Adams ' Arkansas Infantry Regiment The Adams ' Arkansas Infantry Regiment was a Confederate Army infantry regiment which existed during the American Civil War ( 1862 – 1865 ) . The regiment was officially designated by the state military board as the 3rd Regiment , Northwest Division , District of Arkansas . There were two other Arkansas infantry regiments that were designated as the 3rd Arkansas during the Civil War : the 3rd Arkansas Infantry Regiment , which spent the entire war in the Eastern Theater of Operations assigned to the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the 3rd Arkansas State Troops which was assigned to General N . B . Pearce ' s 1st Division , Provisional Army of Arkansas , and disbanded following the Battle of Wilson ' s Creek . Organization . Immediately following the Battle of Pea Ridge , General P . G . T . Beauregard , acting for General Albert S . Johnston , ordered General Earl Van Dorn to bring his Army of the West to Corinth , Mississippi , to join Johnston ' s force for an attack on the Union Army at Shiloh . In addition , Van Dorn brought all the supplies he could , including the machinery and stores at the Little Rock Arsenal , to northern Mississippi with him , and left few men behind . Nevertheless , due to bad roads Van Dorn failed to reach Corinth until a week after the Battle of Shiloh . The Arkansas governor , Henry Massey Rector , issued an address on May 5 , 1862 , calling for the formation of 30 new infantry companies and 20 new cavalry companies . Most of the state ' s militia regiments had conducted their final recorded militia muster during the last week of February and the first week of March 1862 . Rector indicated that if there were insufficient volunteers to fill these new companies , a draft would be made upon the militia regiments and brigades . As a further enticement , Rector also indicated that these regiments were for home defense and that they would not be transferred to Confederate service without their consent . During the spring and summer following this order , many former militiamen joined one of the newly formed regiments . It may be that the militiamen decided it was better to enlist and remain together than to wait for forced conscription under new Confederate Conscription laws , which were being strictly enforced during the summer of 1862 . 3rd Regiment , Northwest Division , District of Arkansas , was organized mainly from unwilling conscripts , and some outright Unionists , from various counties in northern Arkansas . Two other new regiments were raised under Governor Rector ' s plan : Rector ' s 1st Arkansas , and Brooks ' 2nd Arkansas . When finally inducted into State service , these regiments would become Rector ' s 35th Arkansas Infantry Regiment and Brook ' s 34th Arkansas Infantry Regiment . Colonel Samuel W . Peel was originally assigned to command the new 3rd Regiment , but he was superseded by Colonel Charles W . Adams , who had formerly commanded the 23rd Arkansas Infantry Regiment . The unit was transferred to Confederate service at Elm Springs , Arkansas , on September 12 , 1862 . With the exception of Companies A and E , which were recruited from men who were neighbors and relatives , the other companies were made up of men from different areas who were thrown together on a more - or - less county basis . Most of the company officers were also conscripts who had been elected to their positions . With one exception , Lieutenant - Colonel Samuel Peel , the field officers were not known to the men . In the four months between organization and the battle of Prairie Grove , there were many changes in the field officers , including three different colonels . General Hindman finally brought in Charles W . Adams as colonel , Colonel Fitzwilliams was reduced to lieutenant - colonel , and Peel was removed . This combination of factors proved to be a poor recipe for unit cohesion and trust between officers and men . A small core of men , mostly in Companies A and E , were veterans of General N . B . Pearce ' s Brigade of Arkansas State Troops and had fought at Wilson ' s Creek in 1861 , mostly in Captain Larkin Bunch ' s company of the 4th Regiment , Arkansas State Troops . These men were mostly pro - Southern in attitude ; but by far the majority of the men conscripted into the other companies in the regiment were either pro - Union or decidedly neutral and wanted absolutely nothing to do with the war . They were conscripted to fight for a cause they did not believe in . This attitude is expressed very clearly in the autobiography of Pleasant Houston Spears . Battle of Prairie Grove . The 1st , 2nd and 3rd Regiments participated in the Battle of Prairie Grove under their state designations . It is asserted that Col . Charles W . Adams treated his regiment of conscripts more like prisoners than soldiers , with the men being held under guard and herded around like cattle , for example . The regiment spent the morning of December 7 near Prairie Grove church facing south . At about three o ' clock in the afternoon it was ordered into the fight . Upon reaching Battle Ridge , the regiment was placed in a gap between Fagan ' s Brigade and Shelby ' s Brigade behind the south fence of the Borden orchard . The regiment fired a volley from behind the fence toward the right wing of the Twenty - sixth Indiana . When the Hoosiers fell back the regiment climbed over the fence and advanced north through the orchard ( which was filled with fearfully mangled Union and Confederate corpses from an earlier clash ) directly toward the Borden house . At approximately the place where the modern tour road crosses the orchard the regiment ran into a storm of fire from the left wing of the Thirty - seventh Illinois , including the left flank company which was armed with Colt revolving rifle s . That is when the regiment broke . As both Adams and Hindman noted in their reports , many of the company officers went with the men . Colonel Adams ' report of the disaster is quite lengthy and detailed , and it is in included in the " Supplement to the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies " , Vol . 4 , pp . 79 – 84 . Break up and reorganization . Adams ' 3rd Arkansas , after breaking under fire at the Battle of Prairie Grove and being ordered broken up , never assumed its intended Confederate designation of 36th Arkansas Infantry and that designation eventually went to McRae ' s old 28th Arkansas Infantry Regiment in the reorganization of the Confederate Army following the Battle of Prairie Grove . A post - battle payroll list of the men who remained in the regiment after Prairie Grove consists of 76 names , exclusive of field and staff officers . Interestingly , most of those men were veterans of the Arkansas State Troops and the battle of Wilson ' s Creek , many of them having served in Capt . Larkin Bunch ' s company in the 4th Regiment , Arkansas State Troops . While the men of the regiment were officially referred to as " cowards " by Confederate leadership , this view is challenged by the fact that many survivors of Adams ' Regiment later joined the Union Army and subsequently fought in many savage engagements for the next three years of conflict in Arkansas . Following the unit ' s disastrous performance at the Battle of Prairie Grove , it was broken up . Most of the men who had remained loyal after the unit disintegrated were reassigned to either the 27th Arkansas Infantry Regiment or Harrell ' s 17th Arkansas Battalion Cavalry .