Background
Harris Flanagin was born on November 3, 1817, in Roadstown, New Jersey, United States. He was the son of James and Mary Flanagin.
Harris Flanagin was born on November 3, 1817, in Roadstown, New Jersey, United States. He was the son of James and Mary Flanagin.
Flanagin received a fairly good education in a Quaker school of New Jersey and then went to Clermont, Pennsylvania, to teach in a seminary. Soon after this, he moved to Illinois where he again tried teaching and while at this work studied law.
In 1837, Flanagin moved to Arkansas and opened a law office in Greenville, the county seat of Clark County, but later moved to Arkadelphia, the new county seat.
In 1842, he was elected to the legislature, but dropped out of politics and devoted his time to his profession.
In 1861, Flanagin represented his county in the secession convention. When the motion for submitting to the people the question of cooperation or secession came up he voted against it, but in the second session, after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, he voted for withdrawal from the Union.
He entered the army as a captain, served with the 2d Arkansas Mounted Rifles, and rose to the rank of colonel.
While serving at Knoxville, Tennessee, he received notice that the people of Arkansas would decide the next day whether he or Henry Rector should be governor. This is said to have been the first notice he had had of his candidacy. Owing to the strength of the anti-Rector faction, led by R. II. Johnson, whom Rector had defeated in 1860, Flanagin was elected by a vote of more than two to one.
Flanagin was inaugurated on November 15, 1862. The two great problems before him were to help prosecute the war and to care for the civilian population, who were suffering from the scarcity of clothing, food, and medicine. While the governor cooperated with Kirby Smith in raising troops, the legislature appropriated $1, for the relief of suffering in the devastated areas, $300, 000 to encourage manufacturing of essentials, and even assigned the governor $1,000,000 to carry on manufacturing on the account of the state, but very little came of these efforts, for the treasury was generally empty. Shortly before the cessation of hostilities Flanagin attended a conference of governors at Marshall, Texas, to decide upon what terms they should surrender to the Federal authorities.
Returning to Arkansas he requested A. H. Garland to open negotiations with General J. J. Reynolds with a view to the cooperation of the Confederate state government with the Unionist government which had been established under Isaac Murphy, for the calling of a state convention and the restoration of a government which Congress would recognize.
Reynolds, however, would accord no sort of recognition, and in May 1865 the Confederate state government dissolved. Flanagin was told that he would be allowed to deliver up the archives and would not be molested as long as he remained quiet. He then retired to Arkadelphia and, as soon as conditions permitted, resumed the practice of law.
Prior to his death, Harris was elected to the constitutional convention of 1874.
Flanagin had been raised a Baptist, but after he married, he attended the Presbyterian church with his wife, thus becoming known locally as a "trunk Baptist."
During his term as a Governor, Flanagin dealt with the arduous chore of maintaining civil order during the war. He contended with problems such as rising prices, shortages of salt, soldiers' hungry families, and the wartime distillation of liquor. New laws were passed, but problems continued to grow. The state's suspension of tax collections, and the financing of the war effort with paper bonds, led to no money available in implementing these new policies.
On July 3, 1851, Harris Flanagin married Martha E. Nash, by whom he had three children.