For the rest of the way to Clarendon General Curtis met with no opposition other than that caused by trees felled across the road. It had been reported that a gunboat and two transports with supplies had reached Clarendon and were waiting for him, and he was very desirous of finding them. The rumor passed along the lines that transports and supplies were at hand, and so the soldiers pushed vigorously on to that point.
They reached Clarendon on the afternoon of the ninth of July, and were bitterly disappointed. The gun-boat and transports had been there and waited a while, but as they could get no tidings of the whereabouts of General Curtis, and the rebels were said to be mustering in force for their capture, it was considered prudent to retire. The transports had been gone about twenty hours when the advance of the column arrived, and with them the supplies that had been so anxiously desired. Truly the army seemed to have been deserted in the wilderness.
From all that could be learned there was no enemy between Clarendon and the Mississippi, the nearest point of which was about sixty miles away. There might be a few straggling bands of bushwackers, but nothing that could make any serious opposition. But sixty miles is a long distance in a strange country, and when provisions are running short.
The inhabitants of Clarendon were much like those of Batesville and Jacksonport, thoroughly secession in their sympathies, and wondering when the war would end, so that they might get their cotton to market. They had very little to sell in the way of provisions, as they had been pretty well cleaned out by their own government; but the usual foraging, in which Harry and Jack took a prominent part, served to bring many things edible to light.
Most of the able-bodied men were away at the war, leaving behind only the aged and the boys who were too young for service. Among those who remained was a lawyer, a dignified and red-nosed citizen of some sixty or more years, who demanded audience with General Curtis, in order to prove to him that he had no constitutional right to invade the State of Arkansas!
