"From the Batesville Guard
Newpaper"

Article contributed by Liz Glenn - Independence County, Arkansas website.
If you have information to add to this
Article regarding any of the men listed, please contact Liz Glenn.

A clipping, probably from the Newark Journal, dated August 10, 1916, contains informtion concerning a prominent resident of that area and includes considerable Civil War data.

Incomplete research indicates that Robert C. Adams was born April 14, 1840, in Tennessee and was brought to Arkansas in 1845 by his father, John W. Adams.

The clipping, edited and slightly condensed, reads as follows:

"Robert C. 'Uncle Bob' Adams is one of the few remaining confederate veterans who enlisted from this county and saw service on the fields of carnage during the Civil War.

"On Aug. 4, 1861, Co. B, 8th Arkansas, left Jacksonport aboard the steamer Mary Patterson, Capt. Morgan Bateman, bound for Pocahontas. On the trip up Black River, Eph Comer, a member of the company, fell overboard near Elgin and it is not known whether his body was ever recovered.

"From Pocahontas, Adams' reginment went to City Point on the Mississippi, and from there by boat to Columbus, Kentucky, where they shipped by rail to Bowling Green via Humboldt, Tennessee. About the time of the fall of Fort Donaldson [February 16, 1862], they were transported by rail to Nashville and then to Murphreesboro.

"Uncle Bob was in some of the worst battles of the war and sustained only one wound of any consequence, having been shot in the leg. He was taken prisoner on January 1, 1863, but in April of that year was exchanged and permitted to join his regiment at Bellbuckle, Tennessee.

"During the battle of Murphreesboro, Col. John G. Fletcher of Little Rock was in command of the 6th Arkansas. He was wounded in a leg and a captain was also hit and lost an arm. Adams was detailed to nurse them.

"When Company B left Jacksonport, it contained 106 officers and men. As of now, only three are living, including Adams, J. S. Covey of Sandtown, and W. J. Sherrill of Russellville.

"Captain W. S. Smalley of Oil Trough was at one time in command of the company. Tom Bateman was 1st Lieutenant and M. D. Hulsey was 2nd lieutenant. Among those from this vicinity who were in the company were Bud Burns, Ceph Drennen, Dick Stephens, Tom Stephens, Louis Allwhite, Marin Mann, Henry Fortenberry, John Arnold, Dick McHenry, and Tom Wallace.

" Adams died December 28, 1935, and is buried in Blue Springs Cemetery.

(See also Fight and Survive! by Lady Elizabeth Luker, page 162-163. 8th Arkansas Regiment Arkansas Regiment, Company B "Old Company I " organized July 1861.)

The above information may be used for non-commercial historical and genealogical purposes only and with the consent of the page owner may be copied for the same purposes so long as this notice remains a part of the copied material. EDWARD G. GERDES