It will be seen that the presidential vote of 1860 showed 1,790 polls.
There is no means of determining positively the number of soldiers
furnished from this county, but many of her citizens who are best able to
judge claim that more than that number entered in the Confederate
service. The Camden Knights of the Golden Circle, No. 1, Capt. W. L.
Crenshaw, First Lieut. J. M. Scales and Second Lieut. J. T. McMahan,
who became captain, was the first company. It was Company C, of the
First Arkansas Infantry, and very few returned after their surrender at
Bentonville, N. C., in 1865. In May the City Guards, Capt. R. Lyons,
Lieuts. S. H. Southerland, Hugh Brown and Eugene Elliott; the Ouachita
Voltagures, Capt. Charles Kingwell; the Ouachita Grays, Capt. H. T.
Hodnett, and a company under Capt. Griffin, all entered the Sixth
Arkansas Infantry, and were in Gen. Hardee's corps to the close. Capt.
Lyon, who was killed in Kentucky, became a colonel. Also A. T.
Hawthorne, of this regiment, became a lientenant-colonel and
brigadier-general. Very soon too, in May, Capt. Samuel Earle formed a
company for the Third Arkansas Cavalry, of which he became colonel,
and was killed in battle at Thompson's Station, Tenn. In June Capt. J. M.
Gee, with Lieut. A. W. Hobson, took a company to this regiment, and
Hobson succeeded Col. Earle. This regiment was a part of Wheeler's
command to the surrender. In June also, Capt. Hoskins formed a
company which afterward joined the Third Arkansas Cavalry. During the
same month the Camden K. G. C., No. 2. Capt. John L. Logan, entered
the Eleventh Arkansas Infantry, and were captured at Island No. 10, and
afteward saw service under Johnston in Mississippi. An extract from a
war letter from Jackson, Miss., from one of them may be of interest: "Dear
Herald: The bloody Eleventh is once more on dry land-- are no longer
chilled by the wintry blasts of Lake Michigan, but once more breathe pure
Southern air, a luxury duly appreciated by an individual who has been so
long deprived of anything pertaining to Dixie (save his patriotism). Five
months' stay in a Yankee prison is decidedly a great privilege-- a glorious
privilege, and one knows well how to enjoy his native country when once
there again." In October, 1861, Capt. Judge Robert Jordan and Capt. H.
M. Purefoy took companies into the Fifteenth Arkansas Infantry. They
were captured at Fort Donelson and exchanged; captured again at Port
Hudson. They spent about half the time in prison at Camp Douglas and
Johnson's Island. There Col. B. W. Johnson and Lient. Col. P. Lynch Lee
were incarcerated in dungeons and sentenced to be shot as a retaliation
for Federal suffering in Confederate prisons. The sentence was not
carried out however. They were at Forts Delaware and Warren.

In March, 1862, Capt. S. H. Sutherland and Lieut. Lee Morgan took a
company into the Eighteenth Arkansas Infantry. A little later (May) Capt.
O. H. Overstreet and Lieut. William Cox, Capt. W. T. Steele and Lieut. J.
A. Ansley, Capt. T. D. Thompson and Lieuts. D. Newton, J. T. Webster
and W. M. White, Capt. J. C. Goodgame and Lieut. Jones, Capt. J. W.
Lankford and Lieuts. Kennedys (two) and J. W. Culp, and Capt. W. M.
Mitchell, and J. W. Mixon (afterward captain) all entered the Thirty-third
Arkansas Infantry. Their colonel was H. L. Grinsted, killed at Jenkins'
Ferry, and Capt. T. D. Thompson succeeded him. Capt. W. T. Steele
became major.

All the above companies were kept recruited from the county, and
probably two-thirds of those east of the river never returned. Many were
in Cleburne's noted fighting division.
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ar/ouachita/history/good1.txt