Brigadier-General James F. Fagan was born in Louisville, Ky., in 1827. When he was a youth his father was one of the contractors to build the State house at Little Rock, soon after the admission of the State, and died there. His mother, Catherine A. Fagan, married Samuel Adams, former treasurer of State, in December, 1842. As president of the senate, Mr. Adams succeeded to the governorship in 1844, upon the resignation of Governor Yell, who became a volunteer colonel and fell in the war with Mexico. On the death of his stepfather, Fagan took charge of the farm and family home on the Saline river. Though a whig, he repeatedly represented the Democratic county of Saline in the general assembly of the State. He served through the war with Mexico in Yell's regiment, returning home a lieutenant, and was among the first to raise a company at the beginning of the Confederate war, being chosen captain of his company, and on regimental organization elected colonel of the First Arkansas Confederate infantry. His subsequent achievements gave him high rank and an honorable name in that eventful struggle. On September 12, 1862, Colonel Fagan was promoted to brigadier-general in the provisional army of the Confederate States. He commanded a brigade composed of the Arkansas regiments of Colonels Brooks, Hawthorn, Bell and King, in the siege of Helena, in all 1,339 men, and lost 435 in the determined assaults of his command on Hindman's hill. His gallantry in this bloody engagement was warmly commended by Gen. T. H. Holmes. General Fagan's command was operating in southern Arkansas during the Federal campaign against Shreveport in 1864, and after Banks' defeat at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill, General Fagan, in command of a cavalry division comprising the Arkansas brigades of W. L. Cabell, T. P. Dockery and W. A. Crawford, was ordered to operate against the Federal expedition of General Steele at Camden. He was highly successful, General Smith reporting that "Pagan's destruction of Steele's entire supply train and the capture of its escort at Marks' Mills precipitated Steele's retreat from Camden.'' In the last great maneuver in the Trans-Mississippi, Price's campaign in Missouri, Fagan, who had been commissioned major-general on April 24, 1864, commanded the division of Arkansas cavalry, including the brigades of Cabell, Slemons, Dobbin and McCray, and "bore himself throughout the whole expedition," said General Price, "with unabated gallantry and ardor, and commanded his division with great ability.'' At the last he was in command of the district of Arkansas, and as late as April, 1865, he was active and untiring in his efforts, proposing then an expedition for the capture of Little Rock. General Pagan's first wife was a sister of Gen.,W. N. R. Beall, and after her death he married Miss Rapley of Little Rock, a niece of Maj. Benjamin J. Field, brother of the first wife of Governor Rector.