Reid's Arkansas Battery

Reid's Arkansas Battery (1862), was a Confederate artillery battery that served during the American Civil War. Another Arkansas battery, the 1st Arkansas Light Artillery, a.k.a, the Fort Smith Artillery, was also once known as "Reid's Battery". Captain Reid had commanded the Fort Smith Artillery during the Battle of Wilson's Creek, but left that organization and later organized a second battery that is the subject of this article.

The first "Reid's Battery"
Captain John G. Reid had previous served as the commander of a volunteer militia company of the 51st Militia Regiment, Sebastian County, Arkansas, The Fort Smith Artillery. The battery was originally identified simply as the "Independent Artillery" but was later styled the "Fort Smith Battery" or the "Fort Smith Artillery". Following the Battle of Wilson's Creek, the Fort Smith Artillery reorganized for Confederate service and Captain Reid did not stand for re-election, having accepted a staff position. The Fort Smith Artillery elected David Provence as captain on September 17, 1861and was transferred east of the Mississippi River following the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Pea Ridge.

Rebuilding Arkansas Confederate Artillery
After the battle of Pea Ridge, General Earl Van Dorn was ordered to move his Army of the West across the Mississippi River and cooperate with Confederate forces in Northern Mississippi. Van Dorn stripped the state of military hardware of all types, including almost all the serviceable artillery. When General Thomas C. Hindman arrived to assume command of the new Trans-Mississippi District, he found almost nothing to command. He quickly began organizing new regiments, but his most pressing need was for arms for the new forces he was organizing, including the artillery. With Hindman's first order, dated May 31, 1862 at Little Rock, he announced his staff, including the appointment of Major Francis A. Shoup, Chief of Artillery. Hindman ordered guns, which the United States Arsenal had decommissioned and buried as property markers around the Arsenal in Little Rock, to be dug up and refurbished as best possible as serviceable weapons. Hindman was almost totally destitute of military quality weapons and could hardly arm or issue ammunition to the few troops that he had in June 1862. Until the shipments of arms in August 1862, General Hindman struggled to arm his conscripts.

Hindman sent numerous requests for arms back across the Mississippi River. Many weapons were transferred to the Trans Mississippi District from Vicksburg in what became known as the "Fairplay Affair". A shipment of 11,000 arms arrived at Pine Bluff from Vicksburg by way of Monroe, La. out of a shipment of 18,000 that were originally sent. 5,000 of those 18,000 were captured on the steamer "Fair Play" by the Union and 2,500 of them went to General Richard Taylor's army in Louisiana. These weapons had come from the arsenal of eastern Confederate states that had been returned to the state arsenals as the Confederates had re-equipped themselves with the better captured Union arms. These guns were the castoffs and unusable weapons from the various state armories which had been returned to those armories after the Confederate armies east of the Mississippi had been re-equipped from the "Battlefield Quartermaster" of 7 Days, 2nd Manassas and Harper Ferry.

At the same time, General Mosely M. Parson's Brigade returned to Arkansas from Van Dorn's Army in Mississippi in August 1862. General Parson brought with him a wagon train of quartermaster supplies and twenty five pieces of unattached artillery and supplies.The movement of the twenty-five pieces of artillery to Arkansas by Parson's Brigade was reported in Bull's "Missouri Brothers in Gray" and the Hindman Telegraphs about "secret" moves of wagons and a wagon train with Parson's Brigade being sent to Little Rock when it reached Pine Bluff in early August 1862. The quantity of guns supplied by Parson’s led to the sudden organization and reorganization of several Artillery batteries in August and September 1862 in Arkansas.

The organization of Reid's Arkansas Battery apparently occurred in the summer of 1862 as Hindman attempted to build Confederate forces in Arkansas. On July 17, 1862, General Hindman issued Special Order #29 which directed Captain Reed (sic) to report to Col Carroll who was commanding North West Arkansas. Reid was to take four iron guns to be turned over to a Capt Pratt. Capt Shelby or the commanding officer of Shelby's infantry company was to proceed with his company with Capt Reed to Fort Smith.... Capt Pratt was ordered to turn over to Reed the four iron pieces and will receive from Capt Daniels and Capt Woodruff two guns each. On Jul 27, 1862, Colonel Robert C. Newton, who was General Hindman's Adjutant, wrote to Brigadier General James S. Rains who Hindman had assigned to command Confederate forces in North West Arkansas,

On August 8, 1862 Colonel Newton telegraphed Colonel Carroll, General Cooper and Brigadier Rains to explain Hindman' arrangement of artillery. General Rains was to get Reid's battery, but was directed to return to Colonel Carroll men Carroll had detailed from his command for to fill up Reid's battery. General Rains was directed to make up a company for Reid's battery by detailing men from his own forces.

On August 17, 1862, Generla Hindman sent an order to Brigadier General Rains which directed that guns of Captain Reid's company being turned over to Captain Roberts' company. On the same day General Rains reported:

The exactly what made Captain Reid objectionable to General Rains is unclear. It may simply have been that General Rains desired that Captain Roberts, a Missourian, command the battery organized from Missouri soldiers to support Rains largely Missouri brigade. Subsequently General Rains was relieved of command by General Hindman in October 1862 for "incompetence and insobriety." Captain Roberts would go on to command a four gun batter assigned to Colonel Robert G. Shaver's Brigade of Brigadier General Daniel M. Frost's Division during the Battle of Prairie Grove. Roberts' Battery would eventually be designated as the 1st Battery, Missouri Light Artillery.

First and only battle
By the time of the Battle of Prairie Grove on December 7, 1862, Captain Reid was commanding a 37-man battery armed with two 6-pounder smooth-bore cannon assigned to Brigadier General John S. Roane's Division of General Hindman's First Corps, Army of the Trans-Mississippi.

Following the confederate defeat at Prairie Grove, Hindman's forces retreated back across the Boston Mountains to Van Buren, Arkansas. In the reorganization of the Confederate Army following its retreat from North West Arkansas, Reid's Battery was disbanded. On December 24, 1862, General Hindman directed Captain Reid to report to Colonel David Providence, Chief of Artillery at Fort Smith, Arkansas with his battery. Reid was to turn in the guns, equipments, and horses, which were to be turned over to General Frost's and General Fagan's Division. Any items not needed by these commands were to be turned over to the Chief of Ordnance or Post Quarter Master. The officers were to be relieved the men were to returned to the camp of General Roane to be incorporated with his Texas Infantry, either as a company or returned to their original companies. These orders were to be accomplished no later than December 25, 1862. No reason for the dispersion of the unit was stated. Captain John G. Reid virtually disappears following the break-up on his unit.