Side 1
When Arkansas went to war in 1861, Lycurgus and Lydia Johnson and their family stayed with their home at Lakeport. By 1862, U.S. gunboats were common on the Mississippi River, and on Sept. 6, 1862, Confederate troops burned 158 bales of cotton at Lakeport to prevent its seizure. Union raids targeted plantations such as Lakeport in 1863 and 1864, and the Johnsons claimed losses of 200 cattle, 8 mules and 2 horses, leaving "one mule...to haul wood for the children." The family's slaves also sought freedom, and only 24 of 155 slaves remained here by 1864.
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Side 2
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As the war wore on, Lycurgus Johnson joined many other delta plantation owners engaging in trade with Union forces, selling rope and bagging in exchange for cotton, cash and supplies. When the Civil War ended in 1865, the Johnsons still owned their home at Lakeport, but the value of their property had plummeted from $171,581 in 1860 to only $18,556 in 1865. Lycurgus Johnson adapted to the new conditions during Reconstruction and hired former slaves to work his fields. His fairness led the Freedmen's Bureau to call him a "model man of Chicot County."
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