USA > Arkansas > Biographical and pictorial history of Arkansas. Vol I > Part 38
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eral relations. In April, 1861, President Lincoln issued his famous proclamation for seventy-five thousand troops, to put down the rebellion, and through his secretary of war, Simon Cameron, called on the executive to furnish seven hundred and fifty troops, the quota charged to Arkansas. His reply to this requisition was much preverted by the northern press, and in- jected with rude and unconth expressions, unbecoming the grave dignity of a governor. The following is his reply, which is its own vindication against the wide-spread perversion :
EXECUTIVE OFFICE, LITTLE ROCK, ARK., 22d April, 1861.
Hon. SIMON CAMERON, Secretary of War, Washington City, D. C .:
In answer to your requisition for troops from Arkansas, to subjugate the southern States, I have to say that none will be furnished. The demand is only adding insult to injury. The people of this Commonwealth are freemen, not slaves, and will defend to the last extremity their honor, lives and property against northern mendacity and usurpation.
HENRY M. RECTOR, Governor of Arkansas.
The State convention, which hoisted anchor and spread sail on the sea of revolution, convened on the 4th of March, 1861, and on the 21st adjourned to the 6th of May, and on the last- mentioned day reconvened and passed the ordiance of secession before night. On the 13th, a military board, consisting of three, of whom the governor was one, and ex-officio president, was created, with vast powers, charged with the organization and di- rection of a large army, and disbursement of millions of money. Under this supreme authority the board raised and equipped forty regiments and battalions. Previous to the creation of this board, the governor seized the arsenal at Littte Rock, and the fort at Fort Smith, and a large quantity of arms, stores and munitions of war. By artful design, silently and ingeniously · executed, without attracting at the time the slightest attention or suspicion, the political guillotine was prepared for him in the . revolutionary convention of 1861, by failure to continue the
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incumbent in the office of governor, which left almost every other office undisturbed. Of. this the supreme court said in June, 1862, when the guillotine was sprung in that tribunal, at the instance of his defeated opponent in the race for gov- ernor in 1860, Colonel Richard H. Johnson : " It is now matter only of curious speculation as to why this was done, and is not the subject of judicial inquiry."
The office was declared vacant, and Governor Rector became a private citizen two years before the expiration of the term for which he was elected. But he was patriotic from deep and pro- found convictions, and was determined that no amount of dis- appointment, however great, should deprive his country of his services at that crisis of her extremity. As governor, he had issued many stirring appeals and proclamations, calling his fel- low citizens to arms, and the example he had set them, he de- termined to follow to the end.
After judgment of ouster from office he immediately applied through A. H. Garland, then in the Confederate congress at Richmond, for promotion and assignment to active duty in the army, attaching but one reservation to the application, which was not to be assigned to any commissary or quarter-master's position ; but Garland gave him but lukewarm support and no encouragement. The Johnson influence was compact and powerful, and Garland, of all men on earth, would not encoun- ter personal risk in trying to overcome it. His success in life is founded on his artful avoidance of friction. Before public opinion had crystallized in the opposite direction he was the most intense Union man in Arkansas, and manifested confidence in the security of southern institutions under the incoming ad- ministration of President Lincoln. But when the tide turned for war, Garland crystallized with it, and was among the first to ask and receive Confederate honors, and outstripped all other competitors. Foiled by these adverse combinations to attain that position in the army to which his eminent service and talents entitled him, he joined the reserve corps of the army, and served in it as private until the end. Cincinnatus, when he laid down the office of dictator and retired to the plow, did not set a nobler example to his countrymen than this. The close of the war found him, in common with his fellow citizens,
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ELECTRO-LIGHT ENG CON ...
WILLIAM L. MOOSE.
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much embarrassed, but he had some oxen and pieces of old mules and two noble boys, aged fourteen and sixteen, and he soon im- provised inland transportation facilities, and all hands went to work hauling cotton for a livelihood. This heroic example and resolute struggle against misfortune is worth more to his fame than the laurels of being governor, and exhibits in strong light the heroic virtues of the ancestral lines from which he sprung.
