Civil War Arkansas: Beyond Battles and Leaders. (Book Reviews).

Civil War Arkansas: Beyond Battles and Leaders. Edited by Anne J. Bailey and Daniel E. Sutherland. The Civil War in the West. (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000. Pp. xii, 304. Paper, $22.00, ISBN 1-55728-565-9; cloth, $34.00, ISBN 1-55728-564-0.)

The phrase "Battles and Leaders" served as the title for a book of collected war memoirs that had first appeared in Century Magazine during the 1880s, and it defines the approach of "old" Civil War history. Although the editors of that venerable series did acknowledge Arkansas to some minor extent, little was written about the state either then or in subsequent years. Despite an extensive and growing bibliography chronicled in the introduction to this book, even today popular textbooks slight the wartime trans-Mississippi, and sometimes these egregious omissions are compounded by glaring errors of fact on matters pertaining to Arkansas.

While a case could be made that there still needs to be more old Civil War history before moving "beyond battles and leaders," scholars should nevertheless welcome this collection of eleven essays--eight of which appeared in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly and three in less accessible journals--that supposedly represent the "new" Civil War history. Supposedly. The first essay, by Anne J. Bailey on Ben McCulloch's little brother Henry, is a good example of the old history, rescuing a man who played pivotal roles in both Arkansas and Texas from the combination of obscurity and confusion with his older brother.

Other essays come nearer to fulfilling the title's promise. Geography is a theme in two important essays, one by James J. Johnston on nitre production in the Ozarks, and the other, by Michael A. Hughes, emphasizing the importance of gristmills. Both reveal not only the greater significance of seemingly mundane aspects of the war but also dissect elements of the social milieu in the mountain region. Social themes dominate William L. Shea's discussion of how General Samuel Curtis's victorious Yankees drew their negative image of Arkansas while marching first across some of the remotest parts of the Ozarks and then plunging into the swamps. The negative images they disseminated back home contributed to Arkansas's reputation for backwardness. Kim Allen Scott's microcosmic analysis of Kansas troops pillaging a loyal farmer's apples highlights more than issues involved, for the Union army's mistreatment of such citizens reflected social biases among the officer class. Plantation Arkansas gets less attention in the collection, but Carl H. Moneyhon shows that even in planter-dominated South Arkansas a mounting opposition to the Confederacy surfaced midway through the war.

Bushwhacking and guerrilla warfare (not necessarily one and the same) have been the topics of renewed scholarly interest in recent years. Daniel E. Sutherland advances the debatable thesis that these activities constituted the "real war" in Arkansas. Kenneth Barnes offers a group study of the unionist Williams family, whose home was in a county that contained both upland yeomen and Arkansas River Valley plantations. Wartime feuds inflamed postwar politics well into the twentieth century. Jayme Millsap Stone finds interesting material in the same Arkansas River region, although her emphasis is on military operations during 1864-65 and appears suspiciously like old history.

Finally, Arkansas's blacks appear in two essays. Carl Moneyhon looks at the federal attempt to reorganize the plantation system. No altruism here; the profit motive reigned supreme and foreshadowed the notorious postwar share-cropping system. Blacks also suffered disproportionately on the battlefield. Gregory J. W. Urwin documents the considerable racial atrocities Confederates committed against black troops in Arkansas, but he seems uncertain whether this was part of a deliberate plan or a spontaneous eruption of Confederate rage. Either way, it foreshadowed postwar race relations in the state.

Illustrations fitting the various topics grace the book. The citations appear at the book's end. The index is better than average for the essays but almost completely ignores the often-rich material contained in the notes. There is only one map, which is a serious omission since almost half the articles presume familiarity with specific localities.