Mathew A. Devin enlisted in Co. D, 1st (Brooks', later Stirman's) Battalion Arkansas Cavalry, at Fayetteville, Arkansas, on October 26, 1861. He was left behind sick when the battalion was transferred to Mississippi in April 1862. His widow, Mrs. M. J. Devin, applied for a Confederate pension from Benton County in 1909, stating that her husband had died in November 1862. However, a man with the same name enlisted in Co. H, 4th Regiment Arkansas Cavalry, at Camp Yell, Cave Springs, Arkansas, on August 20, 1862, and was discharged on a surgeon's certificate of disability on April 13, 1863. It appears that either Mrs. Devin misstated the year of his death, or there were two Mathew A. Devin's in Northwest Arkansas.