Isaac A. Clarke was a Major in the 1st Creek, Mtd. Rifles it was mainly made up of Cherokee Indians. Born in Tennessee Clarke was born in 1837 in Tennessee and moved to Arkansas at age 6. He attended Rhea's Academy in Berryville and once taught school in Maysville. Clarke later went to Missouri State University in Columbia. Clarke left the university in 1861 to enter the Confederate Army. Before then, he wrote several letters in which he expressed dismay over the approaching war. At the time, Clarke was a strict Unionist. "I deplore, as does every true lover of his country, the recent distracted condition of the U.S.," he wrote. "I live in the South; I love the South and her institutions (but) I am for the Union and deeply deplore the probability of its rupture." And, in a letter to a friend dated Jan. 5, 1861, Clarke again stated, "I am for the Union. May it be preserved." Nevertheless, he soon joined up with the South. Clarke became quartermaster for a Cherokee regiment that took part in the battles of Pea Ridge and Honey Springs. "He had a great relationship with the Cherokees," Wayne Clark said. In one entry, Clarke explained why he started a diary. "Five or 10 minutes devoted to writing every day would doubtless improve my composition and methodize my thoughts," he said. Wrote little of war "He wrote mainly about personal things ... very little about the war," Wayne Clark said. Although a Unionist at first, Clarke was bitterly disappointed at the South's defeat and briefly considered moving to Brazil after the war, as did other Confederates. But, "he didn't have enough money," Clarke always had money problems, according to his family. He did well until the first school he built burned down, but things apparently went downhill after that. Janet Clark said her great-grandfather's students, who were not well off themselves, often paid him with a "bushel of corn." Among his correspondents was Col. Samuel Peel, who built the Peel Mansion in Bentonville. Clarke also wrote to Gen. Lee, but those letters are now lost. Janet Clark said she was told that the Lee letters got wet and were spread out on a floor to dry. When works entered, they scooped up the letters and threw them in the fireplace, thinking they were trash. Clark said one of her great-aunts cried for a month over the loss. Clarke passed away in 1907 and He is buried in Berryville Memorial Cemetery. According to family folklore, "The Professor" died with 35 cents in his pocket.