14
Edward and William Vining, 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry
July to December 1863
At the end of June we have William Vining with Company C at Fort Scott; Companies B, G, H, I and M at Fort Gibson/Blunt; and the remaining six companies at Springfield. Starting on June 20, most of the companies of the 3rd Wisconsin were reassembled at Fort Blunt, Cherokee Nation. We don’t know when William went; there is nothing definite to say whether Company C went at this time or not. If they did go, they would have arrived there by July 5.
Edward Vining had been at home in Wisconsin, on furlough from the Army Hospital at Madison since June 4. He returned to his company sometime in late June. There are conflicting records and we don’t have much evidence to go on, but it appears that Edward went directly from his home back to his unit without telling the hospital at Madison. He was supposed to have reported back to the hospital by June 24, but he never did; perhaps he thought they meant he was supposed to report back to his unit. On June 30 he is listed as absent without leave on the hospital records, but on the same day he appears on a Company C roster as present for duty.
At the end of June, General Blunt sent out another 300-wagon supply train for the garrison at Fort Gibson. Colonel Phillips sent 600 men out from the fort to meet the train, including Company B of the 3rd Wisconsin. They ran into the latest Confederate effort in that area.
General Schofield, in charge of the Department of Missouri, had his main forces at Fort Gibson and Helena, Arkansas. He noticed that Little Rock lay directly between them, and thought this would be a good time to capture it. The Confederates also noticed this about the same time, but they struck first to prevent it. A small army composed of Price’s Confederate Missouri troops, Marmaduke’s cavalry and a brigade of Arkansas infantry attacked Helena. At the same time, Stand Watie’s force of 2000 Confederate Indians and Texans was supposed to capture Fort Gibson. Watie’s plan was to destroy the supply wagon trains as they came down from Kansas, and starve out the men in the fort.
Stand Watie ambushed the wagons as they tried to cross a flooded ford of Cabin Creek on July 1. The guard consisted of a Colorado and a Kansas Colored regiment; they were joined by Company B, 3rd Wisconsin, and one of the Indian Regiments from the fort. In three days of constant fighting, the Union forces pushed the supply train through to the fort. The plans to capture the fort fell through once the supplies reached it; at the same time, the attack on the Helena garrison also failed.
These small battles are completely lost in the larger victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg at the same time, but they are important; they prevented a Confederate advance into Missouri when all the Federal troops in the area had been shifted to Vicksburg, and they led to the capture of the capital of Arkansas soon after. The capture of Vicksburg cut Arkansas, Texas and the Indian Territories off from the rest of the Confederacy. General Kirby-Smith was now given command of all Confederate forces west of the Mississippi.
General Blunt went down to take command of Fort Gibson/Blunt during the first week of July. According to the Company C muster rolls, Edward Vining was detached from the company on July 5 and went with General Blunt. It is difficult to interpret what this means without more detailed information. According to Dyer’s records, I would expect Company C to have arrived at Fort Gibson by the 5th, but they don’t list locations on their own company muster rolls. The fact that General Blunt was moving from Fort Scott to Fort Gibson, and that Edward was detached from his company to go with him, suggests that Company C was still at Fort Scott. All it says on Edward’s record is that he was "absent with Major General Blunt’s Army of the Frontier" since July 5.
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As soon as Kirby-Smith took command of the Confederate forces in Arkansas, he tried to recover from their defeats at Helena and Fort Gibson by forming a second attack on Fort Gibson. He combined his Arkansas forces with Stand Watie’s Indians, planning to surround the fort and cut it off from supplies and reinforcements.
General Blunt learned that the Confederates were concentrating at Honey Springs, 18 miles south of the fort, under the command of Cooper. He determined to attack them before they could reach the fort, so on July 16 he crossed the Arkansas River with a force consisting of the Colorado, Kansas Indian and Kansas Colored Infantry regiments, and the 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry. Sources are inconsistent as to whether all or part of the 3rd Wisconsin was present. We don’t know about Edward Vining; since he was attached directly to Blunt for scouting/escort, he was most probably on this.
