8th Arkansas Infantry Battalion

The 8th Arkansas Infantry Battalion (1862–1865) was a Confederate Army infantry regiment during the American Civil War. The unit was sometimes referred to in contemporary sources as (Jones’) “First Arkansas Battalion” and (Miller’s) “2nd Arkansas Battalion.”

Organization
The 8th Arkansas Infantry Battalion was formally activated at Little Rock on April 9, 1862, and was initially composed of eight companies It was the intention of the State Military Board to add two more companies and form a full regiment, however, events across the Mississippi River necessitated the immediate activation of the unit as a battalion, and it was rushed over to Major-General Earl Van Dorn’s Army of the West at Corinth, Mississippi. Initially under the command of Major John Miller, Lieutenant-Colonel Batt L. Jones was soon appointed to command the battalion. The unit was initially composed of volunteer companies from the following counties:


 * Company A—“Clark Rifles,” from Clark county, Capt. Newton S. Love.
 * Company B—“Chicot Rebels,” from Chicot county, Capt. James D. Imboden.
 * Company C—“Peyton Rifles,” from Pulaski county, Capt. James J. Franklin’s
 * Company D—“Black River Rifles,” from Lawrence county, Capt. Robert C. Jones.
 * Company E—“Greene County Roughs,” from Greene county, Capt. Guy S. Murray.
 * Company F—“Wood’s Rifles,” from Craighead county, Capt. Joel G. Wood.
 * Company G—“Ashley Light Infantry,” from Ashley county, Capt. Micajah R. Wilson.
 * Company H—“Lawrence Dead-Shots,” from Lawrence county, Capt. Joseph C. Holmes.

The records of the 8th Arkansas Infantry Battalion are highly fragmentary. The battalion’s books and records were lost on two occasions—at the battle of Corinth and the surrender of Port Hudson—and as a result most information about this unit comes from other sources, such as brigade records, casualty and parole lists, promotion and discharge records filed with the Confederate War Department, postwar pension records and veterans’ reminiscences. The task of researching this battalion was made even more difficult by the fact that it was sometimes referred to in contemporary sources as (Jones’) “First Arkansas Battalion” and (Miller’s) “2nd Arkansas Battalion.”

On May 10, 1862, Capt. James J. Franklin’s “Peyton Rifles” of Little Rock, Company C, was transferred to the 25th Arkansas Infantry Regiment, where it became Company F of that regiment. The 8th Battalion’s companies D through H were subsequently re-lettered C through G. Since the “Peyton Rifles” only served with the battalion for a month, their history is not presented here, but instead is included in the history of the 25th Arkansas. With the loss of the Peyton Rifles the companies were re-lettered as follows:


 * Company A—“Clark Rifles,” from Clark county, Capt. Newton S. Love.
 * Company B—“Chicot Rebels,” from Chicot county, Capt. James D. Imboden.
 * Company C—“Black River Rifles,” from Lawrence county, Capt. Robert C. Jones.
 * Company D—“Greene County Roughs,” from Greene county, Capt. Guy S. Murray.
 * Company E—“Wood’s Rifles,” from Craighead county, Capt. Joel G. Wood.
 * Company F—“Ashley Light Infantry,” from Ashley county, Capt. Micajah R. Wilson.
 * Company G—“Lawrence Dead-Shots,” from Lawrence county, Capt. Joseph C. Holmes.

The unit's numbers were further reduced when Colonel Thomas Pleasant Dockery, commanding Second Brigade, to which the battalion was attached, issued orders on June 14, 1862, which required each regiment and battalion of the brigade to furnish a quota of men for the formation of a battalion of sharpshooters. The quota levied upon the 8th Arkansas Battalion was 29 men. After having to relinquish an entire company to the 25th Arkansas Infantry, and now ordered to give up more men to what would become the 12th Arkansas Battalion (Sharpshooters), Lieutenant-Colonel Jones vehemently refused to make the levy; too vehemently, for he was immediately court-martialed for refusing to obey orders and was cashiered from the army.

