The Legend of Bill Dark: Guerrilla Warfare, Oral History, and the Unmaking of an Arkansas Bushwhacker

Scholars Crossing Faculty Publications and Presentations Department of History Winter 1999 The Legend of Bill Dark: Guerrilla Warfare, Oral History, and the Unmaking of an Arkansas Bushwhacker Michael A. Davis Liberty University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/hist_fac_pubs Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Davis, Michael A., "The Legend of Bill Dark: Guerrilla Warfare, Oral History, and the Unmaking of an Arkansas Bushwhacker" (1999). Faculty Publications and Presentations. 4. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/hist_fac_pubs/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at Scholars Crossing. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of Scholars Crossing. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Legend of Bill Dark:Guerrilla Warfare,Oral History, and the Unmaking of an ArkansasBushwhacker MICHAELA. DAVIS The War of the Rebellion unleashed a reign of terror,crime, and an- archyin the Ozarkfoothills of northcentral Arkansas. There, rival bandsof irregulars,along with lawless "jayhawkers"and "bushwhackers,"terrorized a defenseless population.One such band was led by Bill Dark of Searcy County. From June 1862 to January1863, Dark, Captainof CompanyA, Coffee's Recruits,briefly attempted-inaccordance with the ordersof Gen- eralThomas Carmichael Hindman-to sabotage Federal advances in northern Arkansasand conscript state troops. In the end, however,Dark's efforts only alienatedan alreadyhostile population,fueled guerrillawarfare, and has- tened his own demise. Indeed, in early 1863, along the banks of the Little Red River nearpresent-day Shirley, Arkansas, Dark and his men were am- bushed and killed by a memberof a home guardunit. Following the war, Dark's antagonists-theindependent, subsistence farmers of Izard, Searcy, andVan BurenCounties-developed a colorfuloral history, associating Dark with "allthat is degradedand abandonedin mankind."1A Bill Darklegend- shapedby time, emotion, and association-soonemerged, blurring historical truth,and portraying Dark not as a Confederateirregular but as a deserterand even a ruthlessjayhawker, a termtypically applied to Union marauders.2 The story of Bill Dark, thoughlargely unnoticedby most historians,is importantto the historiographyof Civil WarArkansas in at least threeways. First,it serves as a paradigmof the way the Civil Warwas waged in Arkan- sas between 1862 and 1865.3Second, it has been the subjectof a bountiful ^ohn Hallum, Reminiscences of the Civil War (Little Rock: Tunnah and Pittard, Printers, 1903), 96; David M. Tucker, Arkansas: A People and TheirReputation (Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1985), 31. 2As used by Confederatesduring the Civil War, "jayhawker"described Union guerrillas,outlaws, and soldiers who engaged in acts of looting. Leo E. Huff, "Guerrillas,Jayhawkers and Bush- whackers in NorthernArkansas During the Civil War,"Arkansas Historical Quarterly24 (Summer 1965): 129. 3For an excellent analysis of the motives, roles, and effectiveness of Confederate guerrilla operations in Arkansas during the Civil War see Daniel Sutherland,"Guerrillas: The Real War in Arkansas,"Arkansas Historical Quarterly52 (Autumn 1993): 257-285. Michael A. Davis teaches history at CentralBaptist College in Conway, Arkansas. THE ARKANSAS HISTORICALQUARTERLY VOL. LVIII, NO. 4, WINTER 1999 LEGEND OF BILL DARK 4 15 and uniqueOzark folk tradition.And third,it reveals the power of postwar revisionismand the romanticismof "theLost Cause"to transforman embar- rassingConfederate into a bandit,and, in some accounts,a Unionist. John William ("Bill") Dark was born in Arkansas, around 1835. Though his exact origins are unknown, he probably sprang from the numerous Darkswho settled south centralTennessee in the early nineteenth century. Dark's name first appears in Arkansas census records in 1850. That year, Dark, aged fifteen, was living in Little Rock with his mother, Dilla Dark, and a governmentclerk by the name of James Hutchins.4No known record exists of his father. Dark's life in Pulaski County during the 1850s was seemingly comfortable. He resided, along with such es- teemed citizens as Secretaryof State O. B. Greerand Sheriff Ben Danby, in the City Hotel on Main Street. Though there are no records linking him with either of the two academies in Little Rock, a letter written by Dark in 1862-the only known manuscriptby Dark to survive the war-suggests that he had been formally educated. By the mid- 1850s, he was working in Little Rock as a printer.In late 1857, however, Dark's life took a vio- lent turn,beginning a downwardspiral that led to prison and, ultimately, his doom. On November8, 