In 1868 he was a member of the constitutional convention of that year, and struggled manfully against the overwhelming majority which imposed such odious restrictions on the liber- ties and rights of the people opposed to carpet-bag domina- tion. The governor's son, Captain William F. Rector, was killed on top of the Federal breastworks at Helena, on the 4th of July, 1863, the first to reach the rampart ; he fills a hero's grave. Another son, Doctor Henry M. Rector of Garland county, represented his constituents in the legislature of 1876-7, but declined further political honors. And still another son, Elias Wharton Rector, a graduate of the University of Virginia, is a very promising lawyer and politician, was a leading member of the State senate at the session of 1887, and to every appear- ance has a brilliant future before him. His last wife is the accomplished daughter of Albert Linde, deceased.
WILLIAM L. MOOSE, MORRILTON.
W. L. Moose was born 28th of August, 1859, on his father's farm in Conway county, Arkansas, within a short distance of where his office is now located in Morrilton. The name is German, and was originally spelled Maas. On the mother's side he is of Irish extraction. He acquired an academic edu- cation in his native county. In 1879 he graduated from the law department of Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Ten- nessee, and immediately opened an office in Morrilton. He has served the usual probation, which has been attended with that firm, patient, immobile resolution and advance character- istic of the German race, and is now, with slow but firm and solid advance, moving to the front. He regards law as a jeal- ous science, admitting association with no other avocation, hence lets politics severely alone- a wise conclusion, wisely followed. An orthodox Methodist, a democratic prohibitionist,
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led to embrace this politico-religious creed from mature reflec- tion and profound conviction, he keeps them to the front, and, when necessity requires, manifests the courage of his convic- tions. Unassuming but firm, practicing what he preaches, his influence for good, in school where he is a director, and in church where he is a deacon, is felt all around. Characters like this build a State, and are worth more to their fellow men than all the field of politicians who agitate society for selfish ends.
GOVERNOR ELISHA BAXTER, BATESVILLE.
William Baxter, the father of the governor, emigrated from Ireland in 1789, and located in North Carolina, where he was twice married, having born unto him ten sons and seven daughters, Elisha being the sixteenth child in the order of birth. His brother, John Baxter, was a distinguished man ; he was speaker of the house of representatives in his native State ; a member of the constitutional convention of Tennes- see, and in 1878, President Hayes appointed him circuit judge of the United States for the circuit composed of the States of Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan, a position he held until his death in 1886. Governor Baxter was born in Ruther- ford county, North Carolina, on the 1st of September, 1827. His father was a thrifty and wealthy farmer, but was too in- dulgent with the younger of his last set of children, and spared the rod, to the neglect of Elisha's education ; this obstacle in his pathway has occasioned much anxiety and labor in later life , to overcome. In early life he engaged in mercantile pursuits on his own account, and succeeded, under the supervision of a long-headed business partner. Tiring in this well-doing, he abandoned it, and spent all the force of his energies on a farm for two years, without impairing its productive capacity or add- ing to his material wealth. This unsatisfactoy experience led to a divorce between him and the old north State, and he em- braced the more virgin soil of Arkansas in the fall of 1852, settling in the old and pleasant town of Batesville. In 1853 he opened up a mercantile house in Batesville, and in one season acquired much insight into the frailties of his fellow man ; as cash and other assets decreased, experience took their place, until he was minus the one, plus altogether too much the other.
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The ledger-balance's reversed columns, and his debtors did not come to his relief.
