The War in Carroll County, Arkansas - Peace Society

Peace Society

Sergeant
Joined
Jun 25, 2019
Location
Ark Mo line
from: Carroll County Historical Quarterly
published by the Carroll County Historical Society (Carroll County, Arkansas)
(posted with permission)

Vol. III, No. 1 March 1958
Pg. 9-11 The Arkansas Peace Society of 1861: A Study in Mountain Unionism
By Ted R. Worley [part 1]

When Arkansas seceded from the Union May 6, 1861, the only dissenting vote in the convention was that of Isaac Murphy of Madison County in the mountain section of the state. The nearly unanimous vote for secession did not reflect a similar enthusiasm among the people. In several upland counties in the northwestern and north central parts of the state majority sentiment was probably opposed to secession. After the event, however, when loyalty rather than political opinion was at issue, most mountaineers chose the Confederacy. A strong minority remained loyal to the Union, and the mountain section furnished perhaps nine-tenths of approximately 8,000 Arkansans who joined the Federal army.
Apparently the earliest organized internal resistance to the Confederacy came in Arkansas, from secret societies in Searcy, Ban Burren, Izard, Carroll, Fulton, and Marion Counties. These six counties in the north central section of the state were contiguous to each other and three joined Missouri. The societies collectively were usually called the Peace Society or the Peace Organization Society but were also referred to as Home Protection Society, Home Guard, and in one instance as the Pro Bono Public Society. They were referred to vaguely in Arkansas newspapers as “jayhawkers,” a good propaganda term borrowed from the Kansas border. In mid-November, 1861, activities of these secret organizations considered treasonable were noticed in Searcy and Izard Counties by citizens loyal to the Confederacy, who were surprised to find extensive opposition to the cause among their neighbors.
Among the most surprised of all was Samuel Leslie, commandant of Searcy County militia, who, less than a month before, had written Governor Henry M. Rector emphatically to deny existence of disloyalty in his county. Colonel Leslie said,
“It is true the citizens of this county war union men as long as there was aney hope of Union and perhaps a little longer, but all Ida of the Union as it onst was is banished the time has passed for the North and South to live together in pease and harmoney and we must be loyal to the government we live under this is the feeling of the people of this county so fare as I have any Knolledg and when you hear men call the people of Searcy Co. by hard names rest assured they are wilfully lying or misinformed with (respect to) the character of our people.”
On November 20 word came to Leslie that about one hundred loyal citizens in Locust Grove Township, assisted by others from Izard County, were arresting supposed members of a secret organization hostile to the Confederate States. Colonel Leslie immediately took a portion of his militia to the vicinity, where he found about fifty men under arrest. The first members arrested, probably under promise of leniency and threat of hanging, revealed secrets and names of other members including leaders. The brotherhood, it was discovered, was fully formed, with constitution, initiatory oath, passwords, signs, and tokens. A bit of yellow ribbon or rag on a post or on the wall of a cabin meant, to the initiated, that a brother resided there. A wolf howl was a sign to be answered by the hooting of an owl. “It’s a dark night” was a password to be answered “Not so dark as it will be before morning.”
Colonel Leslie mobilized the rest of the Searcy County militia and during two weeks following made further arrests. By December 5 the courthouse at Burrowville, the county seat. Was filled with members and suspected members of the society. Meantime couriers had carried to Governor Rector information collected from prisoners and others. Rector immediately dispatched an order to Colonel Leslie, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the Arkansas Militia, saying,

“I and my officers in the State are sworn to enforce the laws as they are--and individuals, one or many, revelling against these laws, must be looked after and if for the safety of the country, it becomes necessary to arrest and imprison them or to execute them for treason, that must and will be done promptly and certainly, if it is necessary to call out every man in the State to accomplish it……

You will therefore proceed to arrest all men in your county who profess friendship for the Lincoln (sic) government - or who harbor or support others arousing hostility to the Confederate States or the State of Arkansas. And when so arrested you will march them to this place, where they will be dealt with as enemies of their country-- whose peace and safety is being endangered by their disloyal and treasonable acts.”