1857, Darkwas indictedin PulaskiCounty for the mur- derof HardyFoster.5 Two days later,Dark, accompanied by his lawyers,Ab- salom Fowler, Henry Massie Rector, John T. Trigg, and Joseph Stillwell, entereda plea of "notguilty." On January12, 1858, Dark'slegal councilpeti- tionedfor a changeof venueto anothercounty, arguing that "the minds of the inhabitantsof this Countyare ... prejudicedagainst the said defendant[and] '* thata fairand impartial trial of the issue in thiscase, cannotbe had Judge JohnJ. Clendeninagreed, and the trialwas movedto SalineCounty, where, on October22, 1858, Darkwas found guilty of second degree murderand sen- tencedto five yearsin the statepenitentiary. His termwas to begin on March 4ManuscriptCensus Returns,Seventh Census of the United States, Pulaski County, Arkansas, 1850. A Dilla Dark is listed in the 1840 census for Mississippi County, Arkansas. If it is the same Dark, she was a native of Tennessee, and was between the ages of forty and fifty. Also included in the household were one male between fifteen and twenty, one male between forty and fifty, and two slaves. In 1860, Dilla Dark was still living in Little Rock, continuing to reside with Hutchins. Manu- script Census Returns, Eighth Census of the United States, Pulaski County, Arkansas, 1860. The exact natureof this relationshipis uncertain.When Hutchins died, however, in 1867, there was no mention of Dilla in either his obituaryor his privatepapers. There is no record of Dilla after the 1860 census-not even a cemetery listing. *The State of Arkansas v. John W. Dark (1857-1858), Pulaski County Indictment Records, 1848-1863, Book C, 38, Arkansas History Commission, Little Rock. The prosecutor for the state was Attorney GeneralThomas Johnson. Unfortunately,no detailed record of the case indicating the identity of Foster or the specifics of the crime exist. The only mention of the matteris in indictment and circuit court records for 1857 and 1858, which give only brief descriptions of legal procedures taken on a particularday. Little Rock's two major newspapers, the Arkansas Gazette and the True Democrat, failed to reportthe crime or printFoster's obituary. Pulaski County IndictmentRecords, Book C, 40, 54-55. ArkansasHistory Commission. 4 16 ARKANSAS HISTORICALQUARTERLY 3, 1859.7It was thereDark-labeled in prisonrecords as an invalidand marked for bad behavior-foundhimself when Arkansasseceded from the Union in May 1861. There,too, oraltradition found him.8 Oralhistory is a modernresearch method that utilizes oral accounts of his- toricalevents by witnesses or participantsor the informationtransmitted by themthrough others.9 It is not meantto replaceold fashioneddocumentary re- search,but rather to supplement,enhance, or addcolor to the factsas recorded in documents.Oral history's value comes in providinganecdotal, human inter- est evidenceoften absentfrom writtenrecords. The oralhistory of Bill Dark, as representedthrough the writingsof John Hallum,Jimmy Driftwood, Dee StricklandJohnson, and Glen Hackett,illustrates both the strengthsand weak- nesses of thismethod. While oral history supplies a considerableamount of de- tail aboutDark's career that would be otherwiseunavailable, such documents as do exist show the oraltradition to be fundamentallymisleading as to Dark's wartimeactivities and allegiances. The oldestaccount of Bill Dark'swartime career comes froma smallvol- ume of warliterature published in 1903by JohnHallum (1833-1907). inRem- iniscencesof the Civil War,Hallum, a writer,lawyer, and Confederate veteran fromTennessee, relied heavily upon information "obtained directly from pri- vate soldiersand subordinateofficers who servedin the variousarmies of the Confederacy."10He intendedto glean fromcommon soldiers tales of extraor- dinaryand thrillingevents unnoticedby professionalhistorians of the Civil War.In all, Hallumrecounted numerous stories, including "The Story of the NorthArkansas Outlaws." Hallum based this chapter,which relatesthe story of Bill Dark,upon interviews with JohnHoffman and John M. Robinson,two Confederateveterans who claimedto have witnessedDark's death. Accordingto Hallum,Bill Dark was a felon and Confederatedeserter, who "congregateda gangof thievesand outlaws to preyon thenon-combatant, defenselesspeople" of Searcyand adjacentcounties. "This gang claimedand exercisedabsolute jurisdiction over every species of propertythey desired- horses, cows, sheep, mules, fowls, provisions-andin a greatnumber of in- stancesappropriated the last articleof clothingbelonging to helplesswomen andchildren. Many wagons were loaded with plunder . His veryname struck 7Saline County Circuit Court Records, Common Law Book C, 123-124, 126-127, 135, 138, 140-142, ArkansasHistory Commission.

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