Reminiscence of James H. Campbell's Experiences during the Civil War

JAMES H. CAMPBELL'S REMINISCENCE is a compelling piece by a Confederate veteran from the Ozark Mountains who had participated in many events, local and statewide, that affected the course of the war in Arkansas. He writes about early Confederate recruitment and the arrest of members of the secret pro-Union Peace Society. He describes shifting unionist sentiment in north central Arkansas, how Confederate conscription induced him to enlist in an otherwise undocumented Confederate battalion, and the hostility that developed between Confederate regulars from Arkansas and rebel guerrillas from Missouri. Campbell participated in the battle of Poison Spring and writes about the treatment of black Union prisoners. He also provides an extended and very personal account of Gen. Sterling Price's 1864 Missouri raid.James Hamilton Campbell was born July 29, 1845, in Cellar Creek Valley, Campbell Township, Searcy County, Arkansas, the oldest child of six of George Washington Campbell (1825-1862) and Milbra Riddle Martin Campbell (1825-1915). In 1836, G. W. Campbell had come in a wagon train of relatives from McNairy County, Tennessee, to what would become, two years later, Searcy County. George W. Campbell's brothers included John Campbell, friend of Fayetteville Whig David Walker and Searcy County's representative to the 1861 secession convention, where Campbell opposed disunion until after secession. On April 19, 1863, James H. Campbell, age seventeen, married Cinthia Sutterfield, also age seventeen.1The end of the Civil War found J. H. Campbell a private in Robert C. Wood's Fourteenth Missouri Cavalry (CSA). He surrendered with Wood's battalion the first week in June 1865, at Shreveport, Louisiana. The Federal government furnished steamboat transportation for the surrendered Confederates as far as Jacksonport on the White River, and Campbell walked home to Searcy County from there. He and his family moved to Springfield, Missouri, where his eldest son, George B. Campbell, was born October 17, 1866. Sometime later, the family moved to Saline Coun ty, Missouri, where his second son, Charles Washington Campbell, was born September 9, 1869.2In 1872, Campbell moved to St. Louis where he began work at the stockyards, and, in 1877, he opened his own commission business, receiving shipments of livestock and representing cattlemen in negotiating sales to packing houses and feed lots. His wife, Cinthia, died January 25, 1879, in St. Louis, having borne her husband eight children. James H. Campbell remarried August 31,1879, to a widow, Nannie A. Crawford. In 1884, he moved his business to the Chicago Union Stock Yards, and, by 1886, he was operating in Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha, and St. Louis. By 1890, James was referred to in the press as a millionaire cattleman. Between 1890 and 1893, he was involved in real estate development in Chicago. Campbell lost almost a million dollars in the Panic of 1893, and it ruined the James H. Campbell Commission Company. But he struggled on and would later claim that he made good on every dollar he was liable for. He reorganized, formed the Stockman's Commission, and served as its president. Then, in November 1896, the Stockman Commission's treasurer absconded with the funds, leaving Campbell insolvent. But he maintained his reputation at the Stock Yards and, in 1898, recruited cavalry companies there for the Spanish-American War.3James Campbell retired in 1915 and moved to Thedford, Ontario, Canada, where his son George B. Campbell owned a cattle ranch. He had become a Republican and, in a 1928 letter to the Marshall (AR) Republican., urged Arkansans to vote for Herbert Hoover. By 1930, he was living with his divorced daughter, Jennie Campbell, in El Centro, Imperial County, California. Within two years, Campbell had relocated to Dixie Manor, a Confederate veterans home, in San Gabriel, Los Angeles County, and was corresponding with his nephew Eli Taylor Campbell of Ironton, Missouri, about Campbell family history. …

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