Confederate Arkansas: The People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime
Michael B. Dougan
University of Alabama Press

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„Confederate Arkansas: The People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime“ discusses antebellum Arkansas, the Louisiana Purchase opened Arkansas for settlement.

Today the word Confederate or The Confederacy has come to presume slavery and ill-treatment of many at the hands of all who served in the Confederate Army. Writer Dougan’s „Confederate Arkansas: The People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime“ quickly puts to rest that misconception.

The state of Arkansas joined the Confederacy on 6 May 1861. This was an area having of four specific and differing types of citizenry. The mountaineers were folk eking out a continued existence in the hills and so called –hollers- as my Arkie grandmother called them. Yeoman farmers were established on the better-quality farm land; in general slave owning plantations were found in productive bottom land located along the Red, White, Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers. Swamp dwellers and so called poor white trash as well as hunters were found living along the periphery of the plantation economy.

The sectional antagonism which was widespread in other areas of the South was as lively and flourishing in pre war Arkansas. A paucity of transportation kept the economy at survival level in northwest Arkansas.

Even when traversable; river travel was often perilous. Transportation during the seminal years of our nation was always dependent upon rivers. Other than a few oblique pathways, generally unpaved, found in and near towns and villages; there were few roads in those days. Those of us who enjoy genealogy learn quickly to trace the route of rivers for location of our ancestors.

1835, the juncture when Arkansas sought admittance into the Union, was also a time of difference as well as a strength of mind for white manhood suffrage in the area as the political minded railed against the planters who wanted slaves counted under a 3/5s rule. An appeasement was finally worked out, the state constitution was set, and the yeoman class was given control of the lower house and the wealthy planters the upper in the Arkansas state congress.

Fractional political views persisted as the new state moved into the 1860s. A swelling population brought new occupants to the district. These were most often folks who anticipated roads, schools, railroads, and levees to restrain the swamp areas. The newcomers were mostly apathetic to old political powers, thoughts or obligations; these new emigrants were a force with which to reckon. In due course the die was cast; Elias Boudino, editor of the Fayetteville Arkansian and brother to Cherokee Chief, Stand Watie, who would become the only Native American to reach the rank of General in the CSA helped draw up the secession order.

„Confederate Arkansas: The People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime“ is a compelling read as it fills an old breach in state history dealing with the period of The War in the western frontier. Arkansas was an important member of the Confederate Trans Mississippi district.

Arkansas, as well as other Confederate states, or areas sympathetic to the Confederacy did have pockets or even wide spread areas of plantation living and large holdings of slaves. Arkansas as well as other Confederate states, or areas sympathetic to the Confederacy also had wide spread areas of non plantation living or large holdings of slaves. That there would be conflict between the two was predictable and understandable.

With the advent of war further east and south; men in plantation areas, and non plantation areas, flocked to join the Confederate States Army. History has long forgotten or simply ignored that the poor, white trash, yeoman farmers and hunters were not fighting to make powerful the plantation owners nor were they fighting to encourage slave ownership.

My own Confederate ancestors and relatives, hard scrabble, independent mountain farmers who owned no slaves, or plantations; fought FOR Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, N. Carolina, and Mississippi. For a Southerner WHERE you are born is WHERE your allegiance lies, true then, true now.

Michael Dougan, professor of history emeritus at Arkansas State University at Jonesboro, undertook abundant research including diaries, official military reports, newspaper articles, letters, personal reminiscences, legal documents, and songs prior to writing the report he intended to make available a full picture of the political situation in Arkansas just prior to the war.

On the pages of „Confederate Arkansas: The People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime“ Author Dougan sets the stage for the Arkansas’ entry into the war despite the fact that only one third of the population supported secession.

„Confederate Arkansas: The People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime“ examines the politics at play in the region in front of sectional catastrophes threatened to destroy the community. The election of 1860 that in Arkansas and in the Union – the period from November 1860 to March 1861, Secession, The First Year of the War, The Second Year of the War, Wartime Conditions, and The War’s End are all related in forthright, austere realism based in the fact of the time, place and research.

During the early months of 1861 Arkansas was in a situation of furor. Regrettably for Arkansas the area was reduced in importance to a trifling role in the tactical thinking of leaders of the Confederacy. Innumerable citizens living in Arkansas were convinced that the rabid abolitionist, James Lane of Kansas, had a unending determination to invade Arkansas. Along the western border between Arkansas and Indian Territory the state of affairs was worrisome, the Native People were enmeshed in as many fractional differences as were found in Arkansas. Blood shed, killing and despair were widespread.

The assault upon Ft Sumter solidified the mixed feelings of those who had harbored less than full strength of mind to serve with the Confederacy. Arkansas sent numerous units into the burgeoning conflict.

A seething storm developed around the choice of Gen’l TC Hindman to command Arkansas which was secured for him by Senator Johnson through Gen’l Beauregard. On the day Hindman received his orders; Richmond assigned Gen’l JB Magruder to the same command.

The domestic strife over who was in charge of the area continued for months. Of much importance was Hindman’s Order Number 17 which gave standing to the partisan groups fighting for the South. Guerrilla warfare was officially recognized, and remains an indispensable element of the military even today.

Then and now the –special forces- were, and are, looked upon as unfocused and poorly disciplined. Col Quantrill, Gen’l ‘Little Joe Shelby’ and many other colorful names were all true partisan leaders who live on in history despite revisionist mentality and Hollywood versions so prevalent today.

In an article found in the 12 August 2007 Arkansas Democrat Gazette Dougan wrote of the teaching of history: -Teaching Arkansas history is not the same as brainwashing; like any intellectual discipline it has to be grounded in historical reality. Our rich and colorful past, which includes one of the most controversial presidents in modern American history, must not be shoved out of the way or trivialized.

Understanding Arkansas is a lesson that begins at the local community, reaches out to encompass the entire state and forms the basis for understanding American and global history.

The first rule when recording history is honesty: Communities have to confront their histories, overcome the negative legacies of the past and set agendas based on their strengths that will carry them forward.

Second, honesty is not possible without knowledge. He articulates exactly my own feelings regarding history, it is what it is, copious research to gather perspective from many of those who lived through the era helps put everything into historical order; then, write and teach history from the result of research and let the chips fall as they may.

„Confederate Arkansas: The People and Policies of a Frontier State in Wartime“ was awarded the prestigious Mrs. Simon Baruch University Award of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1972. Michael B. Dougan presents the reader with an excellent look, based in research, at Arkansas’ political situation before, during, and after the war.

Excellent work for true students of history, those who reenact or those who want to know more of the time and place. Happy to recommend.