In compliance Colonel Leslie sent seventy-eight of the arrested men to Little Rock under guard of one hundred soldiers. To prevent possible escape, and perhaps also to make an example of them, the suspected traitors were linked in pairs with ordinary trace chains and marched over the rough ninety miles of rough road to the capital in the shortest possible time.
Meantime in Carroll County on the Missouri border suspects were dealt with firmly but in less summary fashion. There a justice of the peace court, consisting of magistrates Kelly Fostherston and William Owen “siting (sic) as a Court of Enquiry & Investigation into certain secret Treasonable and Insurrectionary Society,” heard testimony from twelve members of the brotherhood which implicated themselves and twenty-two other men. The twenty-two were ordered committed for further trial and conveyed to Little Rock under a guard composed of Arkansas Cavalry Volunteers, C.S.A. and surrendered to the Governor. The twelve informers were bonded to appear before the Governor for further testimony.
 
Adherence to the new Confederacy was directly in proportion to the existence of the cotton economy and slavery in many of the Western or Border states, including Texas, Tennessee, the counties of western Virginia, and even Deep South states like Georgia, Alabama, and others. Most of them witnessed some degree of dissent or outright resistance to secession and the resulting war.
 
from: Carroll County Historical Quarterly
published by the Carroll County Historical Society (Carroll County, Arkansas)
(posted with permission)

Vol. III, No. 1 March 1958
Pg. 9-11 The Arkansas Peace Society of 1861: A Study in Mountain Unionism
By Ted R. Worley [part 1]

When Arkansas seceded from the Union May 6, 1861, the only dissenting vote in the convention was that of Isaac Murphy of Madison County in the mountain section of the state. The nearly unanimous vote for secession did not reflect a similar enthusiasm among the people. In several upland counties in the northwestern and north central parts of the state majority sentiment was probably opposed to secession. After the event, however, when loyalty rather than political opinion was at issue, most mountaineers chose the Confederacy. A strong minority remained loyal to the Union, and the mountain section furnished perhaps nine-tenths of approximately 8,000 Arkansans who joined the Federal army.
Apparently the earliest organized internal resistance to the Confederacy came in Arkansas, from secret societies in Searcy, Ban Burren, Izard, Carroll, Fulton, and Marion Counties. These six counties in the north central section of the state were contiguous to each other and three joined Missouri. The societies collectively were usually called the Peace Society or the Peace Organization Society but were also referred to as Home Protection Society, Home Guard, and in one instance as the Pro Bono Public Society. They were referred to vaguely in Arkansas newspapers as “jayhawkers,” a good propaganda term borrowed from the Kansas border. In mid-November, 1861, activities of these secret organizations considered treasonable were noticed in Searcy and Izard Counties by citizens loyal to the Confederacy, who were surprised to find extensive opposition to the cause among their neighbors.
Among the most surprised of all was Samuel Leslie, commandant of Searcy County militia, who, less than a month before, had written Governor Henry M. Rector emphatically to deny existence of disloyalty in his county. Colonel Leslie said,
“It is true the citizens of this county war union men as long as there was aney hope of Union and perhaps a little longer, but all Ida of the Union as it onst was is banished the time has passed for the North and South to live together in pease and harmoney and we must be loyal to the government we live under this is the feeling of the people of this county so fare as I have any Knolledg and when you hear men call the people of Searcy Co. by hard names rest assured they are wilfully lying or misinformed with (respect to) the character of our people.”
On November 20 word came to Leslie that about one hundred loyal citizens in Locust Grove Township, assisted by others from Izard County, were arresting supposed members of a secret organization hostile to the Confederate States. Colonel Leslie immediately took a portion of his militia to the vicinity, where he found about fifty men under arrest. The first members arrested, probably under promise of leniency and threat of hanging, revealed secrets and names of other members including leaders. The brotherhood, it was discovered, was fully formed, with constitution, initiatory oath, passwords, signs, and tokens. A bit of yellow ribbon or rag on a post or on the wall of a cabin meant, to the initiated, that a brother resided there. A wolf howl was a sign to be answered by the hooting of an owl. “It’s a dark night” was a password to be answered “Not so dark as it will be before morning.”
Colonel Leslie mobilized the rest of the Searcy County militia and during two weeks following made further arrests. By December 5 the courthouse at Burrowville, the county seat. Was filled with members and suspected members of the society. Meantime couriers had carried to Governor Rector information collected from prisoners and others. Rector immediately dispatched an order to Colonel Leslie, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the Arkansas Militia, saying,

“I and my officers in the State are sworn to enforce the laws as they are--and individuals, one or many, revelling against these laws, must be looked after and if for the safety of the country, it becomes necessary to arrest and imprison them or to execute them for treason, that must and will be done promptly and certainly, if it is necessary to call out every man in the State to accomplish it……

You will therefore proceed to arrest all men in your county who profess friendship for the Lincoln (sic) government - or who harbor or support others arousing hostility to the Confederate States or the State of Arkansas. And when so arrested you will march them to this place, where they will be dealt with as enemies of their country-- whose peace and safety is being endangered by their disloyal and treasonable acts.”

