building the hospital at Napoleon. American Civil War On February 12, 1861, before Arkansas seceded from the Union in May, Gov. Henry Rector ordered the seizure of the Marine Hospital and ammunition shipments. In April 1861 secessionists set up two cannons at Napoleon with the intention of forcing riverboats to stop for inspection. By September 1862 the Union army occupied Napoleon and the Union Navy controlled the rivers. While the city was under Federal control, the once bustling port had all but been deserted. The economy was in ruins, slavery was coming to a sudden end, and river traffic was entirely Union controlled. During the winter of 1863 the town had been largely pillaged for firewood. The Catholic church had its pews ripped apart and the only structure still standing was the Marine Hospital, which Federal forces did not use the for its intended purpose, instead sending patients elsewhere. While the hospital would survive the war it wouldn't survive the river. Even after the Confederates were routed at the Battle of Saint Charles in June 1862 and the Battle of Fort Hindman in January 1863 (at Arkansas Post where the Union advance landed at the Notrebe plantation), the Union forces could not stop rebels from harassing union ships. Following one such ambush in 1863, a Federal gunship led by William Tecumseh Sherman landed at Wellington and burned it. Geography The river that allowed the prosperity of Napoleon, Arkansas began its demise on April 14, 1863. Union Commander Thomas Oliver Selfridge who lead the USS Conestonga (1861) on patrols around the area of Napoleon had grown furious as to the inability to stop the rebels from firing at Union ships using the Beulah Bend. Selfridge's boss David Porter, called the bend, “one of the worst points for guerrillas.” East of Napoleon, The Beulah Bend (now Lake Beulah) was a 10-mile arc of the Mississippi River that started at the mouth of the Arkansas and semi-circled back around to within a mile of the Arkansas river's mouth. During the American Civil War, Confederate soldiers would move east by foot from Napoleon, hide in a wooded area near the bend, and then fire on passing Union ships. The bend was so tight that Rebels could fire at a ships headed down stream the Mississippi and leisurely move cannons a few hundred yards to wait and fire at the same ships. Selfridge sought to