basis than eloquence and reason. And never was there a city so dominated by its bar as Little Rock in the olden times. Everything circled around the great lawyers. Even the wealth of the community was mostly in their hands. The houses of the citizens were generally of wood, and usually stood upon the street; but scattered about there arose the stately mansions of the leaders of the bar,—of Ashley, Pike, Trapnall, Fowler, Crittenden, Hempstead and others, encircled by extensive grounds and shaded by patriarchal trees, dominating the surrounding dwellings almost like feudal châteaux. In these mansions were concentrated the social and intellectual life of the community, and its history was the story of their daily struggles for pre-eminence.
So Little Rock grew and flourished, men dwelling in peace beneath their vines and fig trees, until the year 1861 brought up the momentous question of disunion and war. Arkansas was strongly attached to the Union. In its mountainous regions there were no slaves, and three fourths of the people were white. The convention called to determine the course the State should take adjourned without action, declining to enter the confederacy that