In compliance Colonel Leslie sent seventy-eight of the arrested men to Little Rock under guard of one hundred soldiers. To prevent possible escape, and perhaps also to make an example of them, the suspected traitors were linked in pairs with ordinary trace chains and marched over the rough ninety miles of rough road to the capital in the shortest possible time.
Meantime in Carroll County on the Missouri border suspects were dealt with firmly but in less summary fashion. There a justice of the peace court, consisting of magistrates Kelly Fostherston and William Owen “siting (sic) as a Court of Enquiry & Investigation into certain secret Treasonable and Insurrectionary Society,” heard testimony from twelve members of the brotherhood which implicated themselves and twenty-two other men. The twenty-two were ordered committed for further trial and conveyed to Little Rock under a guard composed of Arkansas Cavalry Volunteers, C.S.A. and surrendered to the Governor. The twelve informers were bonded to appear before the Governor for further testimony.
Very informative! My gggfather, along with several of his family, was part of the Peace Society & marched in chains to Little Rock. Given the choice of jail or joining the Home Guard, chose the guard. Unfortunately, while he was away guarding, his wife was murdered by a Confederate Captain named Cordelle right in front of his 11 year old boy. When my gggfather got home, heard the news, he & his brother in law went off in search of Cordelle. Found him, killed him. 😪
 
Were we in the mode of Confederate apologists, we'd call this further "proof" that the Confederacy was illegitimate. We instead accept this as an indication of resistance to the Confederacy in one area, no proof of anything. Thanks for the post.
 
A good source for the war in Northern Arkansas is History of Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas by Colonel William Monks. Monks was raised in Fulton County, Arkansas. He was present when the recruiters from Little Rock showed up.

The War in Northern Arkansas and Southern Missouri progressed into a maelstrom. At the beginning, there was little fighting. There were few slaves. And, Washington DC and Richmond were very far away.

The Arkansas militia came through seeking "volunteers" to join the army. Men who refused were often summarily killed. There is one account where three men were hanged. However, the tree branch was too low, so the men were supporting themselves with their toes. The militiamen forced the condemned men's wives to dig the dirt out from under them so they would die.

Union sympathizers were driven north into Missouri. Confederate sympathizers were driven into Arkansas. As a result, an area that was agnostic at the start of the war became very partisan.

The Governor of Arkansas encouraged the citizens of the border counties to raid Missouri. This, of course, resulted in reprisal raids into Arkansas.

The end of the war did not end the fighting in Northern Arkansas and Southern Missouri. Revenge raids and murders still occurred.

In 1867. a Freedman's Bureau agent was assassinated in Fulton County. The agent happened to be the son-in-law of Colonel Monks. Colonel Monks then organized a Missouri mob. The mob went to the courthouse in Salem, Arkansas and murdered a prominent citizen of Fulton County.
 
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from: Carroll County Historical Quarterly
published by the Carroll County Historical Society (Carroll County, Arkansas)
(posted with permission)

Vol. III, No. 1 March 1958
Pg. 11- 12 The Arkansas Peace Society of 1861: A Study in Mountain Unionism
By Ted R. Worley [part 2]

In Izard County, as in Searcy and Carroll, extra-legal arrests were made spontaneously by citizens’ committes calling themselves a “Home Guard.” In Izard County the arrests were made three weeks before the local militia took a hand. The suspects were given a hearing before an organized citizens’ committee consisting of twelve men, including Thomas W. Edmonson, Izard County representative in the legislature. The investigation revealed, according to the report of the committee to the governor, existence of a “secret organization having a constitution and by-laws and secret signs….. dangerous in its operation and subversive of the rights and liberties of the people of the State, and of the Confederate States; and if not treason itself, at least treasonable. Evidence against the accused, forty-seven in number, included a copy of the Mill Creek Peace Society’s constitution found in possession of a member.

