POST OF ARKANSAS, January
12, 1863.
We carried the Post of Arkansas yesterday and captured all
its stores and garrison, and Brigadier-General Churchill, and three brigades of
soldiers, I cannot tell yet how many. They now stand clustering on the bank,
and will today be put on board of boats and sent to Cairo. This relieves our
Vicksburg trip of all appearances of a reverse, as by this move we open the
Arkansas and compel all organized masses of the enemy to pass below the
Arkansas River, and it will also secure this flank when we renew our attack on
Vicksburg. . . .
SOURCES: M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Editor, Home Letters of
General Sherman, p. 237. A full copy of this letter can
be found in the William
T Sherman Family papers (SHR), University of Notre Dame Archives
(UNDA), Notre Dame, IN 46556, Folder CSHR 1/150.
