David Owen Dodd
David Owen Dodd is perhaps one of the best-known Civil War figures in Arkansas history. The city of Little Rock remembered the boy, hanged as a Confederate spy in January 1864, by naming a school and a road in his honor. While many see him as a martyr, others argue his execution was justified according to military rules of war. Dodd's story has captivated audiences for years due to a combination of unanswered questions and unfortunate twists of fate. In November 1984, the Sons of Confederate Veterans awarded the Confederate Medal of Honor to Dodd, one of only twenty-two persons so honored by that organization.
The
David O. Dodd window, commemorating the young Arkansan executed as a
Confederate spy in 1864, was unveiled at The Confederate Museum in
Richmond, Virginia, on November 7, 1911. The idea for the window
originated three years earlier, when the Arkansas Division of the United
Daughters of the Confederacy began raising funds for a memorial window for
the Arkansas Room at the Richmond museum, which was housed in the former
White House of the Confederacy. At the time, UDC chapters in Maryland and
Texas had donated similar windows for their respective rooms. By 1911,
approximately $220 had been raised, and the organization contracted with
the Charles F. Hogeman Company in New York to manufacture and ship the
window directly to Richmond.
In 1988, an Arkansan visiting the Richmond museum discovered the Dodd window had been removed from display and placed in storage, along with the others, when the museum, renamed The Museum of the Confederacy, relocated to new facilities and the former White House underwent renovation. As a result, the Arkansas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans requested the loan of the window to a state institution. The Arkansas Museum of Science and History, located in the historic Arsenal building in MacArthur Park, provided an appropriate setting, and volunteers traveled to Richmond in May 1989 to secure the window.
The David O. Dodd window debuted in Arkansas in January 1990 and remained on display for several years. In the mid-1990s, however, The Museum of the Confederacy developed plans to exhibit its collection of stained glass windows permanently. The original Dodd window was returned to Richmond in 1998. In January of 2004, the Museum of the Confederacy again loaned the Dodd window to Arkansas to commemorate the 140th anniversary of Dodd's trial.
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Read the story of David Owen Dodd.
