The following article from the July 2000 issue of "Bramble Bush," the newsletter of the Historic Genealogical Society of Marion Co AR, might be in interest to some of you. Mysty shakerag@mtnhome.com C H A I N G A N G: T H E A R K A N S A S P E A C E S O C I E T Y By James J. Johnston, 2333 East Oaks Drive, Fayetteville AR 72703 There was pro-Union, anti-secessionist sentiment in many parts of the South in 1861. Going under various local names, Peace Society, Peace and Constitutional Society, Heroes of America, and many others, these "secret, oath-bound" organizations were discovered in 1861 and early 1862 in every Confederate state but Louisiana. In Arkansas those conservatives who opposed secession, and especially opposed military service to dissolve the Union, openly expressed anti-secessionist or pro-Union sentiments prior to the hard fought Secession Convention of February 1861. After Arkansas seceded May 6, pro-Union sentiment became tantamount to treason, and its expression was limited to secret, oath- bound organizations. This paper will give a brief synopsis of the discovery of the secret Unionist/anti-Confederate movement in Arkansas in 1861 and the Arkansas Confederate response. Although there were pro-Union organizations active as early as the secession convention, it was the Confederate efforts to raise troops that brought the anti-secessionists into real conflict with their Confederate neighbors and the Confederate authorities. Immediately after secession, Arkansas' newly formed military board began raising regiments for service both within Arkansas and east of the Mississippi. Even in strongly unionist mountain counties, men were raising Confederate companies, although some enlistees joined only under duress. Private Andrew J. Garner from Searcy County stated, "I was told I could go with Company K, 14th Arkansas or look up a tree to be hanged from." When Garner's one year enlistment was up in 1862, he left for the Federal lines at Helena and enlisted in the Federal Second Arkansas Cavalry. This was a familiar pattern for Arkansas mountaineers. In the Ouachita Mountains of Montgomery, Pike and Polk counties, Unionism was alive and well in the constituency of Pike County's Samuel "Preacher" Kelley, one of the five who had originally voted against secession at the Secession Convention. In October 1861, William Foster of Montgomery County reported sixteen of his neighbors to Governor Henry Rector for expressing pro-Union sentiments. He stated that he was sorry to inform the governor that Abe Lincoln had as many friends in Montgomery County as he did in neighboring Pike and Polk counties, and that they had not gone out of the Union for they stick to the Union yet. He reported an anti-Confederate service organization, a committee of Union men that dared anybody to touch one of them. They did not intend to go fight until they were drafted, and, when their community was canvassed for Confederate volunteers, they had formed a sham company of twenty-five men which would stay at home. Jack and Elijah Putnam let the secret ou! t when they proclaimed, "Boys, come on; you shant have to go off to fight. Join us. We will stay right here." Of the sixteen men named by Foster, three are found in the 16th Arkansas Infantry, but nine enlisted in the Federal Fourth Arkansas Cavalry. Foster knew the sentiments of his neighbors. At the same time that the Putnams were obstructing Confederate recruiting in Montgomery County, General Edmund Burgevin was trying to raise a regiment from north central Arkansas. On October 8, Burgevin wrote to Governor Rector that no company of volunteers had yet reported to him at Carrollton and that there appeared to be a great apathy and want of spirit among the people in that portion of the country. He found that one of his greatest difficulties was that too many men wanted to be captains, and all had excuses for not joining. Burgevin feared that there was wide spread disinclination to enlist, particularly for a longer period than twelve months. During these recruiting efforts, John Holmes, a twenty year old married farm laborer from northwestern Van Buren County, revealed to Confederate authorities that he had been initiated into a secret society opposed to the Confederate war effort, particularly to service in the army. He told enough about the secret society that General Burgevin hurried to Clinton to meet with Colonel Jerome B. Lewis. The Van Buren County militia chief confirmed that a secret anti-Confederate organization existed and informed the General that he had called up one hundred militiamen who were arresting suspected members and who had discovered their constitution and secret signs of recognition. Within three weeks the militia's first lot of twenty-seven prisoners was marched to Little Rock where they were imprisoned. Two days later the Daily State Journal reported that the secret organization was called a Peace and Constitutional Society and that it had 700 members in Searcy, Van Buren, Newton and I! zard counties with 1,700 members throughout the state. They had signs and passwords and were furnished with supplies of money from the Northern camps, as well as arms and ammunition. Their constitution made it obligatory upon every member to risk his life to aid another in distress, and to kill a member who revealed their secrets. Jehoiada J. Ware, a Peace Society leader, was Fulton County's representative to the Thirteenth General Assembly in 1861. He had been in Little Rock at a Special Session of the legislature the second week in November, and was going home through Van Buren County, when he learned that Colonel Lewis was arresting Peace Society members. In one day he rode the seventy-five miles from Clinton to his home where he spent five hours warning fellow society members in Fulton, Marion and Izard counties that they were discovered. Then he and forty men who felt threatened by the discovery of the