November 4, 1840

Archibald Yell was inaugurated Arkansas’s second governor. A charismatic Jacksonian Democrat, Yell, as governor, clashed with the state legislature on more than one occasion, primarily over his attempt to investigate the two state banks for their freewheeling ways, and he ended up resigning in 1844 before his term was up. Yell won a seat in Congress in 1844 but returned to Arkansas at the onset of the Mexican War and ended up dying at the hands of Mexican lancers at the Battle of Buena Vista.