Federal Advance (Wilson's Farm)

The first real fight of the Union advance came on April 7, 1864, at Wilson's Plantation, three miles past Pleasant Hill. Albert Lee's cavalry met Tom Green's Texans, who attacked several times, the first time Taylor's men had done more than retreat and harass. The bigger trouble sat behind Lee: some 300 wagons stood between his cavalry and the infantry. That night Lee found Confederates dug in at Carroll's Mill and asked for infantry. Franklin refused, but Banks overruled him and sent a brigade to join the cavalry at daybreak.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mansfield State Historic Site — 12 mi
  A 1957 museum and three-quarter-mile trail on the ground where Confederate troops broke a Union line on April 8, 1864, in a park begun by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
• Los Adaes State Historic Site — 19 mi
  The Spanish presidio that was the capital of Texas from 1729 to 1770, some 15 miles from French Natchitoches, now an archaeological site where Native pottery is the most abundant find.
• Fort Jesup State Historic Site — 19 mi
  The 1822 army post Zachary Taylor built to hold the Neutral Ground between Louisiana and Spanish Texas, with the one surviving kitchen, a reconstructed officers' quarters and a museum open Friday to Sunday.
• North Toledo Bend State Park — 23 mi
  A 900-acre park on the Louisiana shore of the 186,000-acre Toledo Bend Reservoir, with trails, disc golf and cabins, near the flooded sites of Pine Flat and other Sabine Parish communities.

More markers nearby

• Army of the Tennessee — 1.7 mi
• Dog Trot House — 2.2 mi
• Sergeant John H. Cook — 2.3 mi
• Leutenant General Richard Taylor — 2.3 mi