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Submitted: 10/31/10 • Approved: 3/11/11 • Last Updated: 11/12/20 • R402298-G0-S3
LIEUTENANT COLONEL
Archibald Yell's Arkansas Regiment
Civil War Confederate
BRIGADIER GENERAL
Van Buren Avengers
Mexican American War
January 8, 1817 - April 7, 1867
John Sheldon Roane was born in Lebanon, Tennessee to Hugh and Hannah Calhoun Roane. His father was a storekeeper and slave holder. His was a political family, his uncle Archibald Roane was the governor of Tennessee from 1801-1803. John attended the common schools in Tennessee and later went to Cumberland College in Princeton, Kentucky. Roane moved to Pine Bluff, Jefferson County, Arkansas in 1837 to study law under his brother, Samuel Calhoun Roane, who was a leading jurist and owner of one of Arkansas’s largest plantations. John moved and was comfortable with the frontier elite. With the influence of his brother, on November 15, 1840, he was elected the first prosecuting attorney of the newly created Second Judicial District in Crawford County. He returned to Jefferson County in 1842 and was elected Democratic representative to the Fourth Arkansas General Assembly, September 19. In 1844 he returned to Van Buren and served in the Fifth General Assembly and was elected the speaker. Leaving his political life at the beginning of the Mexican War he raised a company of mounted infantry from Van Buren. They moved to Washington, Hempstead County and became part of the First Arkansas Mounted Rifles. Due to poor training and lack of military experience, the unit preformed badly at the Battle of Buena Vista, February 22-23 1847. This became a subject of heated controversy and led to a duel between Albert Pike and Roane, neither was hurt.
Roane returned to Pine Bluff and worked overseeing his plantation, owning 56 slaves, and practicing law. When Governor Thomas Stevenson Drew resigned, he was drawn back into politics. The Democrats caucus nominated him to be their candidate in the upcoming election. He won by a narrow margin against Cyrus W Wilson who was a Whig serving as a state senator from Pulaski and Perry counties. During his tenure as Governor, 1849-1952, he tried to deal with the state’s financial crisis following the failure of the banking system. He was opposed on every side as the General Assembly ignored his proposals. Thus frustrated he chose not to seek a second term.
July 5, 1855, Roane married Mary Kimbrough Smith and they had 5 children. Roane was in Pine Bluff when the Civil War broke out, but did not enter service until March 20, 1862, when he received a commission as a Brigadier General in the Confederate army. He was replaced by Major General Thomas C Hindman in Summer of 1862. Roane commanded a brigade at the Battle of Prairie Grove and later served on garrison and detached duties in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas until the end of the war. He had little military talent was dislike by his superiors and the men he led. After the war he returned to Pine Bluff where he died.
Contributed on 10/31/10 by eagle12953
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Record #: 402298