The Izard County committee did not send its prisoners to Little Rock, as did corresponding bodies in neighboring counties. Instead they arrived at an interesting solution of their own. In the words of the committee, in view of the youth and ignorance of the prisoners, and “feeling willing in our minds that they should wipe out the foul stain, by enlisting in the service of the Confederate States for and during the war, we accordingly gave them an opportunity of so enlisting, whereupon, the whole of them…. immediately enrolled their names as volunteers in the Confederate Service for and during the war. They leaver here is soon as transportation can be had, for Genl Borland’s headquarters at Pocahontas Ark.” A curious circumstance is that the men designated as their officers, “Major” Thomas W. Edmonson and “Captain” Neely G. McGuire, were not Confederate officers. Edmonson was never in Confederate service; McGuire was a private who had enlisted three weeks previously. Edmonson himself was denounced a few days later as a member of the secret society and was killed resisting arrest.

Further ramifications of the Peace Society were discovered by citizens’ committees in Van Buren, Marion, and Fulton counties and suspects conducted to Little Rock. First prisoners to arrive at the capital were those from Van Buren, southernmost county affected. On the day of their arrival, November 28, Governor Rector wrote to President Jefferson Davis as follows:

A conspiracy has been discovered in the northern part of this State against the Confederate Government. Secret oaths, signs, and passwords adopted. The intention seems to be to join Lincoln’s army if it gets into Arkansas. Twenty-seven men have been arrested and brought here today and (are) now in prison. A hundred more will doubtless be brought here in a day or so. They say there are 1700 in the State. What shall be done with them? I ask your advice in the premises. The district judge is not here. He ought to be at his post.


Five days later, not having heard from the President and with further information at hand, the governor sought advice from the Secretary of War. Would the Secretary, the governor asked, approve of action already taken by citizens’ committees “permitting” the arrested men to volunteer in Confederate companies. Arkansas authorities would not approve the preceedings, Rector said, unless sanctioned by the Secretary of War or the President. In immediate reply the Secretary advised the governor to use his own judgment. Rector then turned the problem over to the Sate Military Board, a body with wide duties and vaguely defined powers, among them the all-inclusive one of taking charge of and being responsible for the safety and protection of Arkansas. The Board, of which the governor was ex-officio chairman, held hearings for the accused.

The upshot was that after a terrible tongue-lashing by Governor Rector, the prisoners, regardless of age, physical condition, and apparent degree of guilt, including at least six members who had been useful informers, were given a choice of standing trial for treason in Confederate district court or enlisting in Confederate service for duration of the war. Oral tradition has it that the alternatives were hell and the Confederate army. All but fifteen of the 117 mean examined chose the army. The Little Rock True Democrat commended the recruits for clarity of judgment. The fifteen accused who preferred trial for treason to soldiering faced a grand jury two months later. It was found that, although evidence showed that some of the accused were dangerous and disaffected, there was nothing in the record of treason itself. Their offense had “consisted more of words and threats than overt acts” and no bill was found against them.

Those who went into the Confederate service did not fare so well. Forty-two of the seventy-eight men brought from Searcy County in chains were placed in a single company of the Second Arkansas Infantry. Many of them were too old for military service, at least by the physical standards of 1861, but this matter was neatly adjusted by enrolling officers, who trimmed up to thirty-five years from the ages of the volunteers. Sixty-eight of the remainder of those heard by the Military Board made up another company except for officers. The two companies of reluctant volunteers, together with their regiment, were in the thick of fighting east of the Mississippi. Fifty-four years later one of the volunteers recalled an order to his battalion as it formed in line of battle in the memorable dawn at Shiloh. It was put as follows: “Boys, we are going to have a hell of a fight, and I have no confidence in those men sent here from Arkansas. If they try to get to the Federals, shoot them; if they fall back, shoot them; if they try to run, shoot them. The prisoners who were impressed into Confederate service in Izard County were regularly enrolled later at Pocahontas as part of the Eighth Arkansas Regiment. They were also at Shiloh and other engagements east of the Mississippi. Among the impressed companies generally desertion was heavy. The deserters made their way back, singly and in groups of five to twenty men, to the Arkansas mountains, and after visits with their families found their way deviously to Federal forces in Missouri and Arkansas. They, with others of similar loyalty from the Arkansas and Missouri Ozarks, made up formidable units of the “mountain Feds.”


