Site sees more than just three days of battle

Hidden History researched

Off the beaten path of the park tour road, beyond the preserved battlefields, behind the brush and brambles of a summer woodland, Pea Ridge National Military Park includes many features unseen by most guests. They tell a story not only of the battle, but of life in the Ozarks before and after those fateful March days in 1862, when Federal forces during the Civil War won control of Missouri for the Union.

Near the Federal trenches along Little Sugar Creek, a land anomaly sits visible from the road.

“It was believed to be an old road bed, or maybe a bridge across the creek,” said Kevin Eads, the park’s superintendent. “But the recent inventory made us think and rethink its use, and we discovered it wasn’t an old roadbed after all.”

When Eads and others crawled into the space a few years ago, they discovered it was massive, with double bricks, hewn logs purposefully placed and even wagon axles (now rusted through) added as supporting structures.

“We may never know for sure,” Eads said, “but it looks similar to pictures of known ice houses.

“Even though it was built later than the early 1900s, it’s still important to know it’s here. Even though it’s not battle-related, it’s still history, and we’ll still manage it.

“And it’s cool. It’s really cool,” the history buff said.

Time passages

A few years ago, park officials released several reports as part of the park’s management plan, with alternatives for preservation, conservation and park use. The report included not only manmade structures but topography, views and vistas.

National Park Service officials are working to identify and document sights of human habitation that lie above ground level at the park — in excess of 100 different features, Eads said. Part of the process will include updating the information of structures listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“They transcend time,” Eads said of the park’s “bonus” features, with some constructed before the battle and some after.

“We know what was here for the battle, but we don’t know what else was on the landscape,” Eads continued. “Was it a family home? Was it battle-related? How has the landscape changed over time?”

“We realized there has never been a survey overlaying the deeds of ownership with a found

File photo Alex Swift (left), Pea Ridge park interpreter, and Nolan Moore, park biologist, unearth a piece of case in Ruddick’s Field. Union troops fired their cannons on Confederate forces for two hours from a ridge as they pushed back a rebel advance.

Staff photograph Ben Goff The wall ends at a cavern, which might have served as a pump house, carrying water up the hill. Considering all structures remaining on the park site, regardless of date, might highlight how the three-day battle in 1862 affected those living in the...