Col. John M. Harrell, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 10.2, Arkansas
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

[303] command of the brigade on the retreat. General Wood refused to wait for the rear guard, and for this reason Colonel Shaver applied for and secured a transfer of the Seventh to Hindman's brigade. The regiment reached Nashville ten days after the fall of Fort Donelson, and went thence to Murfreesboro, where the remnants of Zollicoffer's command from Fishing creek had gone into camp. From Murfreesboro it went to Decatur and thence to Courtland, Ala., and went into camp at Corinth, Miss., to await the concentration there of an army to meet the Federal advance. It there rested from the exposure and fatigue of the retreat out of Kentucky. Then followed the battle of Shiloh, where General Shaver commanded the brigade under General Hindman. Colonel Shaver was born in Sullivan county, east Tennessee, and came to Arkansas in 1851, settling at Batesville and engaging in merchandise. He was educated at Emory and Henry college, Virginia, and had not received any military training. At the time the war began he was doing business about twenty miles east of Batesville, in what was then Lawrence, now Sharp county. He entered with enthusiasm into the raising of troops for the service. As the Confederate government was very slow about receiving volunteers for the service, Arkansans generally flocked to the State service. Col. Robert G. Shaver is now major-general of the State guard and reserve militia of Arkansas.

The Eighth Arkansas regiment was originally organized at Jacksonport, in the summer of 1861, under command of Col. William K. Patterson, Lieutenant-Colonel Crouch and Maj. John Price, with Surgeon L. H. Dickson, Asst. Surgeon Gee, Quartermaster Tom Watson. Colonel Patterson was a lawyer of ability of northeast Arkansas. The regiment was transferred to Mississippi in the concentration of troops there under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, and marched in Shaver's brigade, under Cleburne as division commander, to meet the advance of