[I have tried to faithfully copy the Quarterly just as it reads, so there are some areas that I would have liked to edit, but chose not to.]
 
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I often wonder how strongly these mountain folks really felted about the Confederacy or the Union at the start of the war. Doubt they could afford to have what little crops they made impressed by either goverment. Also I wonder if my relatives in Cherokee County NC and Monroe County TN ever saw a black man in their lives. Certainly never remarked on it in any of their writings. The only time I can think of is when a ex Confederate was standing trial for killing my g g grandfather, an unionist. He was acquitted as they were both involved in a large gun fight. His brother was also on trial for killing an ex slave woman named Elvira. He was charged for court cost!

Anyway I am just saying I think a large percentage of these people simply wanted to be left alone and mind their own business at the start of the war.
 
This has been a good look at another of what Confederate refugee Kate Stone called a dark corner of the Confederacy, where loyalty to either side was usually ephemeral. Arkansas Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman tried fighting the campaign and battle of Prairie Grove in Dec., 1862 with an army of such largely conscripts with predictably poor results.
 
I suspect that they didn't care about fighting people they didn't know. These mountain folks could fight like cougars in revenge for wrongs against their family. My g g g grandfather was killed buy Confederates, Impressing his property and his body rolled off the mountain he lived on at the Morrow Gap in Monroe County TN. I don't know but I suspec his sons did not know much about the Constitutionality of Secession nor did they think much about liberating or enslaving the black man. However when they carried their father back up the hill they got a sudden affinity for the color blue.
 
from: Carroll County Historical Quarterly
published by the Carroll County Historical Society (Carroll County, Arkansas)
(posted with permission)

Vol. III, No. 1 March 1958
Pg. 11- 12 The Arkansas Peace Society of 1861: A Study in Mountain Unionism
By Ted R. Worley [part 2]

In Izard County, as in Searcy and Carroll, extra-legal arrests were made spontaneously by citizens’ committes calling themselves a “Home Guard.” In Izard County the arrests were made three weeks before the local militia took a hand. The suspects were given a hearing before an organized citizens’ committee consisting of twelve men, including Thomas W. Edmonson, Izard County representative in the legislature. The investigation revealed, according to the report of the committee to the governor, existence of a “secret organization having a constitution and by-laws and secret signs….. dangerous in its operation and subversive of the rights and liberties of the people of the State, and of the Confederate States; and if not treason itself, at least treasonable. Evidence against the accused, forty-seven in number, included a copy of the Mill Creek Peace Society’s constitution found in possession of a member.

The Izard County committee did not send its prisoners to Little Rock, as did corresponding bodies in neighboring counties. Instead they arrived at an interesting solution of their own. In the words of the committee, in view of the youth and ignorance of the prisoners, and “feeling willing in our minds that they should wipe out the foul stain, by enlisting in the service of the Confederate States for and during the war, we accordingly gave them an opportunity of so enlisting, whereupon, the whole of them…. immediately enrolled their names as volunteers in the Confederate Service for and during the war. They leaver here is soon as transportation can be had, for Genl Borland’s headquarters at Pocahontas Ark.” A curious circumstance is that the men designated as their officers, “Major” Thomas W. Edmonson and “Captain” Neely G. McGuire, were not Confederate officers. Edmonson was never in Confederate service; McGuire was a private who had enlisted three weeks previously. Edmonson himself was denounced a few days later as a member of the secret society and was killed resisting arrest.

Further ramifications of the Peace Society were discovered by citizens’ committees in Van Buren, Marion, and Fulton counties and suspects conducted to Little Rock. First prisoners to arrive at the capital were those from Van Buren, southernmost county affected. On the day of their arrival, November 28, Governor Rector wrote to President Jefferson Davis as follows:

A conspiracy has been discovered in the northern part of this State against the Confederate Government. Secret oaths, signs, and passwords adopted. The intention seems to be to join Lincoln’s army if it gets into Arkansas. Twenty-seven men have been arrested and brought here today and (are) now in prison. A hundred more will doubtless be brought here in a day or so. They say there are 1700 in the State. What shall be done with them? I ask your advice in the premises. The district judge is not here. He ought to be at his post.