society fled to Rolla, Missouri. Ware and thirty-five of his fellow Arkansans joined Colonel John S. Phelps' Six-Month Missouri Infantry Volunteers and were sworn in December 1 as Company G. Ware was made captain. The Arkansas volunteers said that a Union society in Izard, Fulton, Independence and Searcy counties was betrayed by a recent member, and was broken and scattered. Other Arkansas Unionist! s continued to join Ware's company so that by the end of the year his company counted seventy-eight men, sixty-three identified from Fulton and neighboring Arkansas counties. After Ware and company left Fulton and Izard counties, those left behind fell under the scrutiny of loyal Confederate citizens. Two vigilante companies began arresting suspected Peace Society members, even pursuing them twenty or twenty-five miles into Missouri as they fled, and hanging two of them. The vigilantes sent their prisoners, whom they did not hang, to Little Rock. Once exposed in Van Buren and Fulton counties, adjoining Izard County discovered, on November 18, that it had a Peace Society problem in Harris and Sylamore Townships on the Searcy County line. It was identified as a secret conspiracy against the laws and liberties of the people, extending from Fulton County through Izard and perhaps Searcy and Van Buren counties. Citizens formed vigilante groups and arrested suspected Peace Society members. An ad hoc investigating committee looked into the secret conspiracy, examined the prisoners and found that the prisoners, and others not located, had formed a secret organization with a constitution, by laws and secret signs. The committee believed that the secret organization was treasonable and dangerous, but that the prisoners, whom they knew, were young and ignorant of the society's aims. Therefore, the committee decided that the prisoners should wipe out their foul stain by enlisting in Confederate service for the war. The committee! gave the forty-seven prisoners the opportunity to enlist and every one of them immediately enrolled as volunteers in the Confederate service. We do not know what the alternative was. The committee reported their actions to the Governor and stated that the volunteers would leave for Colonel Solon Borland's headquarters at Pocahontas as soon as transportation was available. When Borland learned of the Izard County activity, he sent two infantry companies to Sylamore and Harris Townships to suppress the movement, but the troops found that the local citizens had the situation well in hand. Borland reported, ". . . the troubles in that quarter were found to be less serious than they had been represented to me, though they were sufficiently so to require prompt attention. By the time my expedition arrived at the scene of these troubles the loyal citizens of the several neighborhoods had organized themselves into companies of Home Guards for their own protection, and had so far regained the ascendancy as to leave but little more for the force I had . . . than to aid in collecting the prisoners who were taken or had voluntarily given themselves up." Inquiring into the prisoners' character and antecedents, he did not find them "guilty of such overt acts of disloyalty as would warrant any severity of punishment. . . They are not found to have engaged i! n any act of open disloyalty to our Government." The volunteers proclaimed their innocence, alleging that they had been misled by others who had escaped from the country, and in order to prove their sincerity and their loyalty to the South they were willing to volunteer in the military service and take the oath of allegiance. Concurrently, citizens in the eastern Searcy County township of Locust Grove discovered a similar secret society and began arresting their neighbors. On November 20, Samuel Leslie, Searcy County's militia colonel, learned that about one hundred people in Locust Grove Township were arresting and confining their neighbors. At Locust Grove, Leslie found about fifty men from Locust Grove and adjoining Big Flat Townships and from neighboring Sylamore Township, Izard County, who had discovered a secret anti-Confederate society and had turned out voluntarily to arrest the suspected society members. The first man arrested disclosed the whole secret of sworn bond with signs and passwords. The excitement was high and it did not take much urging on the part of local citizens to persuade Leslie to call out the militia. He thought that there would be a premeditated attempt at insurrection. The arrests of these first few days were traumatic and the Peace Society members did a great deal of soul searching to determine what was best for their families. Alexander Copeland discussed with a neighbor whether it was better to remain and take the consequences or try to make their way north through the enemy's country. Benjamin Gary had gone into the woods when he heard of the arrests being made. Militia Captain John Redwine sent word to those hiding in the woods that if they would surrender and come into Burrowville, they would not harm "airy hair" on their heads. Militia squads scoured the Searcy County countryside and took the Union men by force from their homes or wherever they found them and conducted them under close guard to the county seat. Disturbed by their betrayal and the aggressive action of the Arkansas Militia, between thirty and forty Searcy County Peace Society members met to protest the society's innocence. They passed resolutions declaring the peacefulness of the society and their willingness for a full investigation. They declared that the society only intended to protect its members as a last resort, without interfering with any seceder or his property, and claiming for its members only the fundamental right to think and act as independent American citizens. But they also stated that they were ready to take up arms against any body of robbers, North or South, to maintain the