The truth is, Governor Baxter has too much of the milk of human kindness in his gentle nature to become a merchant or banker; he could never refuse or say no to any one in distress. Every lineament in his open, frank countenance indicates pre- dominant benevolence and good-will to his fellow men, and all Arkansas (except the dethroned spoliator), in the days of her peril .and sore trial, have fed at the charitable bounty of this man's heart - a merited tribute, worth more than all the golden exchequers of the world. He was the Moses that led Arkansas out of the wilderness of radical misrule and plunder - the leader who gave back to the people the ballot, the birthright of freemen. (See the author's reply to Loague in this volume.) To the people of Arkansas he was " a blessing in disguise." To them it was of infinitely more importance that he should be the conscientious Union man, and the conservative republican he was, than a commanding general in the armies of the south, or a democrat in the days of reconstruction. But "republics are ungrateful," and but few of us now stop to measure the weight of obligation we are under to Elisha Baxter. Mercantile dis- aster overwhelmed him in 1855 and swallowed up his paternal inheritance and all he had added to it, but his creditors sus- tained no loss ultimately. From the counting-house he went into a printing office on a small salary for one year, his wages defraying the expenses of his family on the most economical basis. Necessity now became the impelling inspiration which led him to embrace law as a profession, and he read it under the direction of his friend and neighbor, Chancellor Fairchild.
He came to the bar in 1856 and has followed the profession ever since, except when interrupted by the war and the dis- charge of official duties. In politics he was a whig as long as that party had a national organization, and after its demise he became a democrat, like Garland, as a matter of necessity rather than choice, but there was no accommodating political agnos- ticism in his nature, and he could not, like the latter, meet the demands of secession in 1861. He was a slave-holder by inherit- ance, but was opposed to the institution, and favored its aboli- tion, on terms just to the owner. His popularity with his
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friends and neighbors may be judged from the fact of his elec- tion to the legislature as a whig in 1854, by a constituency poll- ing a two-third democratic majority. He was elected again in 1858, running this time as a non-partisan. . In 1860 the popu- lar Frank Desha defeated him, in a close contest for the office of prosecuting attorney. He was a conscientious Union man, and essayed the difficult ground of neutrality in the war between the States which, in time, yielded its natural harvest of trouble within Confederate lines. Reason, deliberation and charitable forbearance with the masses are swept away in the whirlwind of revolution and war, and Governor Baxter did not correctly estimate the force of these factors when he attempted to main- tain isolated neutrality in the midst of a terribly resolute and sanguine people opposed to him. An overwhelming majority of the people where he lived, gave fathers, sons and husbands to the cause they loved and died for, when the imperious hour made the requisition.
It is too great a strain on human nature to demand drawing- room courtesy on the flood-tide of war. As well might a min- ister of the gospel mount a caisson in motion and expect to drown the cannon's roar with the thunders of the gospel, as to expect patient toleration when the people honestly believe it leads to death. Such were the environs attending the question- able relations of Governor Baxter in the estimation of the peo- ple, when twenty thousand Federal troops, under the command of General Curtis, swarmed into Arkansas and through Bates- ville, for the overthrow and subjugation of the people. True, he was incapable of any act that would impeach the highest integ- rity as between individuals, but that was not the question with the people in that all-absorbing hour of peril and fear. Momen- tous political issues had crystallized in war, and the result de- pended on its cruel fruitions. Under these circumstances the people conveyed to him the impression that healthier localities for longevity could be found, and he stood not on the order of his going, but went into the Federal lines at Jacksonport, where General Curtis tendered him the command of the First Arkan- sas Federal regiment. This he nobly declined, on the ground that he was native to the manor born, and ought not to take up arms against his kith and kin, to strike them down in blood,
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because they differed with him in views as honest as his own, and the means to be employed to shape the results of the mightiest revolution in modern times. He left wife and chil- dren in Batesville, and sought asylum in the north, In the spring of 1863 he ventured on disputed ground in Missouri, and was captured by Colonel Robert C. Newton's cavalry, and Prince Robert treated him as royally as Prince Rupert could have done.
This inspired both gratitude and admiration for the noble bearing of the young cavalier, and in coming time, when the prisoner became governor, brought its reward in a major gen- eral's commission, which will go down as a heritage to the de- scendants of the gallant soldier, who was a gentleman in camp as well as court. Colonel Newton paroled him, and ordered him to report to General Holmes at Little Rock, which he did. and was turned over to the excited civil authorities, who caused his indictment for treason, and incarceration in prison. Wil- liam M. Randolph, Garland's former partner, who owed his promotion to Garland's influence with the Confederate govern- ment, was then Confederate States district attorney, and as such drew the indictment and prosecuted Baxter, who was arraigned before Judge Ringo.