Lieutenant-Colonel Batt Jones somehow managed to stay with his battalion. The proceedings of his court-martial, and subsequent correspondence relating thereto, constitute the single largest body of documents dealing with the 8th Arkansas Battalion. For months afterward, his immediate superiors wrote plaintive letters to the various division and army commanders, and to the War Department, asking for guidance. Apparently the order which relieved Lieutenant Colonel Jones never reached higher authority. The matter was finally resolved for all practical purposes when the battalion was surrendered with the garrison at Port Hudson a year later, after which Jones spent the rest of the war in a Union prison camp.

It has been impossible to reconstruct a comprehensive roster of the field and staff officers of the 8th Arkansas Battalion. It is known that there were three field officers from April 1862 through July 1863: Lieutenant-Colonel Batt L. Jones, Major John Miller, and Major Micajah R. Wilson. The battalion adjutant, at least for a time, was First Lieutenant William B. Baird; the battalion sergeant-major was William P. Griffin; the battalion quartermaster-sergeant was Addison E. Roane. Four men are said to have served as battalion ordnance sergeant during the period April 1862 to July 1863—James R. Howard, John Carroll, William F. Lefils and William G. Rolfe—although why there was a high turnover in this position is not stated.

Battles
During the Iuka-Corinth Campaign, September - October 1862, the 8th Arkansas Infantry Battalion was assigned to Brigadier General William L. Cabell's brigade of Brigadier General Dabney H. Maury's Division of Major General Sterling Price's 1st Corps the Confederate (Army of the West). The unit participated in the Battle of Corinth. The battalion suffered significant losses in the rear-guard action at Hatchie's Bridge late on October 5, 1862, and from all accounts fought with great courage.

Following the Iuka-Corinth Campaign, the battalion was assigned to the brigade of Brigadier General William Nelson Rector Beall in the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana, and formed part of the garrison of Port Hudson, Louisiana. They endured the siege of that place from May to July, 1863, only surrendering when the fall of Vicksburg rendered the defense of Port Hudson irrelevant. The garrison capitulated on July 9, 1863. The enlisted men were paroled on July 10, but the officers were sent to Northern prisons and held until the close of the war.
 * Battle of Farmington, May 9, 1862.
 * Battle of Iuka, September 19, 1862
 * Siege of Corinth, April to June 1862.
 * Battle of Corinth, October 3–4, 1862
 * Siege of Port Hudson, May to July, 1863

After Port Hudson, the already-sketchy records of the 8th Arkansas Battalion become almost non-existent. It appears that some of the men, mainly the companies from south Arkansas, reconstituted the battalion for a time back in Arkansas. This remnant was eventually consolidated with the 18th and 23rd Arkansas regiments sometime in 1864 to form the 2nd Arkansas Consolidated Infantry Regiment. The companies from north Arkansas are even harder to track during this period. A group of the men, still identifying themselves as the 8th Arkansas Battalion (or Jones’ 1st Arkansas Battalion) were captured en masse in Ripley county, Missouri, on Christmas Day, 1863. Practically an entire company of Davies’ 7th Arkansas Cavalry Battalion seems to have been organized from veterans of the 8th Arkansas Battalion.

Surrender
The portion of the 8th Arkansas Infantry Battalion that became consolidated with 12th Arkansas Infantry Regiment, 18th Arkansas Infantry Regiment, 23rd Arkansas Infantry Regiment and the 12th Arkansas Infantry Battalion to form the 2nd Arkansas Consolidated Infantry Regiment which was surrendered along with the rest of the Department of the Trans Mississippi by General Kirby Smith on May 26, 1865 at Marshall, Texas. Other former members appear on parole lists of the unit surrendered at Wittsburg and Jacksonport, Arkansas, in May and June 1865.