Bryan, I don't really know of any "Hardcore" evidence that Churchill had advanced warning. But, There seems to be just too much coincidence in the events preceeding the attack on The Post combined with other circumstances to believe that these troop movements just happened without a reason.

"Offical Reports" all too often were justifications of actions, after the fact, in which the writer puts himself in the best light possible. Seldon seems to indicate some mishandling of The Post affairs by Churchill as you pointed out. Why? What did Seldon know that he didn't put into an "Official" document? These reports are only the "Tip-of-the-Iceberg" in any research.

With spys up and down the river you know that the loading of 35,000 union soldiers on troop transports didn't go unnoticed by the confederates. And both Hindman, when he commanded the TM Dept., and later Holmes seemed to have good intelligence on Union movements even as far away as St. Louis in one case that I can remember. Why was Walker's Division marched and then Countermarched and then marched again to Pine Bluff, before the first shot was fired at The Post? This sounds like they had intellegence about the union movement, but didn't know what to do about it. Should they send the Walker's Troops, or keep them close to Little Rock? They were definately changing their minds almost everyday about something for over a week.

But, what do I know about such thing?