During the Civil War, many Northern soldiers commented about the Arkansas countryside. “I doubt if few of the habitable portions of the globe presents a more dreary and uninviting wilderness,” commented one fellow. One Iowan remarked that this was the “roughest, meanest country God ever made.” “We are in a perfect wilderness,” wrote an Illinoisan, “where not any thing is to be seen but trees, stumps, hills, and rivulets.”[1]
[1] Chicago Tribune, May 2, 1862; Henry Cummings to his wife, April 21, 1862, and Henry J. Seaman Diary, March 18, 1862 entry, quoted in Shea, “A Semi-Savage State,” 313.
Arkansas Wildlife History 