Short stops: Pea Ridge National Military Park

Views atop Pea Ridge of fields where armies massed.

Elkhorn Tavern, key battle spot. 

The battles of the Civil War extended from northern Vermont to the Arizona Territory. I shouldn’t be surprised when a frontier of the war proves just as exciting as those further east. Northwest Arkansas still seemed an unlikely location for a pivotal western frontier engagement. 

The 21st century economic hub of Northwest Arkansas leans on four cities - Fayetteville (home of the University of Arkansas), Rogers (home of Daisy air rifles), Springdale (home of Tyson Foods), Bentonville (home of Walmart and recipient of many Walton heirs’ philanthropic efforts). All the development feels rapid and new. 

Road past Leetown.

Pea Ridge sits quietly to the east. But the rough hills around Pea Ridge hide a battlefield that deserves greater renown for its Civil War role. Keeping Missouri in the Union was an early priority for the Union Army, and that movement manifests itself in the battlefields of Wilson’s Creek (next post) and later Pea Ridge. My travel direction meant visiting the primary battlefields in reverse order. 

When I arrived at Pea Ridge, the battlefield was silent except for the wind. The weather was barely above freezing, although the park’s wild denizens would emerge as I traversed the park loop road. 

I didn’t see another car on the park road, but many creatures stirred as the sun broke free of the clouds. White-tailed deer fled across the road at regular intervals. Groups of males, females, and even a herd of yearlings passed me by. Beyond the cannons I spotted several herds grazing along the forest’s edge. There was no shortage of deer who figured out that the national parkland protected them from hunting.

Fellow traveler.

Across the battlefield, the settlement of Leetown, a small village where soldiers received medical treatment, has vanished into the forest, not even a foundation visible. Leetown lies near a stretch of the Trail of Tears the Cherokee followed and was not far from the Telegraph Road that brought settlers, armies and the new technology to the American West. 

Pea Ridge is one of the few Civil War battlefields where a natural overlook could offer a full view of an army in the field. On a hill with 40-foot-tall stone formations covered in lichen, the field where 10,000 Union soldiers marshaled to hold Missouri was in clear view. Cannons and fencelines frame where the soldiers would have lined up. 

A little imagination could reveal the magnitude of these armies. I pictured the armies of Isengard marching to Helm’s Deep, or the Spanish soldiers maneuvering as the Roman army in Spartacus. A real-world parallel is hard to conjure. But the broad fields around Pea Ridge had room to house such vast armies. 

The most important structure on the battlefield was the Elkhorn Tavern. The reconstructed tavern – the original burned down after the war – is a necessary piece of Pea Ridge, as the tavern sat at the center of much of the battle. Another trio of deer congregated on the lawn in front the tavern only to flee once I stepped within 100 yards. 

 Taverns weren’t just for drinking in the 19th century. Travelers would rest in rooms on the second floor. With its proximity to the local telegraph road (cut as the U.S. government extended telegraph wires further west), it would have seen regular travelers. The tavern also served as a voting site, a post office, and a trading post. 

Timid youngsters.

During the battle, the tavern’s owners barricaded themselves in the cellar for three days while the tavern took numerous hits from artillery and served as a field hospital, along with temporary field headquarters for Confederate Gen. Earl Van Dorn. 

Van Dorn fated better than other Confederate generals. The Texan Benjamin McCullough wore a black suit to differentiate himself from his troops, a clothing decision that proved fatal. James McIntosh, who commanded one of McCullough’s brigades, assumed divisional command only to meet a fatal bullet 15 minutes later. 

One of Pea Ridge’s few memorials salutes the fallen Confederate generals. I could forgive a few memorials. After the 1,300 memorials of Vicksburg, Pea Ridge felt downright rustic and untouched. The military park joined the National Park Service during the Eisenhower administration, long the combatants had all died of old age. 

When I thought the deer were done, other wildlife stepped up. South of the tavern, I came across the largest flock of wild turkeys I have ever encountered. I counted close to a dozen crossing the road, a migration sped up by my intrusion. They chuckled and pecked at the ground, then moved to better protection among fallen trees, their numbers hard to discern. 

The deer and turkey led me to feel that Pea Ridge had been a peaceful place before armies descending upon these lands. When the cannon fire ended, the peaceful place crept back (with help from NPS buying out some homes built on the battlefield after the war). 

Experiencing the battlefield with its wildlife in command offered a better perspective on the long history of the land before massive armies settled Missouri’s place in the Union.

Deer at the Elkhorn Tavern.

So many turkeys in one flock.