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35 3 VIRGINIA AND ARKANSAS Victory from the Jaws of Defeat and Defeat from the Jaws of Victory In this convention, we did not have a colored member who could off set a speech of any great length coming from the other side but we have invariably voted right on the proposition from which the arguments were drawn, independent of the many stages of amendments &c through which it may have had to pass. —George Teamoh, black delegate to the Virginia convention He [conservative delegate John Bradley] appeals to the oracles of Divine truth, to show that he is sincere in his belief that the Africans are an inferior race, and not our equals. And I, while I shall record my vote [on the adoption of the new Arkansas constitution] in the affirmative, appeal to the Scripture, for the truth of my belief that God has created in one image all the nations of men. —Walter Brashear, scalawag delegate to the Arkansas convention overview Virginia’s representatives gathered in the great hall of the House of Delegates in Richmond for their initial meeting on December 3, 1867. Their proceedings, largely because they took place in the former Confederate capital, received extensive press attention nationally for some four and a half months, until the delegates adjourned on April 17, 1868, after 103 days of actual sessions.1 By contrast, Arkansas’ delegates convened in relative anonymity and received little press attention, while completing their task much more expeditiously. Following their opening session in the hall of the House of Representatives in Little Rock, on January 7, 1868, about a month after the Virginians began, the Arkansas delegates finished their task in only 31 days. They adjourned on February 13, 1868, about a month before the Virginians.2 On the surface these two conventions—one gathered in the administrative center of the former Confederacy and the other in the distant trans-Mississippi West—seem quite dissimilar. On closer examination , however, they shared much in common and are consequently paired in this chapter. The Civil War had resulted in dramatically different demographic outcomes for these two states. In 1860, Arkansas’ population (435,450) was only slightly more than a quarter that of Virginia (1,596,318). Blacks made up about a quarter (25.6%) of prewar Arkansans and about blacks, carpetbaggers, and scalawags 36 a third (34.4%) of antebellum Virginians. The wartime creation of West Virginia, carved from the mountainous hinterlands where few slaves resided, changed these figures dramatically; by 1870, Arkansas’ population was almost 40% that of recently divided Virginia. Virginia’s population had declined by almost a quarter, while Arkansas’ increased by about 10%. With the loss of Virginia’s western, largely white counties in 1863, blacks accounted for a considerably larger proportion (41.9%) of Virginians, while their relative numbers in Arkansas had remained nearly constant.3 These factors were to be essential in determining the delegate composition of both conventions. While there were clearly differences between Virginia and Arkansas, it is important to note similarities between the two states as well. Each was located in the Upper South, and each had seceded only after shots had been fired at Fort Sumter. Once war began, Virginia obviously witnessed a disproportionate share of the fighting; surprisingly, though, only three Confederate states saw a greater number of military engagements than Arkansas. Significant numbers of Unionists had also resided in both states, at least initially. After the creation of West Virginia, though, only scattered pockets of Union sentiment remained in the Old Dominion. In contrast , Unionist enclaves persisted in Arkansas, especially in the northern counties, throughout the war, and it is estimated that as many as a fifth of all Arkansans who experienced Civil War combat did so as Union soldiers.4 Federal authority, however, was established quickly in regions of both states regardless of the relative strengths of their Unionist sympathizers. From the beginning of the war, the Lincoln administration recognized Governor Francis Pierpont’s authority in Virginia, even though in practice he could at first exercise it only in the pro-Union mountain regions to the west and in Alexandria and its suburbs. The Union also secured the Portsmouth area early on, while later extending its authority into additional Virginia counties as northern armies advanced. Similarly, only a few short months after West Virginia had secured statehood, federal authorities occupied Little Rock. By January 1864, Governor Isaac Murphy’s Unionist government had gained control of most of northern Arkansas. As...

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