City of Augusta

Augusta's roughest Reconstruction year was 1868. In December, Governor Powell Clayton declared martial law in Woodruff County, citing Ku Klux Klan activity, and sent the militia. General Daniel Phillips Upham arrested twelve of the town's leading citizens. Several protesters were killed and the town was looted, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. It came only four years after Union troops had torn down Augusta houses for boards to build their camps, so many residents met two occupations within a single decade, one by an enemy army and one by their own state government.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Jacksonport State Park — 25 mi
  A steamboat port at the confluence of the White and Black rivers whose 1872 Second Empire courthouse, raised two feet to clear the floods, stands as the park museum.

More markers nearby

• Chickasaw Crossing — steps away
• Woodruff County Courthouse — 0.4 mi
• Action at Fitzhugh's Woods — 5.2 mi
• Confederate Salt Works Destroyed — 11 mi