I was thinking that maybe Lt. Whitney wasn't in the 27th, but maybe a local officer like state troops, militia, or home guard, and that the 27th was mearly providing the guards. I know that this is just speculation and I don't guess it is even important.

General Lee in Virginia complained about all the special details skimming of men as guards, as blacksmiths, and teamsters, and for this and for that, and that so many request were being made that it seriously effected the fighting abilities of his army (the largest in the Confederacy). I don't see why that wouldn't have also been a problem in Arkansas also.

It 1862 when the authorities were trying to rebuild a Confederate Army in Arkansas, I am sure that they were conscripting every able bodied male that they could find, and thus depleting the manpower for local needs for manpower. So if a Niter Mine was important enough to have guards assigned to it, it must not have been an unimportant detail to the needs of the military. On the other hand it probably wasn't the most physically fit soldiers that they assigned to such duties, unless they were used as laborers. The same, I would feel, to be true of the Officers.

We probably will never know for sure, but military logic had to have played a part in these decisions and assignemnts.