William E. Woodruff Jr. (1831–1907)

William E. Woodruff Jr. served in the Confederate army and was an attorney and author. He served as Arkansas’s state treasurer for ten years. The son of the founder of the Arkansas Gazette, William E. Woodruff Sr., he was also the publisher of that newspaper for a period.  

Born on June 8, 1831, in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to William E. Woodruff Sr. and Jane Eliza Mills Woodruff, William Woodruff Jr. grew up in the city with his ten siblings. His father operated the Gazette in several different periods, buying and selling the newspaper over the years, while also operating other businesses. Woodruff studied in Little Rock and completed his formal education at the Western Military Institute in Georgetown, Kentucky, in 1852. The Woodruff family was wealthy, with two enslaved people owned by the elder William Woodruff in 1850 and fourteen in 1860.  

After he returned to Arkansas, Woodruff read law and worked as a clerk for his father. Appearing in the 1860 federal census as a lawyer, he helped organize a new militia unit for Pulaski County, and with infantry and cavalry units already existing, artillery was chosen as his branch of service. Alongside Lieutenant Omer Weaver, Woodruff served as the second captain of the battery called the Totten Artillery in honor of Dr. William Totten. Woodruff witnessed the capture of the Little Rock Arsenal in early 1861, commanded by Captain James Totten, son of William Totten. With the passage of the Secession Ordinance, the battery fired a salute from the grounds of what is now the Old State House. 

The battery entered active state service and served during the occupation of the Federal military post at Fort Smith (Sebastian County). It also saw action at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek in Missouri, where Weaver was killed. Renamed the Pulaski Light Artillery after the Little Rock Arsenal Crisis, the unit declined to transfer to Confederate service and was disbanded shortly after the battle. Members of the battery organized a new unit in late 1861, with Woodruff once again in command. Named the Weaver Battery, the unit was created under orders of Brigadier General Albert Pike for service in the Indian Territory. It was supplied with guns obtained in DeValls Bluff (Prairie County). The unit moved toward the Indian Territory in early 1862 and missed the Battle of Pea Ridge. The caissons of the battery carried the bodies of Brigadier Generals James McIntosh and Benjamin McCulloch to their burial in what is now Fort Smith National Cemetery 

The battery served in the Indian Territory before returning to Arkansas. Woodruff received a promotion to the rank of major and took command of a battalion of artillery batteries. He later saw action at the Battle of Prairie Grove and served as the chief of artillery for Brigadier General Daniel Frost’s division. Woodruff resigned from active service on June 8, 1863, due to hearing loss, although he commanded a two-gun battery during the defense of Little Rock in the summer of 1863. After the city fell to Union forces, he fled to Texas and took a position with the Confederate Commissary Department.  

Later returning to Arkansas, Woodruff served in an administrative role in Washington (Hempstead County) until the end of the war. After the war, Woodruff organized the Omer Weaver Chapter of United Confederate Veterans. Woodruff was also one of seven former Confederates in the state indicted for treason after the war, but he received a pardon along with the others.  

After returning to Little Rock, Woodruff started a printing company. In 1866, he purchased the paper that was originally the Arkansas Gazette but had taken on different names—the Little Rock Gazette and the Arkansas State Gazette—because its owner sought to make it a nonpartisan journal. Woodruff restored the name Arkansas Gazette, served as the editor, and restored its credentials as the voice of the Democratic Party. While editing the newspaper, Woodruff helped create the mythic status of David O. Dodd, celebrated the end of Reconstruction and the ouster of Republicans from positions of power in the state, and served time in jail on a contempt of court charge for editorials attacking a Republican judge.  

Woodruff married Ruth Reid Blocher in 1868, and the couple had at least four children, with three living to adulthood. Their son William E. Woodruff III served as the first municipal judge of Little Rock. 

In 1880, Woodruff was elected state treasurer; he served for a decade. His father had served for two years in the office in the 1830s. Former Confederate major general Thomas James Churchill was the treasurer immediately before Woodruff Jr. Churchill was elected governor in 1880, but serious financial discrepancies incurred during his time as treasurer were discovered after he took office. The losses totaled over $230,000 and led to Churchill serving only a single two-year term as governor. He later repaid less than $30,000 to the state.  

Woodruff’s tenure in office suffered from similar financial shortfalls, with almost $140,000 disappearing while he served as treasurer. There is no evidence that he was held accountable as Churchill was.  

After leaving office, Woodruff held various business interests and appeared in the 1900 census as a planter. At the time, he lived with his family near Fort Roots, then part of Little Rock and today part of North Little Rock (Pulaski County) 

He died on July 7, 1907, and is buried in Mount Holly Cemetery in Little Rock, near his parents. His wife died in 1915 and is buried alongside him.  

For additional information:
McCaslin, Richard B. “Reconstructing a Frontier Oligarchy: Andrew Johnson’s Amnesty Proclamation and Arkansas.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 49 (Winter 1990): 313–329. 

Moneyhon, Carl H. “The Creators of the New South in Arkansas: Industrial Boosterism, 1875–1885.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 55 (Winter 1996): 383–409. 

———. “David O. Dodd, the ‘Boy Martyr of Arkansas’: The Growth and Use of a Legend.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 74 (Autumn 2015): 203–230. 

Ross, Margaret. “Retaliation against Arkansas Newspaper Editors during Reconstruction.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 31 (Summer 1972): 150–165. 

William E. Woodruff Jr. Civil War Collection, MSS 08-01. Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Central Arkansas Library System, Little Rock, Arkansas.  

William E. Woodruff Jr. Papers. Arkansas State Archives, Little Rock, Arkansas. 

Woodruff, William E., Jr. With the Light Guns in ’61–’65; Reminiscences of Eleven Arkansas, Missouri and Texas Light Batteries, in the Civil War. Little Rock: Central Printing Company, 1903.  

David Sesser
Southeastern Louisiana University 

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