Tuesday January 13, 1863

“A Federal expedition from Helena, Arkansas operated up the White River until the nineteenth, capturing St. Charles, Clarendon, Devall’s Bluff and Des Arc, Arkansas.

At Harpeth Shoals on the Cumberland River in Tennessee, the U.S.S. Sidell, a Federal gunboat, surrendered to Confederate troops under Joseph Wheeler. Three transports with wounded troops were also seized in the action. The wounded were put on board one vessel and allowed to go on, while the other boats were burned.

Federal officials formally authorized the raising of Negro troops for the South Carolina Volunteer Infantry to be commanded by Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson.”

From “This Week in the Civil War“