July 6, 2010

Confederate general Pat Cleburne once said of Daniel Govan (shown here), “Four better officers are not in the service of the Confederacy.” Born in North Carolina, Govan moved to Helena (Phillips County) in 1861 just before the outbreak of the Civil War. He soon became the colonel of the Second Arkansas Infantry and, in 1863, was commissioned a brigadier general. He commanded Arkansas troops in all of the major campaigns of the Army of Tennessee. After the war, he returned to his Arkansas plantation where he remained until 1894, when President Grover Cleveland appointed him Indian Agent in Washington State. He died in 1911 and is buried in Holly Springs, Mississippi.