DOWN THE ARKANSAS RIVER

On this day, Pvt. Peter Perrine states the 16th Ohio and Gen. McClernand's victorious Union troops sailed from Arkansas Post on the Arkansas River down to *Napoleon, Louisiana, on the Mississippi River near the mouth of the Arkansas River.

Pvt. Frank Mason, Company A, 42nd Ohio, states:

The army came down the Arkansas in splendid spirits and with the demoralization induced by Chickasaw Bluffs thoroughly cured.

The town of Napoleon,Louisiana, was eventually destroyed by the flooding of the two rivers and, basically, ceased to exist after the flood of 1874

* Some information from Civil War Diaries and Selected Letters of Robert Newton Gorsuch, a private in Company B, 16th OVI, recently published in book form by Newt Gorsuch's great grandson, Everett Gorsuch Smith, Jr. The book is available for purchase from various Internet sources.

* Some information and italicized test, above, taken from The Forty-Second Ohio Infantry - A History of the Organization and Services of That Regiment In the War of the Rebellion, 1876 - F. H. Mason, late Private of Company A - Cobb, Andrews & Co., Publishers.

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Period map of the area around Arkansas Post, Arkansas:

Red star - Confederate stronghold Arkansas Post, the target of McClernand's attack; please note that the site of the fort at Arkansas Post has been covered by the ever changing waters of the Mississippi River, a historic marker and overlook now exists near that place.
Blue star - mouth of the Arkansas River on the Mississippi River
Yellow star - the cut off, a navigable bayou that connected the White and Arkansas Rivers

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Modern map of the area around Arkansas Post, Arkansas:

Lavender pin - Confederate stronghold Arkansas Post, the target of McClernand's attack; please note that the site of the fort at Arkansas Post has been covered by the ever changing waters of the Mississippi River, a historic marker and overlook now exists near that place
Blue pin (upper) - probable loading point for troops
Blue pin (lower) - mouth of Arkansas River on the Mississippi River
Yellow pin - Napoleon, Louisiana, where the 16th Ohio and fleet moored (assumed) the night of January 16, 1863