Five days later, not having heard from the President and with further information at hand, the governor sought advice from the Secretary of War. Would the Secretary, the governor asked, approve of action already taken by citizens’ committees “permitting” the arrested men to volunteer in Confederate companies. Arkansas authorities would not approve the preceedings, Rector said, unless sanctioned by the Secretary of War or the President. In immediate reply the Secretary advised the governor to use his own judgment. Rector then turned the problem over to the Sate Military Board, a body with wide duties and vaguely defined powers, among them the all-inclusive one of taking charge of and being responsible for the safety and protection of Arkansas. The Board, of which the governor was ex-officio chairman, held hearings for the accused.

The upshot was that after a terrible tongue-lashing by Governor Rector, the prisoners, regardless of age, physical condition, and apparent degree of guilt, including at least six members who had been useful informers, were given a choice of standing trial for treason in Confederate district court or enlisting in Confederate service for duration of the war. Oral tradition has it that the alternatives were hell and the Confederate army. All but fifteen of the 117 mean examined chose the army. The Little Rock True Democrat commended the recruits for clarity of judgment. The fifteen accused who preferred trial for treason to soldiering faced a grand jury two months later. It was found that, although evidence showed that some of the accused were dangerous and disaffected, there was nothing in the record of treason itself. Their offense had “consisted more of words and threats than overt acts” and no bill was found against them.

Those who went into the Confederate service did not fare so well. Forty-two of the seventy-eight men brought from Searcy County in chains were placed in a single company of the Second Arkansas Infantry. Many of them were too old for military service, at least by the physical standards of 1861, but this matter was neatly adjusted by enrolling officers, who trimmed up to thirty-five years from the ages of the volunteers. Sixty-eight of the remainder of those heard by the Military Board made up another company except for officers. The two companies of reluctant volunteers, together with their regiment, were in the thick of fighting east of the Mississippi. Fifty-four years later one of the volunteers recalled an order to his battalion as it formed in line of battle in the memorable dawn at Shiloh. It was put as follows: “Boys, we are going to have a hell of a fight, and I have no confidence in those men sent here from Arkansas. If they try to get to the Federals, shoot them; if they fall back, shoot them; if they try to run, shoot them. The prisoners who were impressed into Confederate service in Izard County were regularly enrolled later at Pocahontas as part of the Eighth Arkansas Regiment. They were also at Shiloh and other engagements east of the Mississippi. Among the impressed companies generally desertion was heavy. The deserters made their way back, singly and in groups of five to twenty men, to the Arkansas mountains, and after visits with their families found their way deviously to Federal forces in Missouri and Arkansas. They, with others of similar loyalty from the Arkansas and Missouri Ozarks, made up formidable units of the “mountain Feds.”


[I have tried to faithfully copy the Quarterly just as it reads, so there are some areas that I would have liked to edit, but chose not to.]
This is awesome. Thank you so much.
 
That's a lot of great information, thank you! Once tried to look up something called The Peace Society ( Southern Aid and Independence Association? )- there was one called that apparently of British origin.( obviously different ). Hysterically, it didn't seem to be at all committed to peace or the Union? Sounds to have been solidly behind Southern independence? No idea how it worked, newspapers claimed it had a lot of support throughout England but papers published a ton of doubtful stuff at the time.
 
from: Carroll County Historical Quarterly
published by the Carroll County Historical Society (Carroll County, Arkansas)
(posted with permission)

Vol. III, No. 1 March 1958
Pg. 13-14 The Arkansas Peace Society of 1861: A Study in Mountain Unionism
By Ted R. Worley [part 3]


Contemporary explanations of the origin and nature of the Arkansas Peace Society must be evaluated as war propaganda. Confederate sources attributed formation of the subversive groups to Yankee abolitionists, Black Republican emissaries, who went about mouthing mischievous humbuggery about the rich and the poor, to prejudices of birthplace and association, and to youth and sheer ignorance of mountaineers who were misled. Unionist propaganda hailed the Peace Society as evidence of spontaneous desire to join the Federal army, or otherwise actively to participate in suppression of rebellion.

