Dripping Springs and the Federal Raid on Van Buren

The Texans at Dripping Springs did not expect a fight. Lt. Col. R. P. Crump's First Texas Partisans were posted here when the Union advance met their pickets, three miles south of Oliver's store, on December 28, 1862. The pickets fired in the air and fell back to warn the camp, and Crump tried three times to rally his men as they retreated toward Van Buren. Every attempt failed. The Federals also took supplies at Dripping Springs and seized the Van Buren telegraph office before the Confederates gave up the town.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Van Buren Historic District — 6.5 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.
• U.S. Marshals Museum — 9.1 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.
• Fort Smith National Historic Site — 9.9 mi
  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 — 10 mi
  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.

More markers nearby

• Van Buren Raid — 6.5 mi
• Courthouse — 6.7 mi
• Albert Pike School House — 6.7 mi
• Confederate Occupation of Fort Smith — 9.9 mi