There are two purposes for Comments in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. Comments can either add information to aid in the understanding of the entry or add information that provides an alternate interpretation of the historical record.
Information included in this section is not fact checked by the Encyclopedia staff. The author of the Comment is entirely responsible for its content.
On May 22, 1861, Borland lost the election for the Military Board's newly created military position, but June 1 organized, under the Military Board, a brigade of volunteers, later the 3rd Arkansas Regiment Cavalry, CSA. Then, as a newly commissioned colonel in CSA, Borland was ordered to fill the shoes of General Hardee as commander of the Upper Arkansas District of the Confederate army's Western Army until January when General Van Dorn took command. Sickness forced him home, however, before December 15, 1861, (army records) where he remained, receiving an honorable discharge May 1862 (Special Orders #98). He was not "retired January 1862" as the entry states.
Your article doesn't explain why Solon Borland was home during the critical crisis of 1850. He was home because of his wife's serious illness and the death of his niece, whom they were looking after following her mother's death. Thus, the reader is left with a negative view of why he was not in Washington to vote. See "Arkansas Gazette: The Early Years 1819-1866" page 277 by Margaret Ross and http://www.pccua.edu/keough/making_of_a_southern_state.htm, go to "The Fall of the Whigs" 1850 crisis, for reason being home, to name but two.