Pulaski-Conway County ArArchives Biographies.....Beeson, Virgil Augustus 
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Robert Sanchez http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00027.html#0006574 June 15, 2009, 3:07 pm

Author: S. J. Clarke (Publisher, 1922)

GENERAL VIRGIL AUGUSTUS BEESON.
    Arkansas on the whole has been signally favored in the class of men who have
occupied her public offices. They have been men of ability, loyal to the welfare
of the state, and have greatly advanced the interests of the commonwealth
through the faithful performance of duty. To this class belongs Virgil Augustus
Beeson, who is now state adjutant general, and his effective service has given
high standing to the military interests of the commonwealth. Making his home in
Little Rock, he was born in Monroe City, Missouri, June 3, 1880, and is a son of
the Rev. Isaac Richard Marion and Lulie (Merriman) Beeson. The father was born
in North Carolina in 1843 and in early life took up the work of the ministry as
a representative of the Baptist church. After forty-six years of active service
he retired from the ministry shortly before his death. In politics he was always
a democrat and at the time of the Civil war he espoused the cause of the
Confederacy, joining General Price's army, with which he served during the last
three years of hostilities between the north and the south. He accomplished
great good during the long years devoted to the upbuilding of the church and the
advancement of moral progress. He came to Arkansas in 1914 and died at
Morrillton in December, 1916. His wife, who was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in
1847, and whom he wedded in that city in 1875, died in Savannah, Missouri, in
1906. They were the parents of two sons and two daughters, and one son and one
daughter are yet living.

    Virgil A. Beeson, having acquired his early education in the public schools
of his native state, afterward spent two years as a student in the William
Jewell College at Liberty, Missouri. He has been prominently identified with
military and public affairs since attaining his majority and his record in both
connections is of most creditable character. He was a member of the Second
Arkansas Infantry and on the 7th of June, 1917, he offered his services to the
country in connection with the prosecution of the World war, enlisting as a
private in Headquarters Company of the Second Arkansas Infantry. He was
commissioned captain of D Company, Third Arkansas Infantry. When the state
troops were drafted into the federal service on August 5, 1917, he went to Fort
Logan H. Roots, Arkansas, and later to Camp Beauregard, Louisiana, remaining at
the latter place until July 30, 191S, when the troops left for the port of
embarkation, sailing for France on the 6th of August, 1918. General Beeson
remained in France until the latter part of July, 1919, and was promoted to
major there on the 19th of May. He was on overseas service from the 6th of
August, 1918, until July 31, 1919, when he was honorably discharged, the
demobilization occurring August 19, 1919. He was appointed major of infantry of
the Officers' Reserve Corps on that date and was appointed major of infantry of
the Arkansas National Guard Reserve on the 18th of September of the same year.
On the 1st of February, 1921, he was appointed adjutant general of the state by
Governor Thomas C. McRea and is now serving with that rank.

    Before entering the army General Beeson was connected with the publishing
business, becoming widely known as editor and publisher between the years 1900
and 1917. He was connected with the following papers: The Democrat of Savannah,
Missouri; Times Dispatch of Pawnee, Oklahoma; Republic of St. Louis, Missouri;
and the Morrillton Headlight of Morrillton, Arkansas. In 1915-1916 he was
president  of the Arkansas Press Association.

    On the 21st of April, 190S, General Beeson was married to Miss Charlotte
Howe Lewis, who was born in Missouri in 1883 and is a graduate of the Howard
Payne College at Fayette, that state. She is a daughter oŁ Charles O. Lewis,
also a native oŁ Missouri. General and Mrs. Beeson have membership in the
Presbyterian church and take an active and helpful interest in its work.
Fraternally he is connected with Masonry as a thirty-second degree member of the
Scottish Rite. He also belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and to
the Ancient Order of United Workmen. Politically he has always heen a democrat,
loyal to the interests of the party, and has rendered active service to the
commonwealth as a legislator, having been a member of the general assembly from
Conway county in 1915 and 1916. The service which he has rendered to the state
both along political and military lines ranks him as one of the honored and
representative residents of the capital city.


Additional Comments:
Citation:
Centennial History of Arkansas
Volume II
Chicago-Little Rock: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
1922


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