peace of their country and to preserve the liberties of its citizens. The members stated they would not submit to being tried for crimes of which they were not guilty and would defend themselves by force of arms. Concurrently at Camp Culloden in south eastern Carroll County, Captain John Homer Scott, commanding Pope County Volunteer Cavalry, discovered another manifestation of the Peace Society and arrested some of its members. Men in Searcy County's Tomahawk Township, north of the Buffalo River, were raising a company to liberate the Peace Society members held in Burrowville and Clinton. Under interrogation, Scott's prisoners identified their neighbors who were pro-Union or who belonged to the Peace Society. In response to this information, Scott began arresting suspected society members who were implicated in the plan to release the prisoners. The ringleaders of the movement were arrested and held, along with twenty others, to be turned over to Confederate authorities in Little Rock. Leslie informed the Governor of the situation in Searcy County and why he had called the militia into service, and asked what the Governor wanted done with the prisoners. Governor Rector received Leslie's report the same day that the first batch of prisoners arrived from Van Buren County, and cabled President Jefferson Davis to report the discovery of a secret conspiracy against the Confederate government. Then he replied to Leslie saying that he regretted extremely that any citizens should prove disloyal, and ordered Leslie to arrest all men in Searcy County friendly to the Lincoln government, or hostile to the Confederate States. He also directed Leslie to march his prisoners to Little Rock where they would be dealt with as enemies of their country. This overrode any promises that the militia officers had made of lenient treatment, or that they would not hurt "airy hair" on their heads. On December 3, Governor Rector advised Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin that he had notified the President of the arrest of Arkansas citizens involved in a conspiracy against the South, and that he had received no answer. The Governor wanted the approval of the Secretary or the President for enlisting the Izard County prisoners in Confederate service. The Secretary replied two days later that it was impossible for him to give directions without more information and he advised Governor Rector to use his own judgment. In the meantime, the Searcy County Militia continued to arrest their Unionist neighbors until there were eighty prisoners in the log courthouse in Burrowville. On December 9, Leslie started his prisoners for Little Rock, chained in pairs with tap rings around their necks, the rings connected by trace chains, a log chain connected the pairs in one long coffle. The implication was not lost on Benjamin Gary whose family remembered that they were chained like slaves. Leslie's orders to the officer in charge of the escort stated, "Sir, you will convey the prisoners now in your care safely to Little Rock, and there deliver them up to the Executive of the State . . . You will also be careful that they are not mistreated while under your care by anyone." The 125 mile trip took six days and when they arrived the prisoners were marched immediately into the senate chambers, still in chains, where Governor Rector read excerpts from the Confederate constitution and laws about treason. He! informed them that they were guilty of treason according to the law, that they deserved the death penalty, and would be held for trial even if it took several months. The escort officers spoke in the prisoners' behalf and the Governor offered them the opportunity to join the Confederate army in lieu of being tried for treason. Everyone enlisted, except two Baptist preachers whom the Confederates thrust into jail without giving them an opportunity to enlist. The same day that the Burrowville prisoners were started toward Little Rock, Captain Scott ordered a 75 man guard to deliver his prisoners safely into the custody of the Governor. The prisoners included three Missionary Baptist preachers, a Southern Methodist preacher, a schoolteacher, a physician, a tanner and fifteen farmers. All but five of the Camp Culloden prisoners enlisted in Confederate service. Seven Searcy County men who had bound themselves to appear before the Governor enlisted with Captain Scott's prisoners, as well as sixteen Peace Society prisoners from Van Buren County. Despite Rector's threat that the Peace Society prisoners would be held several months for trial, their stay was relatively short. On December 24, thirteen Fulton County prisoners and six witnesses appeared before the Military Board to testify about the secret organization. Seven were held for trial. Of the seven who stood trial, two denied that they knew anything about a secret organization, but four admitted some connection with the Peace Society. All those who testified agreed that the society was for keeping down mobs and protecting their property, and all stated that they were Southern men. The grand jury failed to find true bills against the Peace Society members on charges of treason, so they were given the Confederate oath and released. The Van Buren County prisoners were brought before a grand jury in January which also failed to find true bills against them, because the evidence showed that their offense consisted more of words and threats than overt acts. The priso! ners were released upon taking the oath of allegiance. The Searcy County prisoners were similarly released. The True Democrat feared that when these men were released to go home, that a conflict would arise between them and the citizens whose lives they had threatened. They concluded that if they really favored the South they had an opportunity to show their loyalty; if they favored the North, then they could go north, as it was cheaper to fight them than to feed them.