The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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THE OLD WINTER QUARTERS OF COLONEL MITCHELL’S REGIMENT
OF CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS OF THE WINTER OF 1861-2
By S. C. Turnbo
The author remembers being at the camp ground of the 14th Arkansas Regiment
of Infantry C. S. A. when it was in winter quarters in Madison Coty, Arkansas,
in the winter of 1861-2. My father J. C. Turnbo was an officer in Captain
Lewis Hudson’s company of that regiment and I visited my father in
the early part of December, 1861, when they made their permanent camp there.
It has been so long that my recollections of the locality of the camp has
faded. But Mr. E. B. (Ben) Hager who was a resident in Madison County when
Colonel Wm. C. Mitchell the commander of this regiment was camped there.
He says that the regimental winter quarters was in a hollow that flows into
War Eagle River and 3 ½ miles from Huntsville. The ground occupied
by the men was once known as the old camp ground where a number of big revival
meeting had been carried on long before wartimes. A fine spring of water
which was nearby furnished plenty of water for the soldiers as well as the
meeting folks. Colonel Mitchell used the old harbor for the storage of commissaries
by having it stockaded or making sides to it with logs, poles, and lumber.
The land on which the regiment camped on belonged to Neal Does and was on
the main road leading from Huntsville to Ozark on the Arkansas River and
was one-half mile from the War Eagle River where the ford was known as the
first crossing. This ford was four miles from Huntsville.
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