Arkansas militias during Reconstruction

The Arkansas Militia in Reconstruction was deeply involved in the ongoing civil disturbances which plagued the state until the late 1870s. In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, the militia was first utilized by the white population to re-establish control over the newly freed black population. Radical Republicans seized control in 1867 and abolished existing state governments and militia organizations, and disenfranchised former Confederates. The new disenfranchised whites turned to the shadow Ku Klux Klan to attempt to maintain social order. The Reconstructionist government raised a new militia, primarily of black soldiers with white officers and utilized this new "Black militia" to put down the rising power of the Ku Klux Klan. Armed conflicts between rival parties continued in several counties and the militia was called to re-establish control in Pope and Scott Counties. The most severe conflict of this period occurred during the so-called Brooks–Baxter War with rival parties, with supporting militias, battling for control of the governorship. With the end of reconstruction one of the first acts of the new resurgent Democratic state legislature was to abolish the office of adjutant general in retaliation for the use of the militia to enforce the rule of the Reconstruction government.