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