Overview
This two-day route follows one of Arkansas’s clearest Civil War narratives: the Union Army’s 1864 Camden Expedition, part of the broader Red River Campaign. Historic Washington State Park sets the political context in a town that served as Arkansas’s Confederate capital from 1863 to 1865. From there, the route reaches Poison Springs Battleground, where a Union forage expedition suffered a severe defeat on April 18, 1864. The second day continues to Marks’ Mills, where another Union column was struck while trying to move toward Pine Bluff, helping force General Frederick Steele to abandon plans to continue south. The route ends at Jenkins Ferry, the final major battle of the retreat toward Little Rock. Arkansas State Parks explicitly links these three battlefields and the 1836 courthouse at Historic Washington as the Red River Campaign National Historic Landmark, making this an especially coherent road-trip story.
