Debate flourishes to this day regarding the legitimacy of these actions, or for that matter those of the Union men who deposed him from office. Claiborne Jackson continued to serve as governor in the Confederate-held portions of the state. But by the end of 1861, Union forces would occupy almost all of Missouri. Jackson took refuge in Arkansas, dying in Little Rock the following year of cancer. A Union victory at the Battle of Pea Ridge in northwest Arkansas in early 1862 sealed Missouri's fate as a Union border state.