Self-guided tour of history offered at military park

Many families took advantage of the sunny spring weather and visited the Pea Ridge National Military Park this past week — Spring Break for Pea Ridge School students. Prohibited from traveling, as originally planned by many, because of quarantines due to concerns about Covid-19, families found ways to get outside and still observe social distancing.

The park, nestled in the hills and hollows of the Ozarks, preserves nearly 4,300 acres of rural Ozarks land on which the March 7-8, 1862, Battle of Pea Ridge was fought, which helped save Missouri for the Union.

“It’s springtime and we’ve got the tour road with multiple stops as well as several miles of hiking trails,” Kevin Eads, superintendent, said. “Every time I go through the park, there’s something different to see.

“I love this area — the forests, the fields, the amount of wildlife you see. It’s unbelievable in northwest Arkansas,” Eads said.

Through the park’s website, visitors can read letters and diaries of soldiers, take an online tour of the battlefield and learn more about the units that fought in the battle that preserved Missouri for the Union.

One young soldier, Henry Dysart, 3rd Iowa, wrote: “Friday Feb. 28, 1862 This time last year I had no thought that I should ever pass a night under such circumstances, so far from home as last and every night now is spent. A nights rest here is just as sweet as then at home. After marching all day over Arkansas mountains and rocks it is pleasant to spend an Arkansas night in an Arkansas thicket as last night was spent with an Arkansas rock for a pillow and an Arkansas sky for a covering. Sugar Creek. Ark.”

Nearly 23,000 soldiers fought on March 7-8, 1862, in a battle declared to be the largest west of the Mississippi River.

There are 10 stops on the seven-mile tour road where visitors can learn more information through wayside panels and a cell phone tour. The tour is completely self-guided and is open seven days a week from 6 a.m. to sunset. The park is closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. (This includes access to the tour road and all trails.) Audio tour guides, on CD, may be purchased in the bookstore. Visitors can also bike or walk the tour road. Regular fees still apply to those visitors using the park for biking or hiking.

TIMES photograph by Annette Beard Tour Stop 5 — Armies collide; according to the tour narrative, the fight at Foster’s farm witnessed one of the last Napoleonic cavalry charges on American soil.

Slaughter in the Rocks is the title on one of the information boards at Tour Stop 7 atop the east overlook on Elkhorn Mountain on the Pea Ridge National Military Park. It gives a breathtaking view of the battlefield from March 8, 1862.

Tour stop 3 features Lee Town hamlet, a town established in the 1830s and used by troops to house the wounded during the Battle of Pea Ridge.

General Samuel Curtis’ headquarters site is featured at Tour Stop 2 on the Pea Ridge National Military Park.