Does anyone know if there are personal accounts available by soldiers (not officers) of the battles of Helena and Jenkins Ferry? I would like to include them as background material for my research on Edward Lytle McCracken.

In later life, McCracken said that while a soldier “His most important engagements were probably of Helena and Jenkins Ferry.”

A family biography of Edward Lytle McCracken says that “In June, 1862, at the age of 19 years, he enlisted in the Confederate army, in King's Twenty-second Arkansas infantry, Trans-Mississippi department, Churchill's division, Fagan’s Brigade. He entered as a private, but when his regiment disbanded, May 25, 1865, after Lee’s surrender, he was a first lieutenant, in command of a company. He went through the war without receiving a wound and then returned to Pope County and engaged in farming.”

I'm headed to Arkansas in July and want to visit both sites.

Thanks,
Sarah Reveley
San Antonio, Texas