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FEDERAL OCCUPATION OF LITTLE ROCK
With
C. Fred Williams
Excerpt From
Rugged and
Sublime: The Civil War in Arkansas;
One historian has described Little Rock at the time of
the war as a "respectable town." The census of 1860 showed that it
had a population of 3,727 people (2,874 white, 853 black). It had a college (St. John's Men's School)
and was connected by steamboat to the outside world. Gaslights illuminated its
streets, most of its businesses, and many of its residences, but its railroad
system was "still largely in the blueprint stage," there were few
manufacturing concerns, and banking was almost nonexistent.
 Still, residents
held high hopes for the city's future. "It is apparent ... that Little Rock will ... be a
point of some very considerable importance," a local editor wrote in 1859.
"[I]t will become in a commercial view, a city to which every citizen of Arkansas can point with
pride." An editor from neighboring Memphis
added that "there can be no doubt but that a fair and flourishing future
awaits our sister city ... situated on one of the most beautiful sites that can
be imagined."
The Federal campaign
against Little Rock
lasted forty days and cost 137 casualties (18 killed, 118 wounded, 1 missing).
Incomplete Confederate reports listed 64 casualties. Price had managed to
evacuate his army and a large portion of his supplies to Arkadelphia, but the Little Rock arsenal, with
three thousand pounds of powder and a considerable quantity of cartridges, fell
into Union hands
C. Fred
Williams is Professor of History
at the University of Arkansas at Little
Rock. He has
been at UALR for more than thirty years. Beginning as an Assistant Professor in
1969, he progressed through the academic ranks and was made a full professor in
1978.
In addition to his faculty appointment, he has also served
in a number of administrative posts -- including Chairman of the Department of
History, Associate Dean in the College
of Liberal Arts, and
Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Programs.
A specialist in Arkansas History with an emphasis on
agriculture, he has authored, co-authored, or edited eight books, published
more than a dozen articles, and directed more than a dozen grant projects for
sponsored research.
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Here is an interesting
point on our subject for the meeting about Federal Troops in Little Rock.
When I went to the Internet to find a little bit of the story for the newsletter,
the first four references on the search engine referred back to our own
website.
That is probably why
we have over 1,000 hits a day.
http://www.civilwarbuff.org/
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PROGRAMS 2006/2007
November 28: Confederate Veterans Reunions
Election
of Officers
December 2006
No meeting Scheduled in December
January
23, 2007 - Randy
Philhours
Marmaduke Walker Duel
February
27, 2007 - Bill
Gurley, Ph.D.
Maj. Gen. Mosby M. Parsons'
Confederate Missouri
Brigades
March 27, 2007 – Brian Brown
Home from Gettysburg
April 24, 2007 - Miss Ellie
Women
during the War Between the States
May 22, 2007 Cal Collier
TBA
June 26, 2007 W. D. Honnoll
M. J. Thompson:
The Swamp Fox
July 24, 2007
TBA
August 28, 2007
TBA
September 24, 2007
TBA
October 23, 2007
TBA
November 27, 2007
TBA
We Who Study
Must Also Strive To Save!
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MINUTES FROM THE MEETING
At the Novemebr meeting it will be time to elect new
officers and to think about paying next years dues. If you would like to serve
as an officer or have a suggestion for next year, please contact Don Hamilton
of the nomination committee.
We also want to thank Dr. Michael
B. Dougan for his excelent presentation on the
newspapers of the time at the last meeting.
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Margie Bearss
October 22, 1925 - October 7,
2006
One of HistoryAmerica's
dearest—and one of history's best—friends, Margie Riddle Bearss, passed on in
Mississippi
on October 7, 2006. She was two weeks shy of her 81st birthday.
For nearly half a century she
was married to Edwin
Cole Bearss,
the "pied piper" of history, the celebrated Historian Guide so well
known to so many HistoryAmerica travelers. But Margie
was far more than just the wife of that icon, who survives her. She was not
only his partner in life—they shared two daughters and a son, Sara, Cole,
and Jenny—but she was also his
partner in history. She edited his written works, and when he raised the
Union ironclad gunboat, the Cairo, from the
bottom of the Yazoo
River in 1964, she
cleaned, identified, and catalogued every artifact he salvaged.
But neither was Margie just an indispensable helpmate in Ed's professional and private life. She was a
formidable historian in her own right. She wrote an outstanding work on Sherman's
Meridian Expedition of 1864. In the last two years of her life she was the
co-editor with Rebecca
B. Drake
of two books—a collection of letters and a diary from the Civil War era.