The changing drama of war now presented its climax of peril to Governor Baxter's serious contemplation. Treason was a capital and not a bailable offense, and the time and place was not flattering for the selection of a jury favorable to his inclinations and interests. To save the de facto government any further trouble and expense on his personal account, and to relieve himself of painful apprehensions touching his future relations to the world, he concluded to formulate an indefinite furlough without the sanction of the Confederate authorities, and broke jail, and with the simple device of pedal locomo. tion, defeated the jurisdiction. The local revolutionary press called him " coward," and tried to smirch his name with much caustic criticism. These things stung and drove him to an act of great weakness, and caused him to abandon that high, moral heroism he assumed the year before, when he refused to take up arms against his native heath.
When he escaped from prison he repaired to General Steele's
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head-quarters, and applied for authority to raise a regiment, and levy war against the south. His request was granted, and he recruited the Fourth Arkansas Federal mounted infantry, and was assigned the command at Batesville, where he com- manded until he was called, in the spring of 1864, under Murphy, the war-governor, to preside as chief justice of the supreme court, in the interest of the Federal Union. Every thing incorporated with man's frailty has its limitation for good, its boundaries for evil, varying in degree, corresponding with the infinite modification of circumstance and mental organism influencing his action. These agencies and influences must be taken into account in estimating the degree of Bax- ter's defection in the surrender of the noble stand first taken by him in refusing to levy war on the south. They greatly extenu- ate and modify the degree of dereliction, but can never justify it, in the estimation of the true southron. In the cold calcu- lating estimate of the northman he will always be justified and landed, and it would be futile in the author to try to remove their convictions. But their relation to the contest was inspired by very different sentiments from those controlling impulses which animated the south. Armies may overrun and conquer States, but they cannot conquer public opinion, against a people's con- viction of right, and Baxter's fame will always have this ob- stacle to contend with in the south, independent of the ab- stract question as to which of the two sections were right in the beginning. These convictions are deeply and abidingly implanted in the southern heart, and they lie above and be- yond the power of senates and armies. He resigned his command in the army and qualified as chief justice. Two weeks after this event he was elected to the United States senate, and resigned judicial honors to accept that higher office, but was not admitted to a seat in the senate. After the cessa- tion of hostilities he returned, with his family, to Batesville, and resumed professional pursuits.
In 1868 he was appointed register in bankruptcy, and by Powell Clayton judge of the third circuit, a position he held four years, discharging the duties of both offices. In 1872, that huge mass of overgrown corruption, known as the radical party in Arkansas, lost " the cohesive power of public plunder,"
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and, in its expiring efforts for supremacy, put two tickets in the field for governor and subordinate offices, both bidding for democratic support, which, in a contest like this, held the bal- ance of power. Each promised constitutional reformation and restoration of the elective franchise. Thus the Augean stable of radicalism became a professed reformatory institution. Bax- ter headed one wing of this party in the race for governor. Joseph Brooks, a carpet-bagger from Ohio, " who had drifted into Arkansas as chaplain of a negro regiment," headed the other ticket. Strange to say, this leaven of political and priestly purity became the shibboleth of the democratic minority, and it is now a generally conceded fact, that he was elected by sev- eral thousand majority. But the Clayton-Baxter minority con- trolled the counting machinery, and the legislature, the final arbiter in the contest, as we have seen elsewhere in this volume, and Baxter was, by the legislature, declared elected for four years, and was duly inaugurated governor.
