e State for several months
preceding this event, and when the slogan of war was sounded the
respective adherents by hundreds from all over the State hastened to the
capital. On the morning following the "coup d'etat" a report reached the
State House that a company of colored men, commanded by Gen. King White,
from Pine Bluff, had arrived and was quartered on Rock Street. On the
assumption that the men were misinformed as to the merits of the
quarrel, it was proposed that they be interviewed. To do that was to
cross the line and enter the enemy's territory. It was not unlike the
query of the rats in the fable, Who shall bell the cat? I was solicited,
and, learning I had friends in the company, consented to go. Going south
on Center Street to cross the line by a circuitous route, I reached Rock
Street, and nearly the rendezvous. But the "best laid plans of men and
mice oft gang a glee." The emissary had been discovered and reported.
Approaching me at a rapid rate, mounted on a charger which seemed to me
the largest, with an artillery of pistols peeping from holsters, rode
General George L. Bashman, of the Baxter forces. Reining up his steed he
said, not unkindly: "Judge Gibbs, I am instructed to order you to leave
the lines immediately, or subject yourself to arrest." As formerly
intimated, and not unlike Artemus Ward, I was willing that all my wife's
relatives might participate in the glories and mishaps of war. Hence I
bowed a submissive acquiescence and returned. I appreciated the amity
expressed in the manner and delivery of the order--an amity of which I
have been the recipient from my political opponents during the thirty
years of my domicile in Arkansas.

General Rose, who held command at the Arsenal, and had received
instructions from Washington to keep peace pending a settlement of the
controversy, with a detail of soldiers, had erected a barricade opposite
the City Hall on Markam Street and placed a piece of artillery on
Louisiana Street, pointing to the river. In the afternoon of their
arrival, General White's troops, headed by a brass band, marched on
Markam Street to the Antony House. While so doing a report became
current that they were preparing to attack the State House. General Rose
attempted to investigate and, with his orderly, rode rapidly on Markam
Street, across Main, toward the Antony House. At the moment a shot,
increasing into volleys, from combatants on either side, who primarily
were the aggress