Explore "Army Life at Helena, Arkansas" by Annie Wittenmyer on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Helena, Arkansas, was an important military station in 1862-63. In December, 1862, General Sherman, with his great fleet of boats and an army of twenty or thirty thousand men, moved from that point down the Mississippi River upon Vicksburg. There was nothing in the place of itself that made it a desirable camping-ground for troops, other than that it was an advance station far down into the enemy's country, and commanded considerable important territory. The soldiers called it a "God-forsaken place."
It was named after the daughter of the founder of the town, Helena; but the soldiers suggested that the name ought to be spelled with one syllable and two l's.