Fishback, William M.

Born: 1831-11-05 Virginia

Died: 1903-02-09 Fort Smith, Arkansas

Flourished: Fort Smith, Arkansas

William M. Fishback was a lawyer, newspaper editor, and government official. Born in Jeffersonton, Virginia, Fishback attended the University of Virginia, graduating in 1855. After graduating, he taught school and studied law in Richmond, Virginia, before moving in 1857 to Springfield, Illinois, where he was admitted to the bar. In 1858, he moved to Greenwood, Arkansas, where he built a successful law practice. Fishback won election to the Arkansas secession convention in 1861 as an opponent of secession, but he voted for secession after President Abraham Lincoln ordered troops to suppress the rebellion in the seceded states. Fishback left Arkansas for Missouri, where he took an oath of allegiance to the U.S. government. He edited the St. Louis Democrat for a time, but returned to Arkansas in 1863 with the aim of raising a regiment of Union infantry. He instead established a newspaper, the Unconditional Union, and worked to form a loyal government under President Lincoln's plan of reconstruction. He helped raised the Fourth Arkansas Calvary, but did not join the unit in the field. Fishback won election to the U.S. Senate in 1864, but the Senate refused to sit him after Congress rejected the government Lincoln established in Arkansas. Fishback served as a special agent of the U.S. Treasury Department until the end of the war.

Carl H. Moneyhon, "Fishback, William Meade," American National Biography, ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 7:954; Willis Miller Kemper, ed., Genealogy of the Fishback Family in America (New York: Thomas Madison Taylor, 1914), 196-98; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Greenwood, Sebastian County, AR, 1045; Gravestone, Oak Cemetery, Fort Smith, AR.