Return to First Page---ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, Volume 52 (Autumn 1993), p. 225   Although recent scholarship has identified sources of discontent beyond that originating in individual grievance and regional antagonism, the full extent and exact nature of such insurgency remains uncharted. Concerning the role of class conflict in producing the South's internal strife, it may be said that Emory M. Thomas's conclusions in 1979 still hold true. While class conflict in towns is now accepted as at least one explanation for expressions of disloyalty, the amount of disloyalty inspired by class resentment in the countryside is "unknown." Thomas implies that more studies of uprisings against Confederate authority outside of towns and mountainous regions are necessary to gain a full understanding of dissent (5). One unexplored geographic region within which widespread defiance against Confederate authority appeared by the middle of the war was southwestern Arkansas, especially in the counties lying roughly to the west and the south of the Saline River. On December 29, 1862, General Theophilus Holmes, commanding the Trans-Mississippi Department, informed Confederate President Jefferson Davis of the difficulties that had developed throughout his district. He wrote: "My situation is one . . . full of perplexities not the least dangerous of which is the growing disaffection to the war among the people. With power to declare martial law I can suppress it but without this I cannot tell where it will end. . . ." Through the early months of 1863, Holmes's predictions were fulfilled, and Confederate authorities reported widespread hostility to the Confederacy that ranged from resistance to conscription to raids by armed bands against loyal Confederates. This disaffection was particularly virulent among the people of southwestern Arkansas, and that section would see the harshest use of Confederate authority in an effort to suppress internal strife (6). ________________________ 5. Thomas, The Confederate Nation, 234. 6. T. Holmes to J. Davis, December 29, 1862, Correspondence of General T. H. Holmes, Records of the War Department Collection of Confederate Records, RG 109, National Archives, cited hereafter as Holmes Correspondence.           Contents  Words  Study Questions  Related Sites Next