Entries - County: Arkansas - Starting with B

Marion Berry represented Arkansas’s First Congressional District as a Democrat for seven terms. First elected to the 105th Congress, he served from January 1997 until January 2011. Robert Marion Berry was born in Stuttgart (Arkansas County) on August 27, 1942. The son of a rice farmer and his wife, he had two brothers. He was educated in local schools before graduating from DeWitt High School in DeWitt (Arkansas County). Berry went on to the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), where he earned a BS in pharmacy in 1965. He settled in Gillett (Arkansas County) and became a licensed pharmacist and a farmer who grew rice and soybeans. He soon became involved in local politics, winning a seat …

Jean Bernard Bossu was a French captain and adventurer who explored the region of the Mississippi River while Louisiana was a French colony. During his voyages, Bossu wrote extensive letters about his adventures among the natives of the Mississippi River Valley. The letters were published in two volumes, and both were translated into English. Influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s image of the “noble savage,” Bossu claimed that the Quapaw Indians were “capable of heroism, humanism, and virtue”; these people were not “barbarians” or “savages” but actual human beings. Although scholars have pointed out some inconsistencies and historical inaccuracies in his letters, the letters remain an important primary source on the early period of the history of French Louisiana. His work is …

The December 7–13, 1864, Union scouting expedition from Brownsville (Lonoke County) to Arkansas Post (Arkansas County) was undertaken to hunt down guerrillas who had been firing on Union shipping on the Arkansas River and to seize beef cattle for the Federal army. On December 6, 1864, Brigadier General Eugene A. Carr ordered a detachment of 200 men from the garrison at Brownsville to ride toward Arkansas Post “for the purpose of driving out the bushwhackers in that region and bringing in beef cattle.” Carr noted that one party of twenty-five guerrillas had fired on boats near the post “and there is said to be some squads of bushwhackers between the Bayou Metoe [sic] and the Arkansas.” Major Gilbert J. Hudson …

Lloyd Leslie “Scooter” Burke is among the most-decorated Arkansans to have served in the military. He served in the U.S. Army for more than thirty years and fought in three wars. He was wounded several times during his career and, in addition to receiving the Bronze Star three times and the Purple Heart five times, he received both the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s two highest military honors. Lloyd Burke was born in Tichnor (Arkansas County) on September 29, 1924, one of five children of A. D. and Betty Burke. In 1930, A. D. Burke was working as a foreman at a lumber mill in Clarendon (Monroe County). Lloyd Burke graduated from Stuttgart High School …