Baxter adhered to the just and liberal policy enunciated in the platform on which he made the canvass, and refused to be- come the pliant tool of Clayton, Dorsey and company. He "put on the brakes" against extravagance and corruption, and refused to let them longer " fiddle whilst Rome was on fire." At this they became furious and threatened impeachment, to which the governor replied : "If impeached for cause I will submit; if without cause, I will disperse the tribunal with the bayonet." In this play of Cromwell with the legislature and the rebellious leaders in his own party he was nerved and strengthened by the powerful support of public opinion, a re- served force which ultimately controls the world. Like the deviations of the needle from its polar magnet he has some- times vibrated and wandered from consistent and perfect recti- tude, and we have pointed it out without reserve. But, in this contest with the Nemesis of Arkansas, he assumed a true re- lation in her political constellation, which drew to him a moral grandeur and heroism which will always shield his name and fame and endear him to a disenthralled and regenerated people. The contest culminated in the Brooks-Baxter war of 1874 (of which we have given an account elsewhere) and the triumph of Baxter and the people, and the guaranty of their rights in the 53
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constitution of 1874. These results would have been impos- sible, at that time, without the powerful aid and co-operation of Governor Baxter. The new constitution, which was the direct result of his liberal policy, vacated every office in the State, and cut off two years of his term, which he laid down like Cincin- natus, and retired to private life. After the adoption of the new constitution the democrats met in convention and unani- mously nominated him for the office of governor, but he de- clined, rather than lend color to the imputation that he had betrayed his own party for democratic favor.
After his declension, A. H. Garland was nominated and elected. Politically Governor Garland owes him more, and has paid him less, than any man in Arkansas, considering the splendid opportunities fortune and power has thrown in his way. He reaped the fruits of the Baxter government, and ascended to the zenith of his political fortune, and has passed the meridian of a once splendid fame, without remembering or helping the man who lifted him out of the wilderness of politi- cal ostracism and gave him place and power.
JOHN C. AND C. W. ENGLAND, LONOKE.
John England, first Catholic bishop of the diocese of Georgia and the Carolinas, emigrated to America, with some of his kindred of the same name, in 1820, and settled in Charleston, where he lived until his death in 1842. He was one of the most learned, active and worthy prelates ever con- secrated to the church, as well as one of the most liberal ex- pounders of the canons of the Romish faith. He often preached in Protestant churches to large Protestant congrega- tions, and in 1826 preached to the senate of the United States at Washington. One of his relatives settled in Georgia, from whom the brothers John C. and C. W. England are descended. W. H. England, the father of these sons, came from Georgia in 1849, and settled at Brownsville, the old county seat of Prairie county. Possessed of great suavity of manner, he soon became a popular favorite, and was elected, first, county treasurer, and then circuit clerk, which he held until his death in 1861. John C. was born January 18, 1850, and was edu- cated at Brownsville and Hickory Plains, wher he accomplished
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JOHN C. ENGLAND.
ELECTROLICHTENC.FONY.
. CHARLES W. ENGLAND.
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an academic education. The war swept away the competency left by his father and threw him entirely on his own resources - perhaps best, who can say ? - at all events, necessity at an early age developed in him great energies and practical resources,- the surest and best foundations in the great battle of life. He read law with Gantt & Bronaugh at Brownsville, and was admitted to the bar in 1870 and into partnership with his preceptors, who followed the county seat to De Vall's Bluff. In 1873 the new county of Lonoke was created, and Mr. England removed to the county seat of the new county, being the first lawyer to establish himself in it. Success crowned his efforts from the beginning. Possessed of great business tact, executive and administrative ability, he invested the proceeds of his pro- fession judiciously, husbanded well all financial resources, until he now has an income, independent of his profession, of $7,500 per annum, which is annually enhancing in a regular ratio of progression. Broad-gauged and liberal where the public is interested, he is foremost in every public enterprise in his county. At this writing he is a large stockholder and is exten- sively engaged in railroading, trusting much of his large office and professional business to his brother and partner, Charles W. As a lawyer he possesses unquestioned abilities of a high order, and had he confined himself to law could have easily achieved its highest honors, but the contracted field of an inland town does not afford facilities enough to gratify the activities of his mind - hence the outlet in other fields.
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