Frederick Leavenworth lived in Van Buren, Arkansas in 1861, and wrote to his father telling about his preparation to join a company to fight for the Confederacy.1 Leavenworth was part of the Non-Regimental Enlisted men of the CSA.2 He mentioned in his letter several important Confederate leaders including Benjamin McCulloch, Nathan P. Pierce, and Albert Pike.

Leavenworth’s wife, along with the other women in town, spent 10 days in the town’s courthouse making uniforms for the soldiers. More than 100 men had enlisted from Van Buren and more would be enlisting, especially since there were rumors that Gen. Jim Lane had three regiments marching towards Arkansas and Missouri from Kansas. Gen. Pike was conferring with the Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees about organizing regiments in support of the Confederacy.

While Leavenworth was motivated to join the Confederate Army he did not believe the outlook to be very good for the Confederacy regarding Missouri. The “treachery of Frost [Daniel Frost] in Missouri,” allowed the Union to gain control of the St. Louis arsenal which contained enough weapons to “arm two states.”3 He stated, “But I fear Missouri is lost. Harney [William S. Harney] is acting as military Dictator, and liberty is lost. The Dutch Home Guard holds St. Louis in subjection.”4

Leavenworth was most concerned about how his harvest would do while he was gone and for the safety of his wife. Prior to his leaving, he planned to move her to Camden, Arkansas. With so many men away from home, women were left to tend the family’s farm and they had to survive all on their own. Leavenworth hoped to get into the Engineer Corp of the Confederate Army and asked his father to send him “a small work [Dennis H. Mahan’s Treatise on Field Fortification] on field fortifications”.5 Leavenworth would become a Captain in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States (P.A.C.S).6

Contributed by the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield

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1. Letter from Frederick Leavenworth to his father, May 21, 1861, Van Buren, Arkansas, Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, Republic, Missouri.
2. Frederick Leavenworth, National Park Service Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System, http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/soldiers.cfm
3. Letter from Frederick Leavenworth to his father, May 21, 1861, Van Buren, Arkansas, Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, Republic, Missouri.
4. Letter from Frederick Leavenworth to his father, May 21, 1861, Van Buren, Arkansas, Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, Republic, Missouri.
5. Letter from Frederick Leavenworth to his father, May 21, 1861, Van Buren, Arkansas, Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, Republic, Missouri.
6. Frederick Leavenworth, National Park Service Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System, http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/soldiers.cfm.