During the Civil War, Conway County men served in both the Union and Confederate armies. For the Confederacy, Co. I, 1st Arkansas Mounted Rifles, Co. B, Carroll’s Cavalry, Co. I, 36th Arkansas Infantry, and several companies of the 10th Arkansas Infantry took part in the war, while two companies of local men served in the 3rd Arkansas Cavalry (U.S.) and were based in Lewisburg, modern-day Morrilton. No major battles were fought in Conway County, but several skirmishes took place there, and the 3rd Arkansas spent much of its time fighting guerrillas and Witt’s Cavalry. John Clayton, brother of Arkansas Reconstruction Governor Powell Clayton, came to Arkansas in 1867 and became active in Republican politics, serving as both a representative and a senator in the state legislature and as a five-term sheriff of Jefferson County. In 1888, he ran for U.S. Congress and lost by 746 votes out of 34,000 cast. In January 1889, he went to Plumerville to investigate the theft of a ballot box from an African American precinct that had supported him, and on Jan. 29 he was fatally shot; his murderer was never identified.