While I am not an expert either on the battle of Little Rock my study of the Defense of the Lower Arkansas River from July of 1862 until the Fall of Little Rock has impressed upon me how important it was to make any usage of the Arkansas River by the federals as a conduit to get to Little Rock as difficult as possible. Little Rock itself wasn't important to the Federals in the overall skeam of things, nor was Pine Bluff. But control of the Arkansas River valley and more especially the denying the use of the corn crops and food supplies grown along it to the Confederates was important. Jefferson Davis himself in a letter to Kirby Smith after the fall of Little Rock stated the fact that any hope of regaining Missouri back would hinge upon the retaking of the Arkansas River valley.

The advantage that the Confederates at Pine Bluff had was the terrain south and east of that place. The Arkansas River from Pine Bluff to Arkansas Post was often unusable to Heavily laden Steamboats most of the year because of low water levels. The terrain south of the Arkansas was so crisscrossed by Bayous and swamps that Brig. Gen. Frost stated in his report that he could hold off a Union army of 50,000 men with only 10,000 troops. He could defend even crossing. The land North of the Arkansas was no better with the White River bottoms and Bayou Meto. Any attack from Helena directly toward Little Rock would always end up at Clarandon, or Deval's Bluff. All of the defense works by the Confederates for those 18 months had been directed toward this operational theroy that the Union Army would have to attack Little Rock from DeVal's Bluff and Brownsville.

The terrain behind Pine Bluff to the north and west was entirely open. Henry Merrill made these same observation in his biography when he was employed to construct barracades in the Arkansas River at Arkansas Post to stop Union Steamboats, after the fall of Fort Hindman, in February 1863.

With all of this in mind I can see where Price would have seen Steele's manuvering to the south of Little Rock as an encircle/flanking operation to gain the open terrain on the southside of the Arkansas River for operations. What Price on the other hand could not have foreseen was the total collapse of his army at Fouche Bayou.

Price's MISTAKE in my opinion was the abandonment of Fort Pleasent at Pine Bluff in August by Frost Brigade, and Price ordering those troops to the defense of Little Rock at that time.

This move in effect cleared the Union Armies left flank. The Garrison at Fort Pleasent had always been a limiting factor on any prior Union advance because once they reached Clarandon the Union commander had to be aware of the possibility of a Confederate flanking or even rear attack launched from Pine Bluff IF he advanced farther west that the White River at Clarandon. This is why in My opinion that Steele started out by going farther north to DeVal's Bluff.

With the Pine Bluff garrison removed to Little Rock Steele would have had no concerns about be caught between the Pine Bluff Garrison and Price's Army once he (Steele) crossed the Arkansas.

A second things is that IF Steele was about to abandon his attempt to take Little Rock in September '63, Pine Bluff would have been the place to have gone even if he were not expecting re-enforcements by Smith's Division from Vicksburg, to salvage something positive from this expedition. Pine Bluff was wide open and undefended. And with Steele using Pine Bluff as a forward operating base it would have still caused Price to have to abandon his defenses and Little Rock itself, for reasons already stated, That being the implied threat to Benton and Prices supply lines.

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