Naval Combat at West Point

The Cricket's trip up the Little Red ended in an ambush. After taking two steamboats at Searcy on August 14, 1863, the gunboat started back down with them, past a high bend at West Point where about 500 Confederate cavalrymen waited. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Gilkey's regiment opened fire at roughly thirty yards. The Kaskaskia's pilot was wounded and the boat was nearly boarded before the Cricket towed it clear, and a second Confederate attempt was broken up by gunboat salvos. Gilkey was mortally wounded, and shells and bullets damaged houses in West Point.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Greers Ferry Dam and Lake — 31 mi
  The Corps of Engineers dam on the Little Red River that President Kennedy dedicated on October 3, 1963, with a visitor center, a trout hatchery below the dam and a lake of 340 miles of shoreline.

More markers nearby

• Action at Whitney's Lane — 4.4 mi
• Guerrilla War on the Little Red — 6.1 mi
• Searcy Landing in the Civil War — 6.1 mi
• White County Court House — 7.7 mi