At the request of the Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission, a group of 20 historians, preservationists, and others with an interest in Civil War history met on May 19, 2007, to discuss and identify areas of Arkansas Civil War history that would benefit from additional study. The results of that meeting are listed below.
Topics relating to Arkansas Civil War history that need additional focused research:
Experiences of civilians (displacement and destruction, demographic and social effects); Arkansas in the Civil War as opposed to the Civil War in Arkansas
African-American soldiers in Arkansas
The Naval war in Arkansas
Arkansas Unionism and Arkansas’s Union soldiers
Study the motivations that led Arkansawyers to choose sides: It’s more complicated than Secessionists vs. Unionists
The legacy of the Civil War in Arkansas: How it shaped us as a people and how it is viewed today.