On May 19, 1862, one hundred Texas Rangers and fifty local men attacked a foraging party from the 17th Missouri Infantry (U.S.), a unit composed largely of German troops, fighting near Whitney's Lane. Union losses were twenty-two killed and thirty-three wounded, while four Confederates were killed. The attack convinced Union Gen. Samuel Curtis to abandon his advance toward Little Rock and instead march cross-country to Helena on the Mississippi. Arkansas's capital remained under Confederate control another year before falling to the Union. Circumstantial evidence suggests that Martin Vanmeter, a local citizen with pro-Union sympathies, was killed that day; he may have been a member of Hick's Cavalry but had provided the Union Army with intelligence in the days before the fighting.