She will be deeply missed by
those of us who loved her. Here is the online guestbook to sign.
http://obits.suntimes.com/WashingtonPost/GB/GuestbookView.aspx?PersonId=19517407
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AT MACARTHUR MUSEUM
In 1848, the Cyrus Alger Co.
produced four artillery pieces called “6-pounder guns, light”, which have since
been known as “Cadet” guns. Only 50.5 inches in total length and weighing but
570 pounds, all four guns were sent to the Virginia Military Institute.
Three years later, Alger made two more for the Arkansas Military Institute
in Tulip, Arkansas.
Four additional guns were manufactured for the Georgia Military Institute in
1852. Of these ten Alger Cadet Guns, only seven are known to
survive.
These
guns were intended for drill and instruction, however, a shortage of field pieces
in the Confederacy at the beginning of the
Civil War resulted in the Cadet
guns being commandeered for active duty. The two from Arkansas
were carried to Virginia
in 1861 by the school’s cadets as part of the Third Arkansas Infantry.
You are invited to preview one of the two Alger Cadet
guns from the Arkansas Military Institute as it returns to Arkansas on loan from the Petersburg
National Battlefield. See the gun on
the afternoon of Saturday November 4TH at the Museum in MacArthur Park.
Join us tjem also for a book
signing of Ray
Hanley’s new release Remembering
Arkansas Confederates and the 1911 Little Rock Veterans Reunion.
Proceeds from the book sale will go toward costs of exhibiting the Alger Cadet
gun at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History.
The museum will also show
footage from the 1949 Confederate veterans reunion held in Little Rock.
Patriotic Treason
John Brown
and the Soul of America
By Evan
Carton
This Edition:
Hardcover
Publication Date: 09/2006
Our Price: $30.00
Availability: Usually ships
within 2-3 days
Description
John
Brown is a lightning rod of
history. Yet he is poorly understood and most commonly described in stereotypes
-- as a madman, martyr, or enigma. Not until Patriotic Treason has a
biography or history brought him so fully to life, in scintillating prose and
moving detail, making his life and legacy -- and the staggering sacrifices he
made for his ideals-fascinatingly relevant to today's issues of social justice
and to defining the line between activism and terrorism.
Vividly re-creating the world in which Brown and his
compatriots lived with a combination of scrupulous original research, new
perspectives, and a sensitive historical imagination, Patriotic Treason
narrates the dramatic life of the first U.S. citizen committed to absolute
racial equality. Here are his friendships (Brown lived, worked, ate, and fought
alongside African Americans, in defiance of the culture around him), his family
(he turned his twenty children by two wives into a dedicated militia), and his
ideals (inspired by the Declaration of Independence and the Golden Rule, he
collaborated with black leaders such as Frederick Douglass, Martin Delany, and
Harriet Tubman to overthrow slavery).
Evan
Carton captures the complex,
tragic, and provocative story of Brown the committed abolitionist, Brown the
tender yet demanding and often absent father and husband, and Brown the radical
American patriot who attacked the American state in the name of American
principles. Through new research into archives, attention to overlooked family letters,
and reinterpretation of documents and events, Carton essentially reveals a
missing link in American history.
A wrenching family saga, Patriotic Treason positions John Brown
at the heart of our most profound and enduring national debates. As definitions
of patriotism and treason are fiercely contested, as some criticize religious
extremism while others mourn religion's decline, and as race relations in
America remain unresolved, John Brown's story speaks to us as never before,
reminding us that one courageous individual can change the course of history.
EXCERPT:
Lieutenant
J. E.
B. Stuart
of the First United States Cavalry crossed the yard of the Harpers
Ferry armory and approached the thick oak door of the engine house
under a flag of truce. He felt eyes on his back. In the gray first light of the
raw morning of October 18, 1859, Stuart
could make out the muzzles of two rifles protruding from gun holes that
appeared to have been hastily chiseled through the engine house wall.
He doubted that he had much to
fear from the incompetent band of northerners and negroes trapped in the small
building in front of him, fanatical haters of the southern system of labor that
was protected by the country's laws and enshrined in its traditions.
He was at greater risk, he
thought wryly, from the unsteady hands and judgment of his fellow Virginians
who perched on the railroad trestle and the water tower and in every window of
the hotel to his rear.
