They found the barn and also the provisions. The owner of the place at first denied all knowledge that anything was concealed there, and said they were welcome to anything they could find, but as soon as the discovery was made he assumed a different air altogether. He professed to be a union man, and explained that he had hidden the stuff away to save it from going to the rebels. “I would rather,” said he, “see it all burned up than into a rebel mouth; that's the kind of union man I am.”
The army remained two days at Augusta, and then took up its line of march for Clarendon, where the transports were said to have arrived under convoy of a gunboat. The country between Jacksonport and Clarendon is one of the finest regions of eastern Arkansas. A short distance from the river the bluffs along the stream fall away into low hills and gentle undulations, which become less distinct until at the divide between the White and St. Francis rivers the land becomes an almost unbroken level. A portion of this flat, alluvial country is in many places covered with canebrakes, and is often overflowed in the season of high water. At such times it becomes an almost impassable succession of swamps and quagmires. But at the time our friends traversed it the ground was dry and hard and offered no obstacle to passage save occasionally at the crossings of creeks and rivulets.
Interspersed among these lowlands is a succession of higher grounds, which are level and rarely broken by anything like an elevation. These lands are excellent for cotton, and down to the opening of the war they had annually sent a good supply of the textile plant to market. Cotton was raised there in 1861 to some extent, but in 1862, by orders of the Confederate government, much of the cotton land through the South was planted with corn. The valley of the White river was no exception to the rule, and as our army moved along it passed many fields of corn, of which the ears, just then sufficiently advanced to be edible, formed a welcome addition to the scanty stores possessed by the commissary department. As a single article of diet, green corn is not to be recommended, but when combined with other things it is, as everybody knows, a thing not to be despised.
Every few miles the advance of the army came upon trees felled across the roads, and considerable time was lost in removing these obstructions. From the negroes it was learned that there was a considerable force of rebels at the town of Des Arc, on the east bank of White river, about half-way between Augusta and Clarendon. They were said to be about six thousand strong, and to consist mainly of Arkansas and Texas mounted men, under command of General Rust. As they were at a convenient striking distance from the road which General Curtis was following, it was thought quite likely they would make an attack at some point where they could fight to advantage, and the result proved the correctness of this belief.
Several timber obstructions were encountered, most of them at the crossings of small creeks, but nothing was seen of an enemy until the point was reached where the road from Des Arc joins the main one, about ten miles to the east of that town. Here was the plantation of Colonel Hill, an officer of the Confederate army, and his residence and buildings were at the junction of the roads, in the southwest angle. North of the Des Arc road was a cotton-gin and press, and close by were two aboriginal mounds of unknown date. Colonel Hill was then blessed with his third wife, and the graves of her two predecessors were on the tops of these mounds, each one surrounded by a fence of white palings. “It must have been,” said Harry, afterwards, “a cheerful thing for the third wife to contemplate the graves on these mounds and wonder when her turn would come and where she would be placed.” Jack thought the colonel ought to put up another mound, so as to have everything ready for the good lady's demise.
The country around the junction of the road had been cleared for cotton-fields, but a little way beyond it the forests were dense and afforded good cover for an enemy. The mounted men, in advance, with whom were Harry and Jack, discovered signs of an enemy lurking in the timber south of Hill's house, and word was sent to bring up the infantry. Harry rode back to carry the order, and in a little while the infantry had come forward and was ready for business. The Thirty-third Illinois and the Eleventh Wisconsin were the ones selected for the work; they deployed as skirmishers, and soon exchanged shots with the rebels, who were spread out in the timber. The two union regiments were not more than six hundred strong; they were opposed by about fifteen hundred rebels, but the disparity of numbers was balanced by the superiority of the weapons of the former and their good drill and discipline. The rebel forces consisted of some very raw cavalry from Arkansas and Texas, and some newly-assembled conscripts who had not been in camp many days and knew practically nothing about military life.
Soon as the firing began to have anything like vigor to it the conscripts fled in disorder, but the Texan troops stood their ground very well. As our right approached the enemy's left it was met by a volley which caused two of the companies to fall back a little; the rebels undertook to follow up the advantage thus gained, and to do so emerged from the wood into the open ground.
Here they were met by volleys of musketry and by rapid discharges of grape from two steel howitzers which were brought forward by the First Indiana Cavalry. This welcome was too much for the rebels, who broke and fled from the field, leaving a good many of their men dead or wounded. Some of them retreated to Des Arc, and others along the road to the south. It was afterwards reported that three or four thousand men were marching from Des Arc to join them, but were unable to get across the Cache river, which is too deep to be forded and the single ferry-boat was not able to bring them over in time to be of use. When it was found that the other force had been defeated, they gave up the attempt to interrupt the advance of the union army and marched back to Des Arc.