October 28, 2007

In May 1861, Mexican War veteran James F. Fagan assisted in raising the Confederate First Arkansas Infantry and was elected its colonel. The regiment was one of only two Arkansas Confederate regiments to serve in Virginia, though only briefly. Fagan served at the bloody Battle of Shiloh and, before the end of 1862, was promoted to brigadier general. He commanded troops in the last Arkansas campaigns and was one of the last to surrender in 1865. For a time during Reconstruction, he served as a U.S. marshal. He died in 1893 and is buried in Little Rock (Pulaski County).