ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, Volume 14 (Winter 1955), p. 381
THE BATTLE OF MARKS MILL
BY EDWARD ATKINSON
EDITED BY J. H. ATKINSON
The following was dictated to Audrey Marks by Edward Atkinson who was a Private under General Thomas P. Dockery*. It was dictated in the year 1919, fifty-five years after the battle was fought and when Atkinson was quite an old man but it seems fairly accurate in every detail except one. The statement that the supply train was commanded by "General Forrest" is an error. It was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel F. M. Drake.
Audrey Marks is the granddaughter of John Harvie Marks II, at whose home the battle was fought, and the niece of William David Marks who took part in the battle. She now lives with her sister Mrs. A. G. Elliott, 2418 Arch Street, Little Rock, from whom I secured a copy of the article in the year 1953.
I visited the scene of the battle in the summer of 1953. It is about ten miles southeast of Fordyce on the road to Warren and near the town of New Edinburg. It is just where the road from Kingsland unites with the Warren-Fordyce road. There are two markers to designate the site: one erected by A. B. Banks, the other by the Centennial Commission.
On the scene it is easy to visualize how the battle was fought. A local resident pointed out to me the location of Marks' Mill. It is in an old field long neglected and now well grown up in trees and underbrush.
Mrs. Civility Marks was the widow of Hastings Marks, a brother of John Harvie Marks II.
- Edward Atkinson, so far as is known, was of no relation to the editor
of this story. He was born in Christian county, Kentucky in 1843, the son
of Col. Thomas and Elizabeth (Lamuels) Atkinson.
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- * General Thomas P. Dockery owned a plantation and slaves in Columbia County, at Lamartine, four miles
- north of Waldo. In October, 1954, I visited the site. The foundations
of his brick home can still be seen. It was burned some years after the
close of the Civil War. His father, Colonel John Dockery, is buried in
the family cemetery in the rear of where the house was located. The marker
indicates that he died in 1860.
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