Valiant Soldiers Come Home

Following that unlucky campaign for the federals, the war in Arkansas fell away to minor engagements and skirmishes. It was about ended in the state when 1864 came to a gloomy close – though there was a pretty sharp clash at Dardanelle as late as January 12, 1865.

On April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Soon afterward, the tattered veterans in gray that Arkansas sent to so many battle fronts were coming home. There were happy reunions and there were hearts heavy with thinking of the loved ones who slept in thousands of graves from the sunny plains of Oklahoma to the restless blue of the Atlantic Ocean.

As intrepidly as it had fought, Arkansas plunged into the task of rebuilding its shattered possessions. The editor of the Washington Telegraph, an unawed champion of the Southern cause to the last, wrote:

“We have no reason to feel humiliated. We have fought a good old English fair fight, with no one to interfere. It is not surprising that the stronger party won. Our struggle against all odds is the grandest on record…We may retain all our spirit and sense of personal dignity….This forced Union may, by wise management on the part of the North, grow yet to be a union of consent, and gradually draw to itself the affections of the Southern people….It leads the mind to dream….of a nation rising to heights of glory of peaceful development of the arts and its internal resources. Dreams of a people again unanimous and happy, with all revengeful passions put aside.”

One of many memorials erected across the South for the Soldiers who were lost in Battle.

The Washington Telegraph advocated support of the Murphy government, and that sentiment seems to have prevailed over the state. Early in the spring of 1865 the Flanagin administration in Washington dissolved, leaving the Murphy government to exercise entire civil authority.

Local government, which had well nigh disappeared as the war devastation increased, started to revive in 1864. Several counties elected officials that year. In 1865, the majority of counties selected courthouse officials.