Mitchell

Glad to have you join our conversational debates. Thanks for the interesting Link to the Confederate Railroads.

One correction on the list of stations on the Little Rock-Memphis line. Argenta Station was what is nowdays North Little Rock on the north side of the Arkansas River opposite Little Rock itself. It would not have been a station on the eastern section of this line, but a station on the western leg of the construction.

Thanks to the Richmond Dispatch article and the 9th Texas Infantry Letter we can now reasonable establish that the western leg of the LR and Memphis RR was completed (operational) sometime between Oct. 1861 and Jan 1862.

I am however surprised that Union General Samuel Curtis did not use the eastern leg of the railroad from Hopefield (West Memphis) to Madison, AR., to resupply his army in Northeast Arkansas in April to June 1862, when his supply problems were so acute that he had to abandon his expedition towards Little Rock, after the sinking of the USS Mound City at St Charles, and his inability to resupply his army by way of the White River. The failure of this effort to use the river caused Curtis to move to Helena Ark to recieve supplies from the Mississippi. If the eastern section of the LR&Memphis RR was operational why didn't Curtis use it?

This makes me think that the eastern leg of the LR and Memphis RR was no where near complete and I can not find any mention of it being used during the War. Unless it was maybe very late in the war. But ever then I am under the impression that there was no effort put into making that leg operational since most of the Union Supplies after the fall of Little Rock were still shipped by steamboat to Deval's Bluff on the White River and carried by train from there to Argenta station.