Doyle mentioned something above that I wanted to comment on. Fred Steele constantly bemoaned his troops in their scattered bases unable to control but the ground they stood on. In July 1864, NB Buford, union commander of the district of eastern Arkansas wrote to General Canby, as well as someone in the War dept, that the interior of Arkansas ought to be abandoned as it was such a drain of resources with little to be gained in occupying it. In late 1864 the post at Fort Smith was on starvation rations, all its horses dead for lack of feed. General Grant ordered the post abandoned, but the order was rescinded at the last minute by Lincoln after the civilian outcry.
Did Kirby Smith realise how tenuous a hold the Federals had on north Arkansas? If he did you would think that he would have opted for something other than a raid as a follow up to the federal defeat in Louisiana & Camden.