Pea Ridge

After slogging through Nebraska and Iowa we made it to Platte City, Missouri, not far from Kansas City, where we had to hunt down the Basswood Resort. The location for it was wrong in my gps but Geoffrey's came up with a different address and Voila! there it was. Leaving the next morning we slogged through Kansas City on a rainy messy Sunday morning, stopping at a Flying J in Peculiar, Missouri, to fuel up and have breakfast at the Dennys that was part of it. Luckily the rain let up while we were there.

Crossing the Missouri/Arkansas line early in the afternoon we were soon at Pea Ridge National Military Park which is up in the northwest corner of Arkansas. We turn ed into the park and drove up the access road and nearly had a heart attack when we saw the road blocked off with a Road Closed sign! Looking more carefully, we saw this just blocked off the rest of the road but the Visitor Center and Park itself was quite accessible over to the left.

It was close to 3 in the afternoon and we were of two minds, find somewhere nearby to stay or visit the park and then move on towards home which at this end of the trip had its attractions! The first thing we did when we got in the Visitor Center was ask the lady ranger behind the desk about the hours ... the Visitor Center itself would close at 4:30, adding that a 30 minutes film about the battle would start in their little theater in about ten minutes giving us a little time before and after to visit the museum area.

She then told us that the loop road around the battlefield was not only easily driveable even by our RV but the various stops and overlooks along the way were as well and that that area was open until dusk. Perfect! We did as she suggested and watched the movie about the battle which was excellent, very informative with enough detail to be interesting to grownups but not over the heads of most children.The small museum was also excellent and gave a good bit of detail about the participants and the battle itself that added to rather than repeated what had been in the film.

The Battle of Pea Ridge took place in and around Telegraph Road, built in 1838, the village of Leetown, and the Elkhorn tavern. The loop road follows Telegraph Road around the fields. The first overlook actually refers to the earlier Trail of Tears when thousands of Cherokee were driven west.
The next stop was a signboard telling about how the village of Leetown served as a hospital for the wounded of both sides.

This was followed by a stop with another signboard about the temporary city-like Union battle camp that had once stood there, the nerve center for the Union army during the two day battle which took place March 7 and 8 of 1862. Nothing is there now but empty fields and forests but a little imagination triggered by the images from the film and the signboards and one can picture hundreds of men camped, preparing for war.

City of Soldiers - imagine them in the field shown above

The primary figures were General Samuel Ryan Curtis for the Union troops and Major General Earl Van Dorn, commander of the Confederate's Army of the West.

Both were assisted by excellent competent senior officers several of whom on the Confederate side were killed or wounded including Confederate Brigadier General Benjamin McCulloch whose death was shortly followed by that of his second in command James McIntosh in a charge to recover McCulloch's body. Next in command, Colonel Louis Hebert, was killed in the same charge and the Confederates were essentially leaderless on the field.

Confederate commander Major General Earl Van Dorn had the appearance of the romantic southerner many of us picture from movies and books. He was originally from Tennessee, more recently Texas.

He had fought in the Mexican-American War and went on be defeated again at the Second Battle of Corinth and was subsequently removed form command.

His end certainly falls on the romantic side of things as in May of 1863 he was killed at his headquarters by a doctor who claimed Van Dorn had been carrying on with his wife!

Fighting had also centered around the Elkhorn Tavern and it was here on the second day that the Confederate troops, separated by hours from their artillery train, was defeated and in spite of their superiority of numbers, lost the battle.

If you get anywhere close to this area and have any interest in the Civil War, we suggest you visit here, first watching the film and visiting the museum and then driving around the battlefield loop.

We left Pea Ridge after a most interesting visit buoyed by knowing that with the earlier visit to Mount Rushmore and this visit to Pea Ridge we had filled in the two stops that we had had to cut off earlier trips.

From here we went to nearby Ft Smith-Alma RV Park, arriving after hours for the first time in all our travels!