James Philip Eagle
James Philip Eagle was the sixteenth governor of the state of Arkansas from January 8, 1889 to January 10, 1893.
During the Civil War James Philip Eagle served in the Confederate Army's Fifth Arkansas State Troops before falling under the leadership of Colonel James McIntosh of the Second Arkansas Mounted Riflemen. He was promoted several times, eventually to the rank of major. During his service he fought in the Battle of Murfreesboro, where he was captured and later exchanged, and was present at Pea Ridge, Richmond, Chickamauga, Franklin, Nashville, and Bentonville. He surrendered with his regiment in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Returning home from the war he discovered his home in ruins and his family in flight to Austin, Texas. James built a new home and attended Mississippi (Baptist) College in Clinton, Mississippi, where he became an ordained preacher. He ran the Arkansas Baptist State Convention for ten years. he served several terms in the state legislature beginning in 1872, eventually rising to the position of speaker. He was elected as governor in 1888.
Eagle was born in Maury County, Tennessee, in 1837. His ancestors emigrated from Switzerland in 1743. His father James Eagle settled in rural Pulaski County (near present-day Lonoke) in 1839, where he ran several farms and owned about thirty slaves. His mother was Charity Swaim.
References
- Goodspeed's History of Pulaski County, Arkansas (1889).
- The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography: Being the History of the United States as Illustrated in the Lives of the Founders, Builders, and Defenders of the Republic, vol. 10 (J.T. White, 1900), 191-192.