The Union force marched all night, reaching Cooper’s camp before dawn on the 17th. Blunt allowed his men to rest for two hours, then attacked at dawn. The Confederate force at Honey Springs was made up of Creek, Choctaw, Cherokee and Chickasaw regiments, along with some Texas cavalry and artillery. The Confederates had more men, but only four cannon, and an early morning rainstorm had ruined their gunpowder. Blunt’s surprise attack fell on the Cherokees first and scattered them; the others gave up and retreated. With these forces broken up and the Arkansas infantry not yet arrived, the attack on Fort Gibson had to be called off. Honey Springs, though not well-known, was actually the largest battle of the Civil War in the Indian Territories.
Blunt returned to Fort Gibson following the battle. Kirby-Smith began the difficult task of gathering and reorganizing the scattered Confederate Indian regiments.
On July 31, 1863, we have an entry on Edward Vining’s company returns that says he was "absent sick at Dry Wood Creek." This may have been a relapse of whatever he was sick with in Wisconsin in June. The entry does not say how long he was out sick. We don’t know where Dry Wood Creek is. And we don’t know how this relates to the previous entry that he was "absent with Blunt’s Army" through July and August.
By mid-August it became obvious that the Indians and other Confederates were gathering again, and if they succeeded in joining into one mass they would be too strong for the Union forces in the Indian Territories. So General Blunt set out on yet another expedition, breaking up any concentrations of Indians he could find. They ran into a large group at Honey Springs again, and there was another battle there on August 22. According to Dyer, the 3rd Wisconsin was the only Federal unit involved in this skirmish, and there were no Union casualties.
The Confederates broke up again, one group under Cabell heading east toward Fort Smith, Arkansas, and another group under Steele and Cooper retreating south into Choctaw Nation. Blunt pursued Steele and Cooper, and there was another battle with the Confederate rear guard at Perryville on August 26. This battle involved four cavalry regiments (3rd Wisconsin, 2nd Colorado, 6th Kansas and 6th Missouri) along with the 1st Arkansas (Union) Infantry and 2nd Indiana Battery. Only four men were wounded in the fight. The Confederates were driven off, and Blunt’s men destroyed their supply depot at Perryville. They continued on to destroy another supply depot at North Fork before turning east to pursue Cabell’s group.
We’re not sure what happened next. The 3rd Wisconsin was not involved at Fort Smith, but they are listed in a skirmish at Marais des Cygnes at the same time. Perhaps Blunt divided up his own forces after Perryville and sent some of them after the remnants of Steele and Cooper. Or it may be that Marais des Cygnes involved some of the companies which had been left in Missouri (possibly including Company C at Fort Scott). In any case, we have a skirmish recorded at Marais des Cygnes on August 31, with only the 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry involved, and no casualties.
Also on August 31 there is another company roll call, and Edward is listed as still absent with General Blunt’s Army of the Frontier since July 5. Incidentally, he is also still being reported as absent without leave on the Camp Randall Hospital records.
William Vining also gets a rare mention at this time. Starting September 1st, he is recorded as using his own horse and equipment, for which he received some extra pay monthly. We don’t know exactly what this means, or why it was done, but it is a common practice. Edward will start doing the same in October. We don’t know if this was required by the Army, or if it was an option that William chose in order to get more pay, or maybe a better horse. I did find a rather cryptic reference in Fox’s book, though I have no idea if it relates to this: Fox says that at one point in the war (he doesn’t say when), the 3rd Wisconsin had their horses taken away to be given to "more efficient units." I haven’t yet seen anything in the official records to indicate if this is true; if it is, it may imply that the 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry was not one of the best regiments.
Meanwhile, back in the Indian Territories, Blunt had pursued Cabell’s group to Fort Smith on the border of Arkansas. As best as I can tell, Edward Vining should still be with Blunt, but we don’t know this for certain. Blunt captured Fort Smith on September 1, just as other Union forces under General Fred Steele were approaching Little Rock. The north half of Arkansas remained under Union control from this time.
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Sometime in September, Edward Vining returned to Fort Scott with General Blunt. The 3rd Wisconsin Regiment Headquarters was now moved from Fort Gibson to Schuylville, Cherokee Nation. Apparently they considered the immediate threat eliminated, and the units were being split up and spread out in a protective net of small garrisons, as they had been doing in Kansas and Missouri. Edward and William were moved to Baxter Springs, in the southeast corner of Kansas, with Companies C and I.
There is another skirmish recorded involving part of the 3rd Wisconsin on October 2 at Choctaw Nation, south of Cherokee Nation. We don’t know which companies were involved, but Company C almost certainly was not.
