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Across the United States, there is a lively discussion on social media, in the news, and in local communities about monuments dedicated to aspects of the Confederacy during the Civil War. In Northwest Arkansas, one well-known monument has become part of that sometimes heated discussion. KUAF, Northwest Arkansas’s NPR affiliate, featured the local debate on the program Ozarks at Large.
The University of Arkansas Libraries’ Special Collections department has several resources for further study about the history of the Civil War and how public understanding of the war has evolved over time. Interestingly, we have a specific archive that preserves a detailed history of the local monument whose relevancy and future is being debated right now.
The memorial to Confederate soldiers in the center of the Bentonville town square was dedicated in 1908 after several years of fundraising by the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). It was UDC chapters across the South that erected many of the monuments memorializing the Civil War, and specifically the side of the Confederate States of America (CSA).
The monuments erected by UDC members and other like-minded organizations were sometimes dedicated to locals who served; sometimes to specific men, such as noteworthy officers; and sometimes to all of the men who fought on behalf of the “Lost Cause.” The 1908 dedication of the Bentonville monument was during the period of United States history from the end of Reconstruction until after World War I that saw the imposition of formalized Jim Crow segregation, widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans across the South, and an epidemic of racial violence in the form of lynching. It was also when most of the Confederate monuments were first installed in Southern cities.
The Bentonville UDC chapter was named after a prominent citizen of Benton County and noteworthy local CSA officer, James Henderson Berry (1841-1913). His wife, daughters, and female descendants were leaders of the organization for decades. The meaning of the monument as part of public memory and the history of Benton County and the Civil War remains contested. The history of the movement to place a memorial in Bentonville is preserved, however, through actual records in the Berry, Dickinson, Peel Papers in Special Collections.
The Berry, Dickinson, Peel Papers include family history documents, personal and professional records, political papers, photographs, and a wealth of other types of memorabilia, allowing an intimate look at three influential Benton County families brought together through marriage and business. Notably, the long and fascinating career of Ruth Dickinson Berry, a pioneering journalist, women’s organization leader, and community activist, is included. Students and historians can also examine the life and career of the man whose name is on the monument, which is preserved as part of his family’s archives in that collection, as well as other collections and published studies in Special Collections.
Berry, a once widely respected citizen of Northwest Arkansas, is a complex historical figure whose historical significance changes over time. We highly recommend George Balogh’s excellent Encyclopedia of Arkansas article and the further readings he suggests, for those wanting to learn more about Senator Berry.
Born in Alabama, Berry moved to Arkansas as a young boy in the 1840s and worked on the family farm and in local mercantile stores in Carroll County and Yellville before enlisting September 19, 1861, to serve as a Confederate soldier. (The town of Berryville was named for his family after they moved to Carroll County.) Berry’s fellow enlistees elected him 2nd Lieutenant, and he fought in major early battles, including at Pea Ridge in Benton County and at Corinth, Mississippi, where he lost his leg and was captured.
After returning to Northwest Arkansas, Berry entered private law practice in Bentonville with his brother-in-law, Sam Peel, and in 1872 was elected to the Arkansas Assembly, the beginning of a long and successful political career. As a leading Democrat (and both a conservative “redeemer” of traditional rule and a social reformer), Berry would serve as a circuit judge, Governor, and U.S. Senator. He was also an active member of the United Confederate Veterans and was appointed by Republican President Taft to oversee the management of Confederate dead buried at Civil War prisoner of war sites.
Like many, if not most, of the statues erected at Civil War memorials, Confederate and Union, across the U.S., the Bentonville statue does not depict a specific person. Instead, it is a generic representation of a Confederate foot soldier, which the members of the UDC knew when they purchased it. As those familiar with local history will point out, it looks very little like the real Senator and Governor Berry…. For instance having one too many legs.
The James H. Berry chapter of UDC raised more than $2,500 for the monument through private donations and fundraising events, including a speech by Senator Berry himself. The local county judge allocated the space at the center of the square for the monument, dedicated August 4, 1908. Documents in the Berry, Dickinson, Peel Papers include the minutes of the UDC chapter, the county judge’s proclamation, prayers and rituals used for the dedication, and a handwritten history of the monument.
Along with the images and documents related to the historical context from which the monument emerged, are postcards and photographs of Civil War veteran reunions and marches. There are also images of African Americans, gathered by Ruth Dickinson Berry during her career as a journalist. Such images are common in the papers from the period of wealthy white families in the South who may have had business or personal relationships with the people photographed. The children in the image included here go un-named. The archives present a complicated story, just as the United States still debates the complexity of the heritage of the Civil War, post-war racial inequality, and use of the public spaces to this day.
To do some research with these fascinating resources yourself, contact Special Collections at the University of Arkansas Libraries by emailing specoll@uark.edu.
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