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Pea Ridge National Military
Park
Civil War Site
Pea Ridge, Benton County, Arkansas
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Telegraph Road
In 1858, this road became part of the Butterfield Overland Mail
route to California. In 1860, a telegraph wire was strung
along it. |
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Cherokee Trail of Tears - Land Route
This road saw thousands of Cherokees and other American Indians
forcibly relocated from their homes in Georgia and the Carolinas
to Indian Territory in present day Oklahoma. |
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Curtis Head Quarters - Stop 1 on auto tour. |
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In early March 1862, these now quiet field bustled with the
clamor and constant motion of an army headquarters in time of
battle. Soldiers drilled, cleaned guns, and checked ammunition.
Scouts and couriers rode in to report. Officers convened for
councils of war. Mules brayed and teamsters swore. Teams pulling
wagons and artillery rattled by.
Here across the road from Samuel Pratt's store, decisions were
made that would determine the fate of two armies- and the state
of Missouri. A temporary city of soldiers covered the field
before you and the surrounding area. Here you would have seen
the nerve center of the Union army during the two-day fight for
Pea Ridge.
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The Enemy is Behind Us!
It was still below freezing at 10:30 a.m. March 7, 1862, when an
alarmed messenger thundered into Union headquarters. The news he
carried was startling: Confederates were moving down the
Telegraph Road a mile north of Elkhorn Tavern. All of General
Curtis's careful troop positioning for a battle at Little Sugar
Creek-to the south- was now useless.
As gunfire from the far side of Elkhorn Mountain and the fields
north of Leetown grew louder, Curtis had to move his remaining
troops to prepare for the Confederate attack. Blue-coated
regiments reversed direction and rushed past their vulnerable
supply wagons to confront the enemy. |
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A Village Full of Wounded Men
Entering a little clearing, we discovered the yellow hospital
flags fluttering from the gables of every house in the hamlet of
Leetown, and the surgeons busy with sad, yet humane task that
was theirs to perform.
Lyman G. Bennett, 36th Illinois Infantry Regiment
The quarter-mile-long trail you see
ahead leads to the site of Leetown, Arkansas. Today the woods
and meadows of Pea Ridge battlefield appear to be an uninhabited
wilderness. During the Civil War, this whole area was a
patchwork quilt of working farms and woodlots. Leetown was made
up of a dozen or so log-and-frame homes and buildings.
As intense fighting raged nearby in Oberson's cornfield and
Morgan's Woods, stretcher bearers carried the wounded of both
armies to Leetown, the closest place offering shelter from the
winter weather. All the space in the houses were taken over by
injured and dying soldiers. Yellow flags guided the walking
wounded to medical attention.
1862 Harper's Weekly magazine illustration. There is no Civil
War-era drawing of Leetown known to exist. There are no
structures remaining today. |
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Benton County
| Pea Ridge
Virtual Tour 1 |
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