Robert G. Shaver

Robert Glenn Shaver (April 18, 1831 – January 13, 1915) was an American lawyer, militia leader, and colonel in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He served in several key battles in the Western Theater. After the war, he was an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Arkansas. Later in life, he became a significant leader in Confederate veterans' reunions and served for a time as the Major General in Command of the Arkansas State Guard.

Shaver was born on April 18, 1831 in Sullivan County, Tennessee. He came to Arkansas with his parents from Sullivan County, East Tennessee, in 1850, locating at Batesville, where in 1856 he was married to Miss Adelaide Louise Ringgold, a beautiful and accomplished daughter of Col. John Ringgold, one of the State's most prominent citizens. Some three years later he removed to Lawrence County, where he was licensed to practice law. Shaver was an early leader in the Arkansas State Militia. He was elected Colonel of Lawrence County's 60th Arkansas Militia Regiment on July 23, 1860.

In the spring of 1861, Shaver recruited and organized the 7th Arkansas Infantry Regiment for the Confederate army and was elected its first colonel. He and his regiment moved to Columbus and Bowling Green, Kentucky, and on the evacuation of the latter place by General Albert Sidney Johnston in February, 1862, Colonel Shaver, as senior Colonel of the brigade in which his regiment was serving, commanded the rear guard of General Johnston's army to Nashville, Tennessee.

At Shiloh, April 6 and 7, 1862, Colonel Shaver, commanded the 1st Brigade of General Thomas C. Hindman's Division, 3rd Army Corps, composed of the 2nd, 6th, and 7th Arkansas Infantry Regiment and the 3rd Confederate Infantry Regiment. Colonel Shaver initiated the fight on the Confederate right early Sunday morning, the 6th, where the fighting was fierce and incessant throughout that bloody struggle. The 7th Arkansas, Colonel Shaver's own regiment, went into action on the left of the brigade, Lieutenant Colonel Deane commanding, with its drum-and-fife corps playing "Granny, Will Your Dog Bite?" Colonel Shaver had two horses killed under him during the day and one on the following day. General Hardee, in his report of the battle, said that Colonel Shaver's conduct was most satisfactory, skillful, and exemplary throughout both days' fighting.

Early in June, 1862, Colonel Shaver was transferred to the Trans-Mississippi Department. ; On the September 8, 1862, Colonel Shaver organized the 38th Arkansas Infantry Regiment, at Jacksonport, Arkansas and was once again elected colonel. Shaver continued to command the 38th Arkansas during the various campaigns and battles in that department and usually commanded the brigade to which it was assigned. During the evacuation of Little Rock, September 10, 1863, Colonel Shaver was in command of his brigade and covered the Confederate retreat out of the city southward. He was greatly chagrined and deeply mortified that he was not permitted to engage the enemy, and he always contended that General Price should have offered battle; that his forces were numerically superior to the Federals under General Steele and were in fine trim and anxious to fight.

In the fall of 1864, General Kirby Smith consolidated the 38th and the 27th Arkansas Infantry Regiments, and they were known thenceforth until the surrender in May, 1865, as Shaver's Infantry Regiment. He participated in all the principal battles fought in the Trans-Mississippi Department after June, 1862, including Prairie Grove, Mansfield, Jenkins' Ferry, Poison Springs, Marks Mill, and all the battles incident to Gen. Dick Taylor's Red River Campaign against General Banks.

When Shaver received notice the war was over, he took his command to Shreveport, Louisiana, and surrendered to General Francis Herron. Shaver procured a large steamboat to transport his men to Jacksonport (most of his troops were from northern Arkansas) from General Herron. He arrived at Jacksonport on June 20, 1865, and his men were disbanded.

Shaver's activities with the Arkansas Ku Klux Klan after the war eventually caused serious legal problems. At one time, Shaver claimed that he was the Klan commander in Arkansas with 10,000 Klansmen in opposition to the Governor Powell Clayton's carpetbagger regime. By 1868, the Clayton administration had Shaver charged with murder, arson, treason, and robbery. When General Daniel Phillips Upham and the state militia were sent to arrest him, he quickly fled the state to British Honduras. By 1872, Shaver returned to Arkansas upon hearing that Elisha Baxter had replaced Clayton as governor. All charges and indictments against him were quickly dropped.

Shortly after returning to Jacksonport in 1872, he was informed that Governor Baxter had appointed him to the position of sheriff for newly created Howard County in western Arkansas. Shaver lived in Center Point (Howard County) until 1899, practicing law after leaving his duties as sheriff. In 1899, he and his family moved to Mena (Polk County) to live with his son.

In the 1890s, Shaver was made commander of the State Guard and the Reserve Militia of Arkansas and received the rank of Major General. He was also the commander of the Arkansas Division of the United Confederate Veterans (UCV).

In 1910, Shaver helped raise funds and to dedicate a monument and choose its location on the Shiloh battlefield to honor all the Arkansas soldiers who fought and died there. On September 26, 1911, Shaver gave the main address at the dedication of the memorials on the former battleground at Shiloh. When Little Rock was chosen as the site for the annual reunion of the Confederate Veterans, he was made commander-in-charge of the camp, and the National Encampment of the United Confederate was known as "Camp Shaver."

Shaver died at Foreman, in Little River County on January 13, 1915, and was buried in his Confederate uniform at Center Point Cemetery in Howard County, Arkansas.