The Old Confederate Military Road

Soldiers did most of the work, and enslaved men did some of it. The Clio entry on the road says Confederate authorities assigned the Rev. William Perkins, Alexander Frazar and W. J. Slaydon to build the first stretch to Sugartown, and that the few slaveholders near the route supplied enslaved men to help. Crews improved fords, cleared timber to straighten curves, and laid logs across marsh to carry heavy loads. The whole road ran about 130 miles to Alexandria, to feed General Taylor's army in central Louisiana.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Niblett's Bluff Park — steps away
  A community park on the Louisiana bank of the Sabine, on the site of a river crossing, a plantation, a Confederate post and a lumber camp.
• Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center — 8.1 mi
  More than 250 acres on Adams Bayou, begun by H. J. Lutcher Stark in 1937, with garden rooms, a cypress-tupelo swamp, a heronry blind and free pontoon tours in season.
• Stark Museum of Art — 8.2 mi
  A white-marble museum in Orange built by the Stark Foundation and opened in 1978, holding Western art, American Indian art, Audubon's Birds of America and Steuben glass, free to enter.
• Creole Nature Trail Adventure Point — 18 mi
  A free visitor center at the western gateway of Louisiana's only All-American Road, with exhibits on alligators, migrating songbirds and the estuary.

More markers nearby

• Civil War Memorial — steps away
• Emma Henderson Wallace — 7.4 mi
• Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown — 7.4 mi
• Black Education in Orange County — 7.4 mi