Leutenant General Richard Taylor

Near sunset, about four miles from where the attack began on April 8, 1864, Taylor's men met the Union 19th Corps on a ridge above a stream. After a sharp fight the Confederates took the water as twilight ended. Taylor claimed about 2,500 prisoners, twenty guns, several flags and 250 wagons. Hospitals were already arranged at Mansfield, and he rode there to see to the wounded and meet Churchill, whose division was ordered to march for Pleasant Hill at 3 a.m. The Union army was beaten but not destroyed, and fought again the next day.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mansfield State Historic Site — 14 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 — 17 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 — 18 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

• Sergeant John H. Cook — steps away
• Dog Trot House — steps away
• Headquarters Department of the Gulf / Headquarters Trans-Mississippi Dept. — 0.3 mi
• The Old Cistern — 0.3 mi