the Confederacy’s total. The few battles fought in the state were not large-scale affairs and the books devoted to them would not occupy a great deal of shelf space. Furthermore, while there are exceptions, few of its generals gained fame in the conflict. Similarly, the state’s governors are not as well-known as some of their counterparts to the east. There were three—two secesh and one tory, if I may employ the terminology those on one side would use for those on the other.
This column will tell their stories and, I hope, illustrate the nature of the Civil War in this remote state. To quote The History Guy, whose mini-lectures I sometimes watch on YouTube, “It is history that deserves to be remembered.”
We begin with Henry Massie Rector, a native of Kentucky who moved to Arkansas in 1835 at the age of 19. Rector was not the first of his clan to immigrate to the new state. His relatives, in fact, were part of its governing elite, “The Family,” as the political machine was known. Rector was a lawyer, with interests in banking and farming. He served in the General Assembly and held other political positions during the 1850s. In 1859 he was elected to a seat on the state’s Supreme Court where, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, “his rulings were singularly inept.”
Rector had a falling out with the machine, ran against its candidate for governor in 1860, and prevailed. He took the oath of office in November for what he thought would be a four-year term. More on that below.
Rector was a strong advocate for secession. In his first address to the General Assembly he declared that the election of Lincoln was invalid and proclaimed that Arkansas was therefore independent. While many others favored secession, no one accepted the idea that the governor could remove Arkansas from the Union just by saying it in a speech.
The matter instead was put to a convention chosen by the voters. In March 1861, the delegates met but did not vote to secede, deciding instead to put the question directly to the people. Events overtook this plan, however. When the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, Lincoln called upon the states for troops to subdue the “combinations too powerful to suppress” by civil courts or Federal marshals. Governor Rector replied with a defiant refusal, declaring that the people of Arkansas would “defend to the last extremity their honor, lives and property against Northern mendacity and usurpation.” The convention met again and in May voted to secede.
The defiant governor would play only a short-lived role in the drama which was to follow. His political enemies undermined his authority as commander-in-chief by creating a state military board to oversee preparations for war. Furthermore, his term was cut short by a new constitution which provided for an election in 1862. After his loss in this go-round, Rector resigned. He sought a commission in the Confederate army but failed. He then joined the Arkansas Reserve Corps, where he served as a private until the end of the war.
Rector’s successor was Harris Flanagin, originally from New Jersey, who settled in Arkansas in 1839. Flanagin taught school, practiced law and speculated in real estate. A Whig, he served two terms in the General Assembly in the 1840s. He was largely absent from the political scene in the next decade but returned as a delegate to the secession convention in 1861. He elatively little is written about Arkansas’ role in the Civil War. It was a small state, and though a considerable percentage of Arkansas’ men served in the Southern armies, their numbers added only modestly to
