Hard Fighting Near Leetown
The families who lived outside Leetown, Arkansas first heard shots fired on the far side of Little Mountain, the low wooded rise you see to the right. Half of the Confederate Army of the West was marching eastward on Ford Road, moving this way. To delay their link-up with the other half of the Confederate army nearing Elkhorn Tavern, a small Federal force opened fire across the fields of Wiley Foster's farm.
The fighting intensified as Texas and Arkansas regiments moved south from Foster's farm to Samuel Oberson's wide cornfield. Later in the afternoon the action bogged down in a thick 100-acre woods belonging to Elizabeth Morgan. As darkness fell, the Confederates near Leetown pulled back, marching behind Big Mountain - where you now stand - to rejoin their commander on the Telegraph Road.
Marker can be reached from Military Park Road (County Road 65), on the right when traveling south.
Courtesy hmdb.org
