In November 1861, Confederate authorities uncovered a secret Peace Society in north Arkansas whose members opposed secession. Colonel Samuel Leslie called out the Searcy County militia to round up the group, and more than 90 men were arrested; 87 were chained and marched to Little Rock, where they were forced to enlist in Colonel John S. Marmaduke's 18th Arkansas Infantry. Most who survived battle and disease had returned to Searcy County by 1862 and were heading to Missouri, where many would join regiments in the United States army. At Burrowville, now Marshall, a 40-man detachment of the Second Arkansas Cavalry (U.S.) struck Confederate guerrillas on December 26, 1863, killing six, wounding four, and capturing sixteen. In late January 1864, a larger Union force raided north Arkansas, and Arkansas and Missouri cavalrymen fought Colonel A.R. Witt's Confederate troops at Clear Creek and Tomahawk on January 22 before riding into Burrowville the next day. U.S. troopers then rode on to Clinton as Witt's soldiers retreated southward, and the Searcy County courthouse burned at that time from an unknown cause.