 THE ORDER OF CONFEDERATE ROSE
There have been numerous whispers about, all indicating a
desire to resurrect the Arkansas Society of the Order of the Confederate
Rose. It is with great pride and
anticipation that we have decided to go forth and pursue the Eliza Currie Davis
Chapter #2, to be associated with the Patrick R. Cleburne Camp # 1433 of
the Sons of Confederate Veterans, located in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
Read about Eliza
here
http://wsscemetery.com/curriehistory/curriehistory.shtml
Officially, we have a lot of paperwork to complete and some
interesting decisions to be made, including a state logo. (I have some ideas, but want you to be
thinking about it, too!) We have a great
support system in place with the help of the National OCR with offers of doing
some of the leg-work for us. Be thinking
about officers to assist the current co-presidents: Kayla
Kalkbrenner, 2421 Meadowpond Trail, White Hall, AR,
71602
(captk1ark@hotmail.com) 870-247-2394 and Ellen DiMaggio,
1323 Lakehall Rd., Lake Village, AR 71653 ( ellen@speakingofladies.com)
870-265-3073. We will need a treasurer
and secretary (both recording and corresponding). Plus we need members! Anyone interested in Southern Heritage, over
the age of 10, regardless of gender or race or background ancestry may
join.
Our first event will be Sunday, Oct. 15, 2006 at the White Sulphur
Springs Cemetery. A most enjoyable location, the cemetery provides
a perfect background for our gathering as it is the burial site of our own
Eliza Currie Davis. Please join us in
period dress if you can for the first un-official, official OCR Chapter #2
event. The ceremony begins at 2:00 in
the afternoon, but the cemetery will be open all Saturday and Sunday as a
Living History event. Come out and join
in the Southern comraderie and to honor those who gave their All for the Cause,
including Mrs. Eliza Currie Davis.
What
is the Order of the Confederate Rose?
It is
a way for us to support our Confederate Heritage and to further the cause of
the Sons of Confederate Veterans and to support endeavors by the SCV.
How
is it organized?
Local
chapters are sponsored by SCV camps, and these chapters are formed into state societies. There is a nationwide Confederation of States
that provides a means for meeting and sharing with other societies.
Who
may join the OCR?
Anyone
over the age of 10, you do not need a relative in the SCV, or an ancestor in
the CSA. All you need is a desire to
support our Confederate Heritage. Each
chapter votes on its own requirements.
It will not compete with the UDC or any other genealogical organization.
What
will the OCR do?
Our
goal is to aid and further the cause of the SCV and to support endeavors
sponsored by the SCV when they request our assistance. We are free to focus on projects or problems
important to our own area as well as to support efforts of national scope. The OCR will aid the SCV by providing
additional communications, promoting educational programs and organizing social
functions.
How
do we become a recognized chapter?
We
must submit the appropriate paper work to National plus $100 each year. We need
at least 7 members, at least 10 years old, with an approval signature from an
SCV member. Design a state logo. Get a
bank account with 2 signatures plus an EIN number. Dues; $20/year Aug 1-July
31. $10 to local chapter, $10 to
national Lifetime $100 ($50 to National, $50 local) Elect officers
Order
of the Black Rose?
The
Order of the Black Rose is a part of the OCR, separate, but equal. To be a member of OBR, you must be ready with
a mourning outfit for memorials and/or cemetery dedications and respectfully
portray a Southern woman in mourning.
Respectfully submitted,
Ellen
M. DiMaggio
CIVIL WAR TRIVIA QUIZ
We
ran out of time for the quiz last week, so here it is again.
BATTLEFIELD PLACES
THE FOLLOWING LIST OF NAMES REPRESENT LOCATIONS ON WELL
KNOWN BATTLEFIELDS. NAME THE WELL KNOWN
BATTLEFIELD THEY ARE ASSOCIATED WITH.
FOR EXAMPLE, THE “HORNETS NEST”
IS ASSOCIATED WITH SHILOH:
TULIP, ARKANSAS
From an article
by Tom
Dillard
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Like so many of the pioneering settlements in territorial Arkansas, Tulip was settled by a North Carolinian by way
of Tennessee,
Tyra Harris Brown.
A few years later came Col. Maurice
Smith, the forerunner of a whole
clan of Smith settlers. A different Smith family, this one headed by Nathaniel G. Smith
of Hardeman County, Tenn., also settled in Tulip. All of the
Smiths were families of wealth and culture, which bode well for their new
settlement. Tulip does not seem to have gone through an unruly adolescence. The
village, which was near a military road, soon was home to Methodist, Baptist
and Presbyterian churches. In particular, the Methodists had a thriving
congregation, which was for a time headed by the renowned Rev. Andrew Hunter.
In 1849, George
D. Alexander,
a 24-year-old graduate of Washington College in Virginia, convened a
meeting in Tulip to consider establishing an educational institution. The
resulting Alexander Institute began as a coed school, but it was divided into
two different institutions after only a year, forming the Arkansas Military
Institute and the Tulip Female Collegiate Seminary.
VISIT
THE
BATTLEFIELDS
WHEN
YOU CAN...WHILE
YOU CAN
SEE YOU TUESDAY NIGHT
for C. Fred
Williams
GOD BLESS AMERICA
Copyright ©1997 Civil War Round Table of Arkansa
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