3rd Arkansas Infantry Regiment 3rd Arkansas , or 3rd Arkansas Infantry Regiment ( May , 1861 – April 12 , 1865 ) was a Confederate Army regiment during the American Civil War , and the most celebrated unit from that state . Formed and initially commanded by Colonel Albert Rust , and later falling under the command of Colonel Van H . Manning , the regiment was part of the Army of Northern Virginia serving under General Robert E . Lee . The regiment served for the duration of the war , from the late months of 1861 through to the Surrender at Appomattox Court House in 1865 . They were the only Arkansas regiment to serve the entire war in the east , where most of the major battles were fought . They were also the only Arkansas regiment to initially sign up for the duration of the war , with all other regiments from that state signing on for a one year enlistment . Formation . The regiment was formed in May and June 1861 , initially by Dr . W . H . Tebbs , who would be appointed a captain , and Van H . Manning who would later command the regiment . Early in May , 1861 , Dr . W . H . Tebbs , Captain of a volunteer company raised on Bayou Bartholomew , in Ashley county , and Captain Van H . Manning , the Captain of a company organized at Hamburg , in Ashley County , went to Vicksburg , Mississippi in order to tender the services of their two companies , for service in the Confederate Army . They contacted Leroy P . Walker , Confederate Secretary of War , at Montgomery , by telegraph and received his reply declining the offer of the two companies , separate from a regiment . They then went to Montgomery , and Manning enlisted the help of Arkansas Confederate Senator Albert Rust . Rust help gain the acceptance as a part of the Confederate Army , conditioned on his raising the remaining companies needed to form a regiment . Rust , returned to Arkansas , and organized nine additional companies , and joined Captain Tebbs and Capt Manning in Virginia , where the regiment was mustered into service for the period of the war . The addition of nine companies made eleven when the regiment was organized . Tebbs ' Company and Captain Mannings ' were perhaps the first and only companies denied admission into the Confederate service , even for a day , and were the first companies enlisted for the war . When organized , the regiment was composed of 11 companies : Albert Rust was appointed colonel , and the regiment was sent to Lynchburg , Virginia for military training . While in Virginia , command level officers with formal military training were assigned to the regiment , to include West Point graduate Seth Maxwell Barton who was assigned as lieutenant colonel , and with Virginia Military Institute graduate Thomas Middleton Semmes assigned as regimental adjutant . The regiment was then attached to General Lee ' s Army of Northern Virginia , and deployed to the area of what would soon after become West Virginia . By mid - 1862 , the regiment was under the command of Van Manning following Albert Rust ' s promotion to Brigadier General , with William H . Tebbs being promoted to lieutenant colonel . Battle actions . From its induction into the Confederate Army , the 3rd Arkansas would go on to become one of the most distinguished and well respected Confederate regiments of the war . However , prior to their first battle actions , the first impressions of them by their fellow Confederates were , by written accounts since , not good to say the least . In several accounts , relayed by author and historian Mauriel P . Joslyn , the regiment was first seen as a poorly dressed and poorly equipped lot of ignorant country boys . Once proven in combat , however , those opinions of them would change dramatically . The regiment was ordered to the mountains of West Virginia , where it performed arduous and discouraging service in the campaign on the Gauley and Cheat rivers . This was followed by hard marching under Stonewall Jackson ( whom Col Rust later described as " an impracticable old schoolmaster who said grace before he ate and prayed before going to bed " ) in the Valley Campaign . The regiment was engaged in the battles of Greenbrier and Allegheny . Under General Jackson at Winchester , in January , 1862 , the 3rd Arkansas marched to Bath and Romney , returned to Winchester , and was ordered thence to Fredericksburg and assigned to the brigade of Gen . Theophilus H . Holmes . Colonel Rust was promoted to brigadier general about this time , and was transferred to a command in the western armies . Van Manning was promoted to the colonel of the regiment succeeding Col . Rust . The 3rd Arkansas was engaged in the battles of White Oak Swamp , June 3 , 1862 , in J . G . Walker ' s brigade , on July 1 , 1862 participated in the battle of Malvern Hill . In July , 1862 , the ranks of the 3rd Arkansas was augmented by the addition of nearly 140 soldiers from the 2nd Arkansas Infantry Battalion . The Second Arkansas Battalion had been organized in October , 1861 , from three companies of volunteers from El Dorado , Hot Springs and Pine Bluff . In June , 1862 , the 2nd Arkansas Battalion was decimated while leading an assault on the Federal position at Beaver Dam Creek , and its commander , Major William Naylor Bronaugh , mortally wounded . The War Department disbanded the battalion and transferred its survivors to the 3rd Arkansas . On September 17 , 1862 , at the Battle of Antietam , Companies A and L of the 3rd Arkansas were decimated . On September 25 the few survivors of Company L were transferred into Company A and Company L ceased to exist . Thus the regiment was reduced to ten companies , the normal