Lifeline for Two Armies
Elkhorn Tavern overlooks a highway of vital importance for Arkansas and Missouri during the Civil War. Union and Confederate leaders both wanted this 20-foot-wide dirt road to move men and supplies. Alongside the road ran 3-year-old telegraph wires, the latest way to send information and fast.
In the week before battle broke out here, both armies had hurriedly marched southward past this crossroads and tavern. The night before the shooting started, Union troops from Missouri set up a small rearguard outpost here. The soldiers had stockpiled food in the barn and tavern. Provost guards watched a handful of captured Confederates nearby.
A Road with Many Names
First built in the 1820s as a military road to link St. Louis, Missouri to Fort Smith, Arkansas, this highway served as the northern route of the Trail of Tears during the Indian removals in 1837 to 1839. It was known as the Butterfield Overland Stage Route from 1858 to 1861. Civil War troops called it the Wire Road or the Telegraph Road.
Marker is on Military Park Road (County Road 65), on the left when traveling south.
Courtesy hmdb.org
