The Prairie County Home Guard was a military unit created during the American Civil War by the ArkansasSecession Convention. Home Guard units were created to establish a local defense force, made up of those who were too young or old to enlist in confederate units, which were organized at the county level.[1]
On May 30, 1861, the Arkansas Secession Convention passed an ordinance that called on every county to organize a Home Guard for local defense as the state prepared for war. The ordinance required that these Home Guard units be made up of companies from each township.[1] In response to this, the Prairie County Court met at Brownsville, the then county seat, on June 24, 1861, where they went about organizing a Home Guard by appointing Pleasant A. Thomason as Colonel of the unit as well as appointing three other men to be War Finance Commissioners. The commissioners would be responsible for the arming of the unit. The following July each of the county's ten townships organized one company whose officers they subsequently voted on.[2]
The following is a list of all ten home guard companies along with their place and date of appointment:
In total, the Prairie County home guard numbered 165 men[3] and the unit would continue to operate into 1862, though numerous members would eventually join various other confederate units and the Home Guard would be dissolved.[2]
Col.
