Skirmish at Rolling Prairie

The men who died at Rolling Prairie were couriers, not raiders. On January 21, 1864, Sergeant Isaac T. Jones and 24 troopers were ordered to carry dispatches to Captain W. C. Human of the Eighth Missouri State Militia in north Arkansas, finding a guide at Ozark, Missouri, on the way. Major Lyman W. Brown's report counted 12 Union dead. Within weeks Brigadier General John B. Sanborn was warning that 1,200 to 2,000 Confederates and bushwhackers were gathering in Carroll, Searcy, Newton and Izard counties, and he ordered Union cavalry to converge on Rolling Prairie.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Buffalo National River at Tyler Bend — 16 mi
  The country's first national river, kept free-flowing after a dam fight that ended in 1965, seen from the Middle District's visitor center, the Collier Homestead and the Riverview Trail.
• Rush Historic District — 22 mi
  The zinc-mining camp on Rush Creek that boomed from the 1880s, emptied after 1919 and now stands inside Buffalo National River as a ghost town.
• Boxley Valley Historic District — 25 mi
  A seven-mile farm valley of log houses, a grist mill and a 1980s elk herd inside Buffalo National River, still lived in and still grazed by cattle.
• Bull Shoals-White River State Park — 25 mi
  A state park below Bull Shoals Dam, where a visitor center overlooks the dam and lake and the White River below is a nationally known trout stream.

More markers nearby

• Caravan Spring — 9.7 mi
• Boone County Men Served Both Armies — 10 mi
• Military Activity in Boone County — 10 mi
• Skirmish at Tomahawk — 12 mi