Prodigious Heiskell Civil War Collection Encompasses History, Attitudes
The J.N. Heiskell Civil War Collection in the UA Little Rock Center for History and Culture is one of the most extensive in the Civil War holdings. Containing both Union and Confederate documents, the collection includes a number of unique documents that add new dimensions to the history of the Civil War in Arkansas.
John Netherland Heiskell was the editor of the Arkansas Gazette from June 1902 until he died in 1972. During his tenure as editor, the newspaper covered two world wars, the Great Depression, the civil rights movements of the 60s, the war in Vietnam, and other world-altering events.
Heiskell was born in 1872, just 7 years in to The Reconstruction period in the South, and he was a voracious reader and collector of Arkansas history documents. His personal history collection along with the civil war documents were housed at the Gazette during the 1950s. The newspaper gained national distinction for having a full-time historian on staff.
Among the 2,000 Southern history books in the Heiskell Collection is The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade by W.O. Blake. The 866-page volume published in 1858, three years before the start of the Civil War, uses historical justifications for the institution of slavery.
His war-era collection also contains hundreds of clippings, articles, Confederate currency and bonds, broadsides, and other documents. These source materials not only tracked the events in the Civil War in Arkansas as they unfolded but follow the development of peoples' thought processes as the war progressed.
The immense Heiskell book collection includes volumes on 19th century Arkansas and the Trans-Mississippi West. Other Heiskell documents in the archive's Civil War holdings a researcher would find are contemporary newspapers such as the Arkansas Patriot (1862-1863), Fort Smith New Era (1863-1865), and Unconditional Union (1864-1865). Among the war reports, diaries, and various reminiscences, researchers would find information on ex-Confederates living in Brazil, African-American troops in the Union army, and Heiskell's personal scrapbook of Civil War newspaper clippings. Heiskell even compiled sheet music from the era for songs such as "The Bonnie Blue Flag" and "Song of the First Arkansas."
The collection also includes a famous handbill "To the People of Arkansas" written by Arkansas governor, D.C. Williams in January 1861 explaining how the election of February 18, 1861 would determine whether or not the state would set up a secession convention.
In the document Williams asserts, "Obscure citizen, as I am, I have deemed to it be my duty to warn the people that their dearest rights are in danger."