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By Root 1383 0

this house was (and still is) the most impressive dwelling of Stay More, it is relatively modest by comparison with the house Jacob occupied in Little Rock, which we cannot illustrate here. Confederate Governor Flanagin abandoned it quickly in the face of the advance of General Steele’s army, taking only a few personal possessions and mementos and some of his wife’s best silver. So it was fully and rather opulently furnished when Jacob moved into it. As long as he was only provisional governor, he did not send for his wife Sarah and his children. He thought of writing them and telling them that he had been chosen provisional governor, but, remembering that no one in Stay More could read, he dispatched instead a messenger to carry the news orally. Not far outside of Little Rock this messenger was ambushed by bushwhackers and killed. The people of Stay More would have to wait for some time to learn of the high position attained by one of their own. Meanwhile the Little Rock lady (whom we cannot name) came clandestinely each night to the governor’s mansion to keep Jacob’s company in bed, and to share his burden as helmsman for the ship of state.

This burden, as long as he was only provisional governor, was not a heavy one. Most important matters, both military and civil, remained in the care of the military governor, General Steele, and Jacob did not seem to mind that all of the messages from President Lincoln during this period were addressed not to him but to Steele. The lady explained to Jacob what a “figurehead” is, as distinct from a “puppet,” which he was not. He took more interest in supervising the drafting of a new state constitution. He made few speeches, and these were carefully corrected and rehearsed in advance with the help of his ladyfriend. He avoided coarse language, especially in the presence of women. A reporter from the New York Tribune interviewed him at that time and wrote a long piece which was both condescending toward his back-country appearance and deportment and warmly approving of his platform, expressed, as he was quoted, “to git this here state back into the Union and keep’er thar till hell freezes over.”

For a long time, his ladyfriend made a timid, half-hearted attempt to refine his diction, and at least succeeded to the point where his speech no longer betrayed his true intelligence, but still there were many loyal Unionists in the state who were embarrassed by his image, and indeed, the reason that Jacob’s name appears so sporadically in histories of Arkansas is that historians are still somewhat discomfited, if not embarrassed, by his image. There was not, however, any man willing to run against him in the election. The election offered only a pair of alternatives: ratification of a new constitution, or not; and Jacob Ingledew for governor, or not. In the actual election, Jacob polled more votes than the constitution did, a circumstance that was not pleasing to President Lincoln, although Lincoln finally wrote directly to him to congratulate him, a brief letter that was always afterwards one of Jacob’s few prized possessions: “Governor Engledew: I am much gratified that you got out so large a vote, so nearly all the right way, at the late election; and not less so that your state government, including the legislature, is organized and in good working order. Whatever I can I will do to protect you; meanwhile you must do your utmost to protect yourselves. A. Lincoln.”

Lincoln’s cautionary conclusion was warranted; many parts of Arkansas, especially the southwest, were still under Confederate control, and bands of bushwhackers roamed the whole state, right up to the gates of Little Rock; no citizen or soldier of that city dared to go more than a mile outside of it without heavy protection. When he was elected, Jacob sent another messenger to Stay More to ask his family to come to Little Rock in time for the inauguration, but this messenger too was ambushed and killed by bushwhackers before reaching his destination. The nervousness that Jacob exhibited during his inaugural address was not so