The Old Cistern

Water was the village's weak point. Pleasant Hill had a serious shortage of drinking water in April 1864, and most of what its cisterns held was gone after a single day of fighting. Union troops had occupied the place on April 7; on April 9 about 12,000 Union and 12,100 Confederate soldiers fought around it, and 844 Union men alone were wounded. Banks began his retreat to Grand Ecore at 1 a.m. on April 10, a few hours after the shooting ended, and gave up the plan to take Shreveport.

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 — 16 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

• Pleasant Hill Battle Park — steps away
• Headquarters Department of the Gulf / Headquarters Trans-Mississippi Dept. — steps away
• The Village of Pleasant Hill — steps away
• Leutenant General Richard Taylor — 0.3 mi