That happened most often in northwest Arkansas, although several Kansas regiments also served prominently around Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) and in the Camden Expedition. This usage was so widely known by the time of the war that Arkansans called any Kansas troops who entered the state jayhawkers. They thought it fit the destructive raiders who plundered and destroyed their property before and during the war. Missourians applied the name to Kansans, too, but negatively. Kansans liked the tough image it conveyed during those bloody days of pre-Civil War violence, and they continued to use it once the war began. The name was widely accepted in Kansas by the late 1850s, when anti-slavery advocates intent on defending Kansas Territory against pro-slavery “border ruffians” from Missouri adopted it. The combination became the “jayhawk,” a bird unknown to ornithology. The name was inspired primarily by the predatory habits of the hawk, but it implied, too, the noisy, mischievous nature of the jay. “Jayhawker” originated in Kansas, and according to some authorities, it came into use in the late 1840s. Originally, “jayhawker” referred to Union sympathizers, “bushwhacker” to Confederate sympathizers, but the distinction lost much of its meaning in the chaos of war. While their application and meaning were never precise-a problem compounded by being woven into postwar folklore-they generally bore negative connotations. Jayhawker and bushwhacker designate the principal warring parties in the Civil War’s guerrilla conflict, although the names were not unique to Arkansas and actually predated the war by many years. You can find this and other Civil War Arkansas entries at. Another Civil War Arkansas entry from the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, this one on Jayhawkers and Bushwhackers by Daniel Sutherland of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

The Uncivil War by Robert R. Mackey