Jane Page wrote this postwar letter to her son John Page about family affairs and struggles during the war. Jane lived with her husband, David Page, in Kingsriver, Arkansas.1 Her letter recounts the major battles that took place in the Ozarks, and smaller engagements that impacted their family. Her husband was killed in a skirmish on March 4, 1865 as Federal forces raided their home.

the Federals charged up it frightened the old man, and he tried to make his escape by running they charged after him and shot him from the back of the neck down to the waist he had nine or ten balls passed through his body so scraied and disturbed was every body that I had to stay with him in the woods all day by myself with my apron spread over his face we got a little help to bury him we buried him in the back ground of Sam’s Orchard we had to buy him withough any coffin
Jane Page letter John Page – November 14, 1866

After the Union victory at the Battle of Prairie Grove, Page explained that the Confederate troops were transported out of the region. Arkansas was left uncontested to Federal control. “Shortly after this battle the Yankees come to Kingsrive and commenced their dreadful slaughter of men and horse stealing them.”2 This resorted in the formation “independent companies of Lawless bands,” who attacked military and civilian targets without distinction between political affiliations. “After they got every thing in our country they turned in and burnt our houses turned [out] widows and orphans out in the cold winters snow they entirely robed me out.…”3

Page wrote about the location and news of other family members and friends. Many of the towns in Madison County were burned and civilian lives destroyed. Page noted the price of land in Arkansas was very cheap in the postwar period, but money was extremely scarce. The whole cost of living in the region was very low, but after the war little provisions or luxuries were available and life was “hard hard very hard.”4 Jane Page’s letter is representative of the struggles many civilians faced, and demonstrates the lasting impact the war had on families in the Ozarks.

Contributed by the Shiloh Museum of Ozarks History

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1. Census data lists Jane Page, 65, and David Page, 70, living in Kingsriver, Arkansas in 1860. This is the only Jane Page of appropriate age listed in the census in Arkansas. Frances Page is listed as a household member, and may be the Frank mentioned in the letter. David Page would have been 75 when killed, validating Jane’s nickname “the old man.”
2. Jane Page, Letter to John Page and Family. 14 Nov 1866. S-87-270-1B. The Shiloh Museum of Ozark History. Springdale, Arkansas.
3. Jane Page, Letter to John Page and Family. 14 Nov 1866. S-87-270-1B. The Shiloh Museum of Ozark History. Springdale, Arkansas.
4. Jane Page, Letter to John Page and Family. 14 Nov 1866. S-87-270-1B. The Shiloh Museum of Ozark History. Springdale, Arkansas.