Arkansas’s Militia War: Reconstruction’s Pyrrhic VictoryBy K. Brad BarfieldThe period of Reconstruction following the American Civil War was a tumultuous era, where the lofty ideals of civil rights and federal authority often collided with the deeply ingrained realities of racial hierarchy and local resistance in the former Confederacy. In Arkansas, this clash reached its zenith during the winter of 1868–1869 in an often-overlooked, yet pivotal, episode known as the Militia War. This four-month