May 11, 1865

The majority of Arkansas’s active soldiers surrendered along with Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson; the last real military engagements in Arkansas took place later in the month in Monticello (Drew County). The fall of Confederate forces in the east destroyed morale across the state, and with the depletion of food and supplies, life in Arkansas became about survival rather than war. Approximately 10,000 Arkansans, over twelve percent of Arkansas’s men between the ages of fifteen and forty, lost their lives during the war.