The Battle of Pea Ridge was a crucial step the American Civil War, and a milestone event in local history. During the war, control of the Ozarks between Springfield and the Arkansas border became essential to securing the pivotal state of Missouri and key to commanding the destiny of the Western United States. The North and the South each had designs on ultimately ruling Missouri, the only state above the Mason-Dixon Line the that allowed slavery. Their armies forced the issue during the icy Winter of 1862.
[Battle of Pea Ridge at Wikipedia]
The Pea Ridge visitor's center was recently expanded with new videos and displays. The tour road makes a stop at the hill overlooking the main battlefield.
Tens of thousands of soldiers met at what is now Pea Ridge National Military Park in far Northwest Arkansas, a few miles South of the Missouri border. The area's mixture of brushy woods, spiked ridges, and open pasture are maintained in the same state as found in the middle of the 19th century, and visitors can explore the park by car, foot, bike, or even horseback. As mentioned before, one of earliest and best-preserved segments of the Butterfield Overland Route - the original Ozarkbahn - lies within park boundaries.
Hiking trails criss-cross the park. Little Mountain, which hid Confederate troop movements, can be seen in the distance from the Elkhorn Ridge overlook.
[Pea Ridge National Military Park at U.S. National Park Service]
While the setting is serene, the action in March 1862 was hard-fought and grim. United States General Samuel Curtis had chased Confederate forces back into Arkansas until supply lines ran thin. Expecting an imminent counterattack up the Old Wire Road, an outnumbered Union Army dug into the high ground along Sugar Creek, just South of Pea Ridge. Southern General Earl Van Dorn sensed an opportunity to cut Curtis off entirely, and used the cover of darkness and nearby hills to secret his forces around to the Union's rear flank.
The Union fortifications along the Old Wire Road at Little Sugar Creek never saw battle, but the soldiers entrenched there had to perform a hasty about-face to meet the Confederate forces.
The result was a series of fierce, confused melees in close quarters and frigid conditions. The Rebels emerged from the woods to capture Elkhorn Tavern, an advantageous point along the Old Wire Road, but failed to capitalize on their position. They were ultimately repulsed the following day in one of the Civil War's largest confrontations West of the Mississippi.
[Battle of Pea Ridge at the Encyclopedia of Arkansas]
The Union Army had pushed the Confederates out of Missouri for good, but the Battle of Pea Ridge was costly. There were over 3,000 casualties combined, and the developing economy of Northwest Arkansas was savaged. The Confederacy burned any infrastructure of civilization deemed beneficial to the enemy, including War Eagle Mill, most of Fayetteville, and the Van Winkle sawmill operation that formed the basis for Hobbs State Conservation Area. A significant depopulation followed, and the lay of contemporary Northwest Arkansas would have to rise from that ruin.
Elkhorn Tavern and the now-defunct hamlet of Leetown were used to treat the masses of injuries.
Pea Ridge National Military Park is fateful ground. What if the risky Confederate assault at Pea Ridge had been successful? What if the Union's campaign against the South had followed a different path through the Ozarks? Would have the businesses and fortunes of today's biggest economic drivers locally - WalMart, Tyson, J.B. Hunt, the University of Arkansas, and so on - taken root without the heavy hand of war?
Years after the battle, veterans from both sides gathered at Elkhorn Tavern. Pea Ridge would not gain National Park status until the Eisenhower era.
No matter what, war extracts a grizzly toll, especially when it destroys from within. The well-tended beauty of Pea Ridge is a striking memorial to soldiers who took part in a chapter of conflict where every victory was an exercise in American self-defeat, but bravery was on high form.
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