Ouachita County Poison Springs Battlefield

The retreat began on the night of April 26, 1864, when Steele's army crossed the Ouachita River out of Camden, eight days after Poison Spring and a day after Marks' Mills. On April 29 it reached the Saline River, swollen and wide, where engineers started a pontoon bridge while the rear guard held off Confederate attacks at Jenkins' Ferry. The column reached Little Rock in early May. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas puts the expedition's Union cost at about 2,750 men, 635 wagons and 2,500 animals, against Confederate losses of around 2,300 men.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Poison Spring Battleground State Park — steps away
  An 85-acre roadside battlefield west of Camden, where Confederates routed a Union foraging column on April 18, 1864, and many Black soldiers of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry were killed after surrendering.
• White Oak Lake State Park — 6.6 mi
  A 725-acre park on the lower of two 1961 lakes, where white sand marks an ancient shoreline and the visitor center carries a Poison Spring display eight miles from the battlefield.
• McCollum-Chidester House Museum — 10 mi
  An 1847 Greek Revival house in Camden that served as a stagecoach headquarters and, in April 1864, as General Steele's headquarters, with bullet holes still visible upstairs.
• Logoly State Park — 23 mi
  Arkansas's first environmental education state park, built on the Magnesia Springs resort and a Boy Scout camp, with about 200 acres of mature forest kept as a natural area.

More markers nearby

• The Civil War Battle of Poison Spring — steps away
• Engagement at Poison Springs — steps away
• 1st Kansas Colored Infantry — 2.1 mi
• Ouachita County Ecore a-Fabre or Fabre's Bluff — 11 mi