The Arkansas in the Civil War Message Board

Re: 11th & 17th Arkansas Inf soldiers buried in LA

No information has been found, so far that would document that. Saline County was the closest to LR where a large federal army was and no doubt a number of slaves ran away, but Saline County was not a major slave holding county. The other 11th Ark counties were farther south and away from constant federal units and were even less likely.

The counties in nw Ark that the 17th Ark came from may have had a couple as well but again I am unaware of any documentation.

If you are trying to tie the killing of the black soldiers in La to that event back in Arkansas, I don't think you could do that as the number of slaves who joined the FEd units in Ark would be pretty small and then the fact that these soldiers had very limited contact with home they probably wouldn't have ever heard of it. Couple that with the fact that the vast majority of the 11th Ark soldiers were not slave owners it would have to have some pretty concrete evidence to support that theory.

There were some recruited in Ark for black troops and 5500 former slaves became US soldiers. I do not have the time frames for this recruitment but it would probably coincide with Lincoln's policies for recruiting slaves all across the country.

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11th & 17th Arkansas Inf soldiers buried in LA
Re: 11th & 17th Arkansas Inf soldiers buried in LA
Re: 11th & 17th Arkansas Inf soldiers buried in LA
Re: 11th & 17th Arkansas Inf soldiers buried in LA
Re: 11th & 17th Arkansas Inf soldiers buried in LA
Re: 11th & 17th Arkansas Inf soldiers buried in LA
11th & 17th Arkansas re Jackson LA incident....