ARKANSAS SIGHTSEEING: Civil War history marked along trail

A cannon is displayed at Reed's Bridge on the Little Rock Campaign Tour, where fighting took place on Aug. 27, 1863, with Confederates holding the line. (Photo by Marcia Schnedler, special to the Democrat-Gazette)
A cannon is displayed at Reed's Bridge on the Little Rock Campaign Tour, where fighting took place on Aug. 27, 1863, with Confederates holding the line. (Photo by Marcia Schnedler, special to the Democrat-Gazette)

A sign along U.S. 165 near the busy intersection with U.S. 70 in North Little Rock marks the rarest of casualties among the 620,000 or more Civil War deaths. It's the location where one Confederate general fatally shot another Confederate general in a duel.

This site in the Rose City neighborhood is one of eight stops on the Little Rock Campaign Tour, which begins in MacArthur Park, where the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History displays extensive Civil War material. The itinerary, which can be downloaded online, visits places involved 156 summers ago in fighting that ended with the occupation of Arkansas' Confederate capital by Union troops.

The historical tour's most extensive displays, including replicas of Civil War cannons, are along Arkansas 161 on the southern fringe of Jacksonville. Intense combat occurred here on Aug. 27, 1863, at the Reed's Bridge crossing of Bayou Meto. Confederates held the line that day against a larger Federal force.

But the campaign's most unlikely and fascinating story is told at the site where the brigadier generals dueled. An illustrated plaque shaded by a magnolia tree gives a detailed account:

"As Union forces advanced to capture Little Rock, Confederate Generals John S. Marmaduke and Lucius Marshall Walker fought the last duel in Arkansas near here at 6 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 6, 1863. The duel grew from Marmaduke's allegations that Walker had failed to support him at the July 4, 1863, Battle of Helena and the Aug. 27, 1863, battle at Reed's Bridge.

"The two West Point-educated [brigadier] generals met here at the old Lefevre home, which stood about 100 yards east of the present intersection of state highways 70 and 165. At the command 'fire,' they simultaneously discharged their weapons without effect. Marmaduke fired again, striking Walker in the right side and mortally wounding him.

"Walker was transported by Marmaduke's ambulance to the home of Mrs. Ellen Lofton Cates, in Little Rock, where he died the next morning. His last request was for someone to tell his wife, Cellie, that 'this meeting was unavoidable' and that 'the preservation of my honor demanded it.' He was buried at Little Rock's Mount Holly Cemetery on Sept. 8. Marmaduke led the unsuccessful Confederate defense of Little Rock, which fell to Union forces three days after Walker was buried."

The ferocity of the Aug. 27 combat around Reed's Bridge, one of the battles that provoked Marmaduke's complaints against Walker, is suggested by a comment posted there from Confederate Maj. John Newton Edwards:

"The enemy charged down the road in splendid style, as if to save the bridge, but it would have been better had more of them never been born. The dense cloud of smoke from the crackling, burning bridge, like sorrow's veil, hung between them and Bledsoe's battery. When the head of their long lines had nearly reached the bridge, these noble old guns sent shell and shot, winged with fury, screaming and hissing up their lines, scattering the mangled fragments of men and horses like chaff before the wind."

An extra attraction at Reed's Bridge is a replica ensemble of five farm buildings from the Civil War era. There's also a sign that gives the prices back then for crossing Bayou Meto on the local ferry, the cheapest being 3 cents for a pedestrian.

Among other stops on the campaign tour is Brownsville Cemetery, an 1863 battle location just north of Lonoke; Ashley's Mills, scene of heavy fighting at the edge of Scott Plantation Settlement; and Willow Beach Lake at Baucum, where Union troops built a pontoon bridge.

Two markers in Little Rock's Riverfront Park denote the end of the victorious Union campaign on Sept. 11, 1863. One carries an exultant quotation from Union Pvt. A.F. Sperry: "That hour of our arrival ... was one of the most stirring and poetic of our military life."

Words both hopeful and doleful are attributed to Confederate Lt. William W. Garner: "I am not discouraged, for I do think we will gain our independence sooner or later. ...But I acknowledge that I have never until the fall of Little Rock felt the sting of being an exile."

Route details for the Little Rock Campaign Tour can be downloaded as a pdf and printed at arkansas.com/little-rock-campaign-driving-tour.

Style on 08/20/2019

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