April 12, 1861

The Civil War began with orders from Confederate President Jefferson Davis to fire on Union forces at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Initially, Union sympathizers had had the strongest presence in Arkansas, but Governor Henry Massie Rector, a Confederate sympathizer, refused to comply with President Abraham Lincoln’s call for forces, including 750 men from Arkansas, to combat the uprising. This led to a reassembly of the state convention and its resulting 69-1 vote to join the Confederacy.