Richard R. and Nancy A. Hopper Capps, near Hopewell, early 1900s.  Capps first served in Co. H, 2nd Regiment Missouri Light Artillery (a Union force).
Roger V. Logan, Jr./Boone County Library Collection
(S-87-129-44)

Colonel Eli Dodson, early 1900s. 
He served in the 14th Arkansas Infantry Confederate (organized in Boone County) and later as county judge.
Martha Sisco/Boone County Library Collection
(S-87-129-57)

In the hills of Northern Arkansas, where slavery wasn’t as common as it was in the Delta, most folks weren’t interested in leaving the Union.  After much legislative debate and voting, Arkansas seceded in May 1861.  County residents were forced to choose sides—Union or Confederate. 

Most of the county’s men formed companies and went off to fight.  Some saw action at the Battles of Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove.  Those left behind faced hardships, too.  Armies destroyed a gunpowder mill on Crooked Creek and a niter works (explosives) at Dubuque and they took livestock, food, and grain.  Violent bushwhackers took what was left and often burned homes when they weren’t satisfied.