Date of Graduation

12-2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

History

Advisor/Mentor

Whayne, Jeannie M.

Committee Member

Sutherland, Daniel E.

Second Committee Member

Williams, Patrick G.

Keywords

Social sciences; Arkansas; Civil War; Ozarks; Unionists

Abstract

More than a thousand men from northwest Arkansas served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The conflict devastated a region that had previously enjoyed impressive economic growth. The years of suffering during the war eventually left the region largely depopulated. As people returned to the region after the war was over, unionists and their families fought not only to rebuild, but to secure the benefits they felt their loyalty to the federal government deserved. As unionists became Republicans in the decades after the war, Arkansas became a securely Democratic state. But Arkansas’s native Republicans leveraged their wartime loyalty into a unique relationship with the federal government that secured for them restitution for wartime losses, pensions for wartime service, and political appointments through the patronage system.

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