The Confederate view, holding the movement exotic in origin and ascribing its growth to deception of the simple, is supported in part by the testimony of members in courts and before the Military Board, provided those records are accepted at face value. Most of the prisoners seemed eager to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they were not only unsophisticated and misled but also were but dimly aware of any loyalties whatever except to home and kin. One testified that he remembered vaguely that something like an oath was read to him but was deaf and did not catch its meaning. Others admitted that they subscribed to part of the oath only and therefore did not fairly join. Still another would have joined the Confederate army if he had not been detained by arrest. Alexander Holley joined under the impression that the society was a Confederate brother-hood. William Gadberry was trapped into membership when asked whether he like the old constitution or the new and answered that he knew nothing of either kind. Isaiah Ezell did recall that at his initiation there was talk of a yellow ribbon and an owl but could not remember details. Sam Curl said he joined the Confederate army twice already, was ready to join again, and could not rightly be called a Unionist. William Raines asserted he was a Confederate soldier though he had not got off to war. Ananias Stobaugh admitted he had joined something that had come from outside the county, from headquarters, but did not know from what headquarters, and asserted that he would have been in the Confederate army already except for being nearly blind. With eyesight presumably improved, Stobaugh later joined the Federal army at Helena. J. B. Parsley joined because other good citizens were joining and J. F. Broyles because he thought the society was to protect whites against negroes.

Organic documents of the peace Society, its constitution and by-laws and secret oath, have survived several versions. They were of course not designed completely to reveal the nature of the organization to the uninitiated. In the constitution no government was mentioned and no loyalty declared. It was stated, on the contrary, that self-preservation and mutual protection were the sole purpose. The oath, in a version found in possession of a member, was as follows:

“I do solemnly swear before Almighty God and these witnesses that I will and truly keep all the secrets of this Society and that I will ever hole and all ways conceal and never reveal anything in connexion therewith and that I will on the Shortest notice go to the assistance of any Brother at the peril of my life so help me God second as it is a matter of life and death who shall betray to our Enemies the Existence of this Society he shall forfeit his life and it shall be the duty of this society having Received knowledge of such traitor to inform the Brethren Each of whose duty it shall be to procure such Traitor and take his life at the peril of his own.”


Comparison of the several versions of the constitution and the oath, no two of which are verbally identical, indicates a common origin for all. One constitution is that of the Mill Creek Peace Society of Izard County, and the other variants of the document were probable those of other local units of the brotherhood.

Citizens’ committees, which in every instance initiated action to suppress the subversives, knew more of the political vice of the disaffected than was expressed in their organic documents. Undoubtedly they could read between the lines and were eager to do so. William H. Akin, a member of the Izard County committee, believed it a mistake for Confederate authorities to minimize publicly the treasonable motives for the secret brotherhood. With particular reference to the Mill Creek Society he wrote:

“I have lived in this township (Harris) for the last six years and have a right to know something about the private feelings of these men. When you consider that Harris township with a voting population of forty-eight turned out thirty-four jayhawkers you concede that I ought to know something of them. When I and several other gentlemen raised the stars and bars here, these very men threatened to come and pull them down. When the news came last summer, as it first did, that Price and McCulloch were beaten at Oak Hills, these very men threw up their hats and hurrahed for the United States of America. When I and others were canvassing this county last summer for Col. McCarver’s regiment, these men would not come out even to hear us speak not muster - they swore that they would never muster under the d--d ****** flag, but if any one would just come along with the stars and stripes that they would arise at midnight and go to it, and they would fight for it too when they got there. They plead ignorance now…. I have traded with these men for six years and I defy any man to overreach them in a trade….
 
from: Carroll County Historical Quarterly
published by the Carroll County Historical Society (Carroll County, Arkansas)
(posted with permission)

Vol. III, No. 1 March 1958
Pg. 14-16 The Arkansas Peace Society of 1861: A Study in Mountain Unionism
By Ted R. Worley [part 4/4]


Inquiry into the nature of the Peace Society included an effort to discover how the area of disaffection differed from the rest of the state, how members of the society differed from citizens generally in the same counties, and how leaders of the movement differed from rank and file. Names of 240 members of the society are known, of a total membership estimated as high as 1700. Of known members, 161 were located and identified in records appropriate for analyzing.

