Arkansas Militia in Reconstruction

The Arkansas Militia in Reconstruction was deeply involved in the ongoing civil disturbances which plagued the state until the late 1870s. In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, the militia was first utilized by the white population to re-establish control over the newly freed black population. Radical Republicans seized control in 1867 and abolished existing state governments and militia organizations, and disenfranchised former Confederates. The new disenfranchised whites turned to the shadow Ku Klux Klan to attempt to maintain social order. The Re-constructionist government raised a new militia, primarily of black soldiers with white officers and utilized this new "Black Militia" to put down the rising power of the Ku Klux Klan. Armed conflicts between rival parties continued in several counties and the Militia was called to re-establish control in Pope and Scott Counties. The most severe conflict of this period occurred during the so-called Brooks–Baxter War with rival parties, with supporting militias, battling for control of the governorship. With the end of reconstruction one of the first acts of the new resurgent Democratic state legislature was to abolish the office of Adjutant General in retaliation for the use of the militia to enforce the rule of the Reconstruction government.

After the fall of Little Rock in September 1863, a pro-Union government was established in Federally occupied Arkansas, under Isaac Murphy. Governor Murphy appointed Albert W. Bishop, former lieutenant colonel of the 1st Arkansas Cavalry as Adjutant General. Murphy and Bishop set about creating a pro-Union militia organization. Immediately following the official end of the Civil War in the summer of 1865, white southerners began to repopulate the local militia organizations and utilized these organizations to begin to re-establish white control over the newly freed black population. White militia organizations even set about disarming returning black Union veterans in some areas. When the Radical Republicans seized control of Congress in 1867 they abolished all former confederate state governments and formed military districts, until the states rewrote their constitutions to include the reconstruction platform. Former Union General Powell Clayton was elected as the new Governor in the same election that Arkansas adopted its new constitution. The new constitution disenfranchised former confederates, forbidding them from voting and holding office. Many of the former confederates turned to the growing Ku Klux Klan organization for protection.

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