General Sherman’s command was then entitled the Second Corps, Army of the Mississippi, and was comprised of the First Division, Blair’s, Hovey’s, and Thayer’s brigades, commanded by Steele; and the Second Division, commanded by David Stuart, with Colonels Giles A. and Kilby Smith commanding brigades.

Our fleet was convoyed by three ironclads and several other gunboats.  The weather was bitterly cold for that latitude; we were four days getting into the Arkansas River, which we entered by the White River cut-off; and my recollection is, that our passing the mouth of the main river deceived the enemy as to our destination.  The entrance through the cut-off was feasible by reason of high water, and I think made our appearance a surprise to the force at the post.  We disembarked on the morning of the 10th of January.  Stuart’s division first encountered the enemy behind an earthwork about four miles from the fort, running across the solid ground from the river to a swamp.  General Sherman in person took Steele’s division, and followed a road leading to the rear of the earthwork just mentioned.  We had got fairly under way when the rebels fell back to the fort, and McClernand, coming up, ordered us to fall back, and march up the river.  It seemed to me then, and afterward, that it would have been better to have marched straight to the rear of the fort, as we started to do.  We soon overtook Stuart and closed in, General Sherman on the right, Morgan’s force on the left, reaching to the river, where the gunboats were, while Sherman reached from the road which connected the post with the back country, toward where the earthworks reached the river above the fort, and threatened their communications with Little Rock.  The night was cold and cloudy, with some snow.  There were a good many abandoned huts to our rear, but our forces in position lay on the frozen ground, sheltered as best they could, among the bushes and timber.  We were so close that they could have reached us any time during the night with light artillery.  The gun-boats threw heavy shells into the fort and behind the earthworks all night, keeping the enemy awake and anxious.  The heavy boom of the artillery was followed by the squeak, squeak of Admiral Porter’s little tug, as he moved around making his arrangements for the morrow.  The sounds were ridiculous by comparison.  General Sherman and staff lay on the roots of an old oak-tree, that kept them partly clear of mud.  The cold was sharp, my right boot being frozen solid in a puddle in the morning.  About half-past two or three o’clock, General Sherman, with another and myself, crept in as close as possible and reconnoitred the position.  The general managed to creep in much closer than the rest of us—­in fact, so close as to cause us anxiety.  The enemy worked hard all night on their abatis and intrenchments, and in the morning we found a ditch and parapet running clear across the point on which the post was situated.