The garrison at Baxter Springs was attacked on October 6. After the Battle of Honey Springs in July, Quantrell’s Guerillas retaliated by making a raid into Kansas. Quantrell and 450 men captured the undefended town of Lawrence, Kansas on August 21. In the worst such incident of the war, they massacred all the men and boys living in the town. They eluded all the Federal units searching for them for over a month, then headed south in early October to spend the winter in Texas. On their way, they paused to attack the small Federal outpost at Baxter Springs, where the Vinings were stationed. The garrison consisted of Companies C and I of the 3rd Wisconsin, and one company of the 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry, about 200 men altogether. They probably could have defended the post without too much damage, but just at that moment General Blunt appeared on the scene.
Blunt had decided to move his headquarters from Fort Scott to Fort Smith, Arkansas, and was traveling with a group of a hundred clerks and staff, mostly unarmed. Josephy’s history says the garrison was fighting back successfully against the attack when Blunt suddenly appeared, and the guerillas broke off and went after them instead. Monoghan tells it slightly differently: he says Quantrell and Blunt were approaching the fort at the same time, but the Confederates spotted Blunt first and formed up in the open, a short way from the road. They were wearing stolen blue uniforms, and Blunt thought they had come out from the fort to welcome him. (I usually hold Monoghan’s versions suspect, but in this case he seems to make more sense: if the attack was actually started when Blunt came up, why would he continue walking into it with unarmed men?) Blunt’s troops marched right past the guerilla lines, and were blasted at point-blank range. Thirty men were killed immediately; the others scattered in all directions, but the Confederates rode them down and killed forty more.
The Baxter Springs garrison was more successful, and fought off the guerilla attack. Six men from the post were killed.
Blunt managed to escape and make his way to Fort Smith, but it was his worst defeat. And he received another setback when he got there. Josephy and Monoghan both say that when Blunt arrived at Fort Scott, Schofield, who had always disliked him, removed him from command of the Army of the Frontier. I have some problems with this, since the Official Records say the Army of the Frontier had been dissolved back in June. Blunt was in command of the District of the Frontier at this time, and remains so until January 1864. But there is probably some basis in what they say, and Schofield may have removed some authority or territory from Blunt at this time.
The 3rd Wisconsin is recorded in a few more minor skirmishes over the next few weeks. These are all scattered and involve different companies of the regiment: on October 7 at Fort Blair (Waldron, Arkansas); another on the same day at Choctaw Nation; on the 11th at Brazil Creek (don’t know exactly where this is); another at Waldron, Arkansas on October 16; at Clarksville, Arkansas on October 28; and the following day at Ozark, Arkansas. We don’t know exactly where some of these were, or which companies were involved, but the Vinings were probably not in any of them. All these engagements were against small guerilla bands.
Starting on October 20, Edward Vining is recorded as using his own horse and equipment. As I said above with William, we don’t know yet exactly what this means.
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There was a major reorganization at the end of October, and the structure and assignments of the 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry become very confused and difficult to sort out after this point. The regiment was broken into two groups, and they ended up assigned to different commands.
Companies A, C, D, F and M were detached from the main body of the regiment. The Vinings were still in Company C and went with this group. I will call this the ACDFM Group from now on. The ACDFM Group was removed from the District of the Frontier and placed in the District of the Border, Department of Missouri (commanded by Schofield). They were stationed at different posts in Missouri and Kansas, including Forts Insley, Hamer, Curtis and McKean in Missouri, and Forts Scott and Pawnee Creek in Kansas.
The main body of the regiment were stationed in Arkansas. I will refer to this as the BEGHIKL Group, and it is also the 3rd Regiment proper. The Regiment Headquarters was placed in Van Buren, Arkansas. The BEGHIKL Group remained in the District of the Frontier, under General Blunt.
One company from the BEGHIKL Group was involved in another skirmish at Clarksville, Arkansas on November 8. It was the only Federal unit involved; two men were killed. A small detachment from the ACDFM Group had a skirmish at Arkansas Creek near Fort Larned on November 13.
The 3rd Wisconsin (that is, the BEGHIKL Group) participated in a raid from Van Buren to Dallas, Texas, leaving on November 12 and returning on the 22nd.
Edward spent the month of November detailed to a howitzer battery, probably acting as a scout. Other than that, the Vinings had no more activities for the rest of the year. From December, all units remained in their winter camps with no significant actions.
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