"if you have ever ran across anything that details why Crawford left this battalion (Crawford's BN) and went on later to raise the cavalry regiment? I have often wondered why he "raised" this battalion, it was given his name, and then he did not stay with it."

Anthony

It is my impression that Captain Crawford returned to Arkansas from the 1st Arkansas during the reorganization of the Army in the summer of '62. and was looking for a command of regiment. His "Battalion" at Sulphur Springs was a thrown together conglomeration of extra troops left over from the reorganization of the 19th and the Organization of the 24th Arkansas and the extra Company of the 33rd Arkansas. While most records only show 2 companies in Crawfords' Battalion there seems to be more extra men laying around that just 2 companies. It is impossible to tell how many of those "extra men" actually wound up in the hospital and never made it into any organization.

In other words I believe that Lt. Col. Crawford was expecting to have a much larger command than just a battalion of two Companies.

After the capture of the 19th and 24th Arkansas at Arkansas Post, the men of those regiments who were not captured, because they were not at the Post, were reorganized into a holding regiment under Col Dawson to await the exchange of the prisoners. We know that this "Holding Regiment" became what is most common called Hardy's Regiment. It was at that time in Fedruary of 1863 that Crawfords Battalion was consolidated into Hardy's Regiment and Lt Col Crawford began raising a Cavalry regiment.

What it comes down to is that I don't believe Col Crawford intended to be commander of just a 2 company Battalion, and fully expected to be able to raise a full regiment. But that most of the men that he expected to organize into his regiment would have been those who were cast off by the other regiments organized at Sulphur Springs. But those men had been cast off from those regiments because of illness. The 24th Arkansas which was also formed in much the same manner lost 1 out of every 10 men dead to this illness and many more ill for long periods and even discharged.

So I believe that Crawfords Battalion was the structure by which those men would have been placed in had their Illness not proven so devestating. By the time all of this played out the manpower pool of conscripts had played out in Arkansas.