Shaded History

In 1863, at the height of the American Civil War, Howell A. Doc Rayburn, a young teenage soldier in Company C of the Twelfth Texas Cavalry fell ill just outside of Brownsville, AR, which was then the county seat of Prairie County, and a prominent growing town located near present day Lonoke County and Prairie County, AR. Rayburn was not the typical Confederate soldier of mythic proportions; he was something different. Rayburn was only five feet tall, scrawny, 100 pounds dripping wet, and rumored to be fond of wearing women's dresses. The Twelfth Texas Cavalry advanced into Mississippi and left Howell behind in the care of the Mosbys, a local family from nearby Des Arc, AR, Howell recovered from his illness, but instead of joining the battles being fought in Mississippi, he decided to promote himself from private to captain. As Captain Rayburn, he convinced a group of local teenage boys to join him in harassing the Union troops stationed near DeValls Bluff, in the Arkansas Delta, for the remainder of the War Between the States. Howell, an unusually ornery and feisty young man considering his size and stature, sets his band of young guerrillas on the Yankee troops patrolling the Arkansas Delta, committing every offense from dueling to stealing horses, to stealing the uniforms of Union troops and leaving them stranded naked outside of the Hazen Plantation (present day Hazen, AR). Things start to get confusing when Henri d'Argent, a local man living in DeValls Bluff, enlists his ward, Jesse Hamman, to join Rayburn's Phantom Unit in an effort to assist Howell in stealing an artifact being held by Union forces near West Point, AR. It becomes evident that very few of the people involved with Rayburn's Phantom Unit are exactly what they seem. Henri d'Argent has ulterior motives, Jesse Hamman isn't exactly who he appears to be, and a group called The Council appear to be pulling strings to keep secrets from local people in the area. And, there are a lot of sec