There were not only southern whites at Camp White Sulphur Springs as well as blacks both, slave and free. There were also hispanics and even Mexican national in Regiments that were there. Probably the strangest was the Company "H" of the 24th Texas Cavalry which was composed of half Texans and half Native americans as privates in the company. But possibly even starnger was that there were even TWO Chinese Nationals in the Confederate Army at Sulphur Springs. One of their decendants is a SCV members.
As you an I have discussed there is a very real element that many of the sick and wounded of Trans Mississippi soldier in the eastern Theaters of Tennessee and Virginia returning to Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana and Texas by way of the hospital at White Sulphur Springs. We know that wounded from Shiloh such as Robert G. Shavers, Hindman, and Theophilus Holmes came to Arkansas by way of Pine Bluff and White Sulphur Springs.
Also much of the supplies coming from the east by way of Vicksburg was also transported to Pine Bluff/White Sulphur Springs to rebuild and equipe the army in Arkansas. 15,000 arms and artillery from far away battlefield such as 2nd Manassas and Harpers Ferry.
Then you have the operations themselves. It is simple to just say that such and such unit was organized at Sulphur Springs in January of 1863. But what did it do there?
Soldiers are usually in a place for a military reason. The "Chess game" of manuver and counter manuvers reached from Helena and Devall's Bluff/St. Charles to Monroe, and Vicksburg, La. Most people do not know that there wer 3 attempts by the Union to destroy Fort Hindman at Arkansas Post. It was only the third with the use of the Gunboats that was successful. There were four expeditions from Helena in the summer of 1862 to pressure the defences of the Confederate at Little Rock. They got no farther than Clarendon because of Pine Bluff and Camp Nelson.
Not only were these forces there for organization and supply purposes, but they were there to guard one of the most important gateways to Arkansas, The Arkansas River. Heny Merrill said it best in his autobiography, when he observed that had Pine Bluff fallen to the Federals in 1862 that all of Arkansas north of the Ouachita River and possibly even the Red River would have fallen without a shot being fired.
The story of White Sulphur Springs is not JUST the story of a camp of instruction and resupply waypoint. It is the story of an entire theater of operations against the Union Army to keep Arkansas Fighting in the Confederacy for 18 monthes longer than it should have been. That 18 months directly effected the Union Campaign against Vicksburg.