Pea Ridge National Military Park sits in the northwestern corner of Arkansas on the Missouri border. It is the site of the largest Civil War battle fought west of the Mississippi River during the Civil War and the only major Civil War battle in which Native American troops participated.
In March of 1862, 11,000 Union troops under General Samuel Curtis decisively defeated 16,000 attacking Confederate and their two regiments of Cherokees (totaling about 1000 Native Americans). Their defeat helped the Union clear the upper Mississippi valley region on the way to securing the Mississippi River by mid-1863. It also secured Missouri for the Union and opened Arkansas to Union occupation.
Like many other Civil War battlefields, this is a self guided tour via car. The rolling hills are dotted with cannons and what remains of the Elkhorn tavern in the area. We didn’t see any stone monuments to the fallen in this park like we’d seen in others we had visited.
The original road in the area was later traveled by thousands of Cherokees and other Native American tribes in the winter of 1838-1839 as they underwent forced removal from their homelands in what is known as the Trail of Tears. This road also became part of the Butterfield Overland Stage route from 1857-61.
