American Civil War: The three-day Battle of Arkansas Post concludes as General John McClernand and Admiral David Dixon Porter capture Fort Hindman and secure control over the Arkansas River for the Union.

The Battle of Arkansas Post, also known as the Battle of Fort Hindman, was fought from January 9 to 11, 1863, along the Arkansas River at Arkansas Post, Arkansas, as part of the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War. Confederate forces constructed Fort Hindman near Arkansas Post in late 1862. Also in late 1862, Major General John A. McClernand of the Union Army was authorized to recruit troops in the Midwest in preparation for an expedition down the Mississippi River against Vicksburg, Mississippi. Union Major General Ulysses S. Grant began an overland campaign against Vicksburg along the Mississippi Central Railroad in November. Grant and Union General-in-Chief Henry Halleck did not trust McClernand, and through machinations placed the start of the riverine movement against Vicksburg under the command of Major General William T. Sherman before McClernand could arrive. Sherman's movement was defeated at the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou in late December, and Confederate cavalry raids forced Grant to abandon his overland campaign.

John Alexander McClernand was an American lawyer, politician, and a Union Army general in the American Civil War. He was a prominent Democratic politician in Illinois and a member of the United States House of Representatives before the war. McClernand was firmly dedicated to the principles of Jacksonian democracy and supported the Compromise of 1850.

David Dixon Porter was a United States Navy admiral and a member of one of the most distinguished families in the history of the U.S. Navy. Promoted as the second U.S. Navy officer ever to attain the rank of admiral, after his adoptive brother David G. Farragut, Porter helped improve the Navy as the Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy after significant service in the American Civil War.

The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in Colorado, specifically the Arkansas River Valley. The headwaters derive from the snowpack in the Sawatch and Mosquito mountain ranges. It flows east into Kansas and finally through Oklahoma and Arkansas, where it meets the Mississippi River.