In the six counties involved ratio of slave to white population was 3.8 to 100 compared with 34 to 100 for the whole state. There were no slave-holders among identified members. In Searcy County, center of the movement, there were only 1.8 slaves per 100 whites, the second lowest ratio in the state. In the whole county there were only 10 slaveholders and a total of 93 slaves. Per capita wealth in the six counties was decidedly lower than in the state generally but did not vary significantly between members and their neighbors. For example in Searcy County, where the average property holding was assessed at $496, members were assessed for an average of $422. In Izard County, where economic disparity was greatest, the average citizen was wealthier than his subversive neighbor by only $233. Members of the Peace Society were slaveless and poor, as was nearly all the population in north central Arkansas, including those who were loyal to the Confederacy.

Birthplace, it could be presumed reasonably, was a factor in subversion. Of the 161 subversives found in manuscript census returns of 1860, 115 were born in Tennessee, thirteen in North Carolina, and eleven in Arkansas. The remaining eleven were born outside the slave states. These figures reduced to percentages do not vary greatly from corresponding ones based on the population in general in the area under study. When members of the society were compared with Arkansas generally, a somewhat startling fact emerged, though perhaps not statistically significant, Arkansans were only 91.7% Southern born; members of the society were 93.9% Southern born. On the premise that birthplace was a significant factor, one would have to conclude that the root of Arkansas subversion was in the upper South, particularly in Tennessee.

Leadership in the Peace Society was revealed in testimony in local Courts and before the Military Board at Little Rock. From the testimony and other sources, twenty-one members may be set down as actively engaged in promotion of the movement. Of the twenty-one eleven were born in Tennessee, three in Arkansas, three in Missouri, two in North Carolina, one in Alabama, and one in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts-born leader had resided in Arkansas eighteen years. Among the group of twenty-one, there were ten farmers, six preachers, a physician, a schoolteacher, a brickmason, and two without record of occupation. Leadership, statistically, was distinguished in two ways - by its greater proportion of preachers, and its greater average length of residence in the state than heads of families generally. The preachers, four United Missionary Baptists and two Southern Methodists, seem to have been especially important in promotion. Four of them were born in Tennessee and one in Alabama. The sixth, a native of Massachusetts and a Southern Methodist Minister, was among the early settlers in North Arkansas and incidentally a man of considerable wealth.

Assessment of the positive aspects of the Arkansas Peace Society is difficult. From the nature of its origin direct evidence was peculiarly biased and obscure. Collateral records reveal by analysis what the organization was not, rather that what it was. It seems beyond doubt, however, that the secret brotherhood was quite indigenous and had at most no more that gestures of encouragement from the North. It has not been disproved that the society, in its beginning, was what it claimed to be, an organization for the self protection, and, in the words of an officially adopted resolution, intended “to benefit ourselves when all other resources failed us.” It is fair to conclude that the purpose of self-protection was a general one and included protection against robbers, outlaws, runaway slaves, and against all intruders into the affairs of members. The principal potential intruder was Confederate Authority, and the enemy mentioned in the secret oath could hardly have meant anything else. The society intended to protect itself at home, not by rushing off to the stars and stripes. Left to itself in peaceful dissent, the brotherhood probably would have been merely a Unionist island of passive resistance. Drastic suppression by neighbors, acting in the name of the Confederacy, and harsh treatment by the military gave them a fighting cause.

The story of the Arkansas Peace Society of 1861 is another example of the complexity of Southern history and a reminder that a common cultural tradition does not necessarily result in political solidarity and uniformity.

Known Members of the Arkansas Peace Society of 1861
Who resided in Carroll County Arkansas:

Name Age by 1860 Census Place of Birth

B. A. Baker 23 Arkansas
Lindsey Bishop 28 Tennessee
S. B. Black 29 North Carolina
John M. Carithers not found
George M. Hays “
John W. Kirkhan “
George Long 32 Tennessee
Eli L. Os**** 31 Alabama
 
The current CC Historical Quarterly Winter 2019 V.LXIV N. 4
has an article of excerpts from Documents relating to the Peace Society - Commitment of Prisoners, Testimony of various persons, Oath of...
Can be ordered from Carroll Co. Historical & Genealogical Society
403 Public Square
Berryville AR 72616
for $6.50 + $3.00
870-423-6312 (opens again March 4)
[email protected]
 
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