David Casto’s interest in Civil War history started with childhood visits to his grandparents’ old-time farm near Atkins.
“They were talkers,” he says, “and they would tell a lot of stories.” In particular, they told him tales about his staunchly Union great-grandparents, for whom the war had been “the biggest event in their lives.”
His namesake greatgrandfather, they said, had served under a General Carr. The war was more than a century past, but they still invoked the name of Carr with a tone of great reverence. Casto wondered why, and his curiosity led him to find out.
“I studied this subject for a long time,” he says,“before it dawned on me that I was writing a book.”
Casto’s book, Arkansas Late in the Civil War, includes a five-page listing of names that were well known or even famous in their time. But like the lost names of the soldiers who served under them, even generals sometimes need introduction:
Brig. Gen. Eugene Carr: Commanded the Union District of Little Rock - “much of central Arkansas,” Casto writes.
Maj. Gen. Sterling Price: Led the Confederate District of Arkansas.
Col. Washington F. Geiger: Raised the 8th Missouri cavalry in 1862. Casto’s great-grandfather joined the regiment in 1864.
Style, Pages 55 on 07/28/2013