complement for an infantry regiment . Col . Manning was seriously wounded during the battle . In November , 1862 , the 3rd Arkansas was assigned to the famous Texas Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia . The Confederate War Department had determined that the troops would benefit from being brigaded with regiments from their home States . At this time , the standard brigade organization consisted of four regiments . There were three Texas regiments in the Army — the 1st , 4th and 5th — and only one Arkansas regiment . It was therefore decided to group these four western regiments together . The Third Arkansas remained an integral part of Hood ’ s Texas Brigade until the end of the war . The first engagement that the unit participated in as part of the Texas Brigade was the Battle of Fredericksburg in December , 1862 . The regiment was not engaged at Chancellorsville , being detached with the rest of Longstreet ' s Corps at Suffolk . The 3rd Arkansas acquired a reputation as tenacious fighters , often finding themselves in the thickest fighting on the battlefield , such as their presence at the " sunken road " during the Battle of Antietam . Their most famous action was while serving as a part of the Texas Brigade during the Battle of Gettysburg , at the Devil ' s Den , where they took heavy casualties while serving under General John Bell Hood . The regiment was commended for gallantry in that action , while under the direct command of Brigadier General Jerome B . Robertson , fighting in and in the vicinity of the " Devil ' s Den " . The regiment was transferred with Longstreet ' s Corps to Tennessee in September , 1863 in time to fight at the Battle of Chickamauga ( where Major Reedy was mortally wounded ) . The unit went of to participate in the battles of Chattanooga , Wauhatchie , and in the siege of Knoxville , Tennessee , returning to the Army of Northern Virginia in the spring of 1864 . The regiment suffered heavy casualties later in the Battle of the Wilderness , during which they lost many of their commanding officers in addition to heavy losses in their ranks . In that battle they lost Colonel Van Manning and Lt . Col . Robert Samuel Taylor , both of whom were badly wounded and captured , in addition to Major William K . Wilkins who was killed in action . The regiment continue the fight at Spotsylvania , and on to Cold Harbor . The regiment was at Deep Run on August 6 , 1864 ; at Petersburg during the siege by Grant , at High Bridge and Farmville during the closing day of the war in 1865 . By the end of the war , the Texas Brigade as a whole , which included the 1st , 4th , and 5th Texas , and the 3rd Arkansas , had only 617 men remaining out of a total of 5 , 353 . The 3rd Arkansas Infantry is entitled to the following campaign participation credit : Battle Flags . The 3rd Arkansas is generally understood to have had at least four different regimental colors during the war , and there are at least three surviving examples of the battle flags of the 3rd Arkansas Infantry : The first flag of the 3rd Arkansas was probably a First National Confederate Flag , probably originally issued to either company C ( the Confederate Starts , or Company K , the Ashley Volunteers . The unit carried this first flag during the Battle of Sharpsburg . If this flag has survived , it has not been identified . Author Glenn Dedmondt identifies the second flag which was carried by the 3rd Arkansas as a three foot square flag which is currently in the collection of the Old State House Museum in Little Rock Arkansas . The Old State House Museum , Little Rock , identifies this flag as an artillery guidon . The flag was donated to the Old State House Museum by the family of Private R . Jessie Bailey , 3rd Arkansas Infantry , regimental band . The flag was allegedly made for the unit by the ladies of Fredericksburg , Virginia while the regiment was stationed there in the winter of 1862 . It is likely that regimental color bearer James M . Johnson was killed while carrying this flag at the Battle of Chickamauga , 19 September 1863 . The flag , an Army of Northern Virginia Battle Flag , is 35 1 / 2 " x 35 1 / 2 " square ; orange border ; 5 " stripe of the St . Andrew ' s cross ; and thirteen stars made of bunting and cotton with a canvas lead . The third flag carried by the 3rd Arkansas is an Army of Northern Virginia Battle Flag pattern made of bunting and cotton with canvas lead , 47 " X 46 " . Glenn Dedmondt identifies the flag as a 3rd bunting issue flag made by the Richmond Depot . The flag was issued to the unit on September 20 , 1863 on the field of Chickamauga , and was probably carried until approximately 1 January 1865 . Private Spencer Young , who was wounded carrying the flag in the Battle of the Wilderness , saved the flag and carried it back to the state . It remained in his custody until donated to the Old State House Museum , Little Rock in the 1920s . The fourth and final flag of the 3rd Arkansas was a Richmond Depot 4th Bunting issue flag which is currently in the collections of the Museum of the Confederacy , in Richmond , Virginia . The 51 " by 50 " flag has a red bunting field crossed with 7 inch blue bunting bars in a St . Andrew ' s Cross with 3 / 8 " white cotton fimbriation . There are thirteen 5 and 1 / 2 inch stars on the cross . This flag was surrendered by the regiment at Appomattox Courthouse , Virginia and was assigned capture number 411 . Surrender . When General Robert E . Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9 , 1865 , only 144 men of the 3rd Arkansas remained out of the 1 , 353 mustered into it from the start of the war .