| With Fire and Sword: Arkansas, 1861-1874 When Arkansas seceded from the Union in 1861, it was a thriving state. But the Civil War and Reconstruction left it reeling, impoverished, and so deeply divided that it never regained the level of prosperity it had previously enjoyed. Although most of the major battles of the war occurred elsewhere, Arkansas was critical to the Confederate war effort in the vast Trans-Mississippi region, and Arkansas soldiers served--some for the Union and more for the Confederacy--in every major theater of the war. And the war within the state was devastating. Union troops occupied various areas, citizens suffered greatly from the war's economic disruption, and guerilla conflict and factional tensions left a bitter legacy. Reconstruction was in many ways a continuation of the war as the prewar elite fought to regain economic and political power. Thomas A. DeBlack is an associate professor of history at Arkansas Tech University. He is co-author of Arkansas: A Narrative History and the co-editor of The Southern Elite and Social Change: Essays in Honor of Willard B. Gatewood. |