Archibald S . Dobbins Archibald S . Dobbins ( 1836 – circa 1869 ) was a Confederate cavalry commander in the American Civil War . Early life . Arch Dobbins was the son of David and Catherine Dobbins and was born on his father ’ s farm known as Sandy Hook near Mount Pleasant , Tennessee . Shortly after his marriage to Mary Patience Dawson , also of Mount Pleasant , he moved to Arkansas , acquiring land called Horse Shoe Island Plantation , near Helena . Civil War . In 1862 Phillips County , Arkansas was occupied by Federal troops . Dobbins sent his family to Tennessee and joined a Confederate regiment commanded by Thomas C . Hindman . When Hindman was appointed to take over the military command of Arkansas , he brought Dobbins with him to Little Rock as a colonel on his general staff . Following his service on Hindman ’ s staff , Dobbins was given command of a brigade of cavalry that became known as “ Dobbins Cavalry ” or more formally the 1st Arkansas Cavalry . Dobbins returned with his cavalry to Phillips County which became his base of operations . Dobbins Cavalry is difficult to research because not only was it a loosely - organized regiment , but most of the typical paperwork generated by a regiment in the field is missing from the record . Only a handful of muster rolls , and almost no quartermaster or commissary reports , are known to exist . Dobbins brigade was assigned to a division commanded by Gen . Lucius M . Walker and fought in major engagements , raids , and skirmishes throughout eastern and northeastern Arkansas . After Walker was killed in a duel with fellow general John S . Marmaduke , Dobbins assumed command of Walker ’ s division . When Marmaduke became Dobbins superior , Dobbins refused to serve under him in protest of the killing of Walker . Marmaduke ordered Dobbins arrest and court martial . On November 23 , 1863 it was announced that Dobbins had been dismissed from the army . Despite the verdict , Dobbins never officially surrendered his command and continued to operate his brigade out of the Helena area . 1864 dispatches from Confederate Gen . Joe Shelby to his commanders in northeast Arkansas included Col . Dobbins . As the war was nearing the end , Dobbins was promoted to general on the field , but this promotion was never entered in the official records , due in part to the turmoil of the confederate army and government in its last days . Dobbin ’ s Cavalry surrendered and was paroled at Wittsburg , Arkansas on May 25 , 1865 . Dobbins himself fled to Texas where he planned to cross into Mexico and send his slaves to Cuba . Dobbins did not reach his slaves or Mexico and signed his parole at Galveston on July 13 , 1865 . Death . In 1867 Dobbins left the United States and started a plantation 30 miles from Santarém , Brazil . In one of his letters Dobbins mentioned that he was only about six miles from an American colony in Brazil . This may have been the Lost Colony of the Confederacy . In 1869 Dobbins wrote for his wife to join him in Brazil but as she made plans to travel to South America , the letters stopped coming . Dobbins was never heard from again . Years later it was reported that the general had been killed in an Indian uprising which swept the area of his plantation in about 1869 . A Confederate style VA headstone stands as a cenotaph to Archibald Dobbins in Confederate Cemetery in Helena , Arkansas .