Grave of the Unknown Confederate Soldier

The soldier was never named. In early April 1864, during the Red River Campaign, a Confederate cut off from his unit near Marthaville was shot by three Union cavalrymen, on one account while trying to get water at the Barnhill homestead and on another while trying to rejoin other Confederates. He carried no identification. William Barnhill and his sons buried him, and the family tended the grave for more than 98 years before the state made the ground a park. Sons of Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy members held a dedication on Memorial Day 2011.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Los Adaes State Historic Site — 8.4 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 — 9.4 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.
• Natchitoches Historic District — 20 mi
  The riverfront blocks of the oldest permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase, founded in 1714 at a Natchitoches village, with a brick-paved Front Street, Cane River frontage and the largest bousillage construction in the South.
• Fort St. Jean Baptiste State Historic Site — 20 mi
  A reconstruction of the 1716 French fort beside the Natchitoches village, with a palisade of nearly 2,000 pine logs, a chapel and storeroom, and living-history programs, open Wednesday to Sunday.

More markers nearby

• The Presidio Nuestra Senora del Pilar de los Adais — 8.4 mi
• The Battle of Pleasant Hill — 8.4 mi
• Federal Hospital — 8.5 mi
• Los Adaes — 8.6 mi