Arkansas occupied a key position in the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department. It offered a gateway for Confederate troops to move north and secure Missouri for the Confederacy, or for Union troops to move south towards Texas and Louisiana. During the war, Union and Confederate armies moved back and forth across the state engaging in numerous encounters. This paper is a year by year study of those encounters and engagements occurring in Arkansas between 1861 and 1865. Emphasis is necessarily placed on the significant campaigns and engagements. Actions which occurred in adjacent states but which militarily affected Arkansas are also discussed. The majority of the material was compiled from the Official Records.

The purpose of this study is to compare the staging of the Passion Play of Oberammergau, Germany, with the staging of The Great Passion Play on Mount Oberammergau, Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Source material includes literary writings of the century concerning Passion plays, interview with the directors of both productions, and eyewitness accounts of the 1970 producation in Germany and the 1970, 1971 producations in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, U.S.A. Photographs of actors and scenes from both productions are used throughout the thesis.