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Arkansas Rallies to the
Call of the Civil War
South Secedes and Four Years
of Strife and Misery are Launched…Much Blood Spilled on State’s Soil
Women Make Sacrifices
In 1862, a salt works, operating on wells sunk about 40 feet, was set up
near Arkadelphia. Hundreds of tons of salt were mined there. The water
was boiled down in pans fashioned from old steamboat boilers.
The women of Arkansas wove cloth endlessly, for home use and for the
soldiers. Spinning wheels hummed and looms were driven alike in the
humblest and most aristocratic homes. Nimble feminine fingers devised a
multitude of necessities from the unlikeliest materials. In the southern
part of the state, and in other sections of the South, blankets were
woven of Spanish moss brought from the Gulf Coast regions. They were, it
is said, soft and warm.
Confederate Memorial to Women - Located at the
Arkansas State Capitol
No eloquence could portray the courage, the sacrifices, and the
ingenuity of the women of that woeful period. It is a record of sublime
heroism that can be grasped only with feelings that lie far from any
reach of words.
East of the Mississippi, the Confederate armies were gloriously
triumphant in 1862. But in the border region between the deeper South
and the North, the superior manpower and wealth commanded by the federal
forces began to close a tightening grip.
Along in 1862, Gen. T.H. Holmes was put in command of the Arkansas
Division, superseding General Hindman. And as 1863 opened, the war in
the state was centered mainly in the eastern counties as a result of
federal attempts to open the Mississippi.
Arkansas Post fell to the Union forces early in 1863, after a gallant
defense by 3,000 men under Gen. T.J. Churchill. It was taken by an
enormously heavier Northern force commanded by Gen. John A. McClernand.
A fleet of gunboats poured a storm of cannon fire into the historic old
town.
The federal invaders left a garrison of about 5,000 men in Helena, and
raiding parties went out over the northern and central counties. To add
to the travails that came to the state, guerilla warfare had broken out
in the northern section. Order was crumbling away, and uncertainty of
civilian life and property was added to the terrible toils of the
battlefield and the tightening pressure of poverty.
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