This collection of essays represents the best recent history written on Civil War activity in Arkansas. It illuminates the complexity of such issues as guerrilla warfare, Union army policies, and the struggles between white and black civilians and soldiers, and also shows that the war years were a time of great change and personal conflict for the citizens of the state, despite the absence of "great" battles or armies.

All the essays, which have been previously published in scholarly journals, have been revised to reflect recent scholarship in the field. Each selection explores a military or social dimension of the war that has been largely ignored or which is unique to the war in Arkansas -- gristmill destruction, military farm colonies, nitre mining operations, mountain clan skirmishes, federal plantation experiments, and racial atrocities and reprisals. Together, the essays provoke thought on the character and cost of the war away from the great battlefields and suggest the pervasive change wrought by its destructiveness.

In the cogent introduction Danie

Anne J. Bailey is an associate professor of history at Georgia College and State University Kenneth C. Barnes is an associate professor of history at the University of Central Arkansas Michael A. Hughes is an adjunct professor at East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma James J. Johnston is a retired foreign service officer Carl H. Moneyhon is a professor of history at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Kim Allen Scott is the Special Collections librarian at Montana State University William L. Shea is a professor of history at the University of Arkansas at Monticello Jayme Millsap Stone is an instructor of history and coordinator of undergraduate studies at the University of Central Arkansas Daniel E. Sutherland is a professor of history at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Gregory J. W. Urwin is an associate professor of history at Temple University