Confederate Occupation of Fort Smith

The fort changed hands without a shot, but not by accident. After Fort Sumter, Captain Samuel Sturgis was ordered to hold Fort Smith until Arkansas seceded. Governor Henry Rector sent Senator Solon Borland to take it, and on April 23, 1861, scouts reported the militia four miles off at Van Buren. Sturgis sent his cavalry out that night for Fort Washita in Indian Territory. Borland's two steamboats landed about 300 militia and eight artillery pieces, the men left behind were declared prisoners, and the fort was seized in the name of the State of Arkansas.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Smith National Historic Site — steps away
  Two army forts, a federal courthouse and a basement jail on the bluff where the Poteau meets the Arkansas, from the 1817 riflemen to Judge Parker's court and its gallows.
• Fort Smith National Cemetery — steps away
  The post burial ground of the first Fort Smith, kept since 1819, holding its first commander, more than 400 Confederate dead, Judge Parker and veterans of every war since.
• U.S. Marshals Museum — 0.7 mi
  A star-shaped museum on the Arkansas riverbank, opened in 2023, telling the story of the nation's oldest federal law enforcement agency and the marshals who worked out of Fort Smith.
• Van Buren Historic District — 5.5 mi
  Eight blocks of Main Street on the Arkansas River, from Phillips Landing, with 1889 banks, a beer depot and a railroad depot, on the National Register since 1976.

More markers nearby

• Union Occupation of Fort Smith — steps away
• Sebastian County Seat of Justice — steps away
• Sebastian County California Gold Seekers — 0.2 mi
• Van Buren Raid — 5.1 mi