Late Archaic peoples continue to utilize rock shelters and bluff overhangs throughout northwestern Arkansas, building on thousands of years of human occupation dating back to Paleoindian times. These hunter-gatherers practice seasonal mobility, using the shelters as temporary camps while pursuing diverse wild resources.

Missourians side with the Union by a ratio of two or three to one, despite it's being a slave state with a highly organized and militant secessionist movement, thanks to the pro-slavery "border ruffians" who battled antislavery militias in Kansas in the 1850s.

Pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne F. Jackson and his small state guard under General Sterling Price had linked up with Confederate forces under General Ben McCulloch.

After victories at the Battle of Wilson's Creek and at Lexington, Missouri, Confederate forces had been driven out of the state by the arrival of large Union forces in February 1862 and are effectively locked out by defeat at the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, on March 6–8.