Madison County Arkansas – site of a Civil War massacre and birthplace of Texas gunman John Selman

Madison County is in northwest Arkansas. Fayetteville is in the same area. THE University of Arkansas is at Fayetteville. Several other colleges carry the UofA name, and then a location, but there is only one real University of Arkansas.

The census of 2000 showed Madison County with a population of 14,243, of whom 95.94% were white. That demographic is not unusual in mountain areas of the South. Mountainous land is not cotton land, therefore, few white mountaineers back in the old days owned slaves. Mountain areas were more Unionist than were downslope regions. The mountainous part of western Virginia split from Virginia early in the U.S. Civil War (so-called).

Madison County has one designated city – Huntsville, which is the county seat. There are two towns – Hindsville and St. Paul – and 12 communities. The county also has 21 townships, including Alabam, California, Kentucky, Venus and War Eagle.

In the “Huntsville Massacre” of Jan. 10, 1863, Union soldiers shot nine suspected Confederate sympathizers, killing eight. The Civil War (so-called) was a nasty piece of business away from battlefields, especially in Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Ante bellum politics and armed irregular forces – Confederate and Union – contributed to general killings and extralegal executions. The Outlaw Josie Wales does not stray far from what people did to each other during those times.

John Henry Selman, Sr., was born in Madison County in 1839. He served for a time with the 22nd Texas Cavalry and reportedly deserted before the Civil War (so-called) was over. Selman became a bad man and a lawman in West Texas and New Mexico. On Aug. 19, 1895, El Paso Constable Selman shot and killed outlaw/gunfighter/attorney John Wesley Hardin, shooting Hardin one time in the back of the head and three times in the torso as Hardin lay dead on the floor of the Acme Saloon. Eight months later, U.S. Marshal George Scarborough shot and killed Selman in an alley in El Paso.

Ronnie Hawkins was born in Huntsville. He later formed a band called The Hawks and played with Bob Dylan. One of Dylan's songs is John Wesley Harding, "a friend of the poor," who "traveled with a gun in every hand."

Orval E. Faubus, former governor of Arkansas, was born in Coombs Community in Madison County.

Here is a picture of a dirt road in a Madison County, maybe Arkansas.

http://ih0.redbubble.net/image.9030612.3797/flat,550x550,075,f.jpg