Bob, thanks for sharing that very interesting article. I wonder if the ladies who signed the oath were widows? If so, they would have been the heads of their households, and I know that in some jurisdictions the heads of households who wanted to conduct business -- sell and transport their cotton, operate hotels and freight lines, etc. -- had to take the oath before Union authorities would allow them to do so. I don't know if this was an army-wide policy, but it applied in at least some areas of Arkansas.

I guess you noticed the misinformation in the record of John F. Braden. The article says he took the oath at Camp Douglas, Arkansas, a Union post in Lincoln County. There was no such place. Braden was a member of Dobbin's Arkansas Cavalry who was captured and sent to Camp Douglas, Illinois, near Chicago, where he was released on taking the oath of allegiance on May 13, 1865. He provided a copy of his POW oath to Union authorities in Desha County on September 12, 1865, which is how he ended up on this list.

The town of Douglas, in Lincoln County, where the author claims the Union army maintained a "station," wasn't even called Douglas back then. It was called Auburn during the Civil War, and was renamed as Douglas in 1881.

I haven't gone through all the names yet, but I've already found a veteran of the gallant old 3rd Arkansas Infantry on the list.

Thanks for sharing the article. Is this message board great or what?