 45th Arkansas Cavalry surrendered and was paroled at Jacksonport on June 5, 1865. At the time of the surrender, the regiment was assigned to the following command: Military Sub-District of Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri, commanded by Brigadier General M. Jeff. Thompson (Surrendered at Jacksonport), McCray’s Brigade, commanded by Colonel Thomas H. McCray (Surrendered at Jacksonport), 47th Arkansas Mounted Infantry, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Richard M. Davis (Surrendered at Jacksonport).