West Overlook
Pea Ridge NMP Tour Stop #6
Directions: After walking back to your car, drive 0.7 miles along the Park's Tour Road to the West Overlook parking area [ Waypoint = N36 27.593 W94 02.528 ].
Description: The trees limit the visibility at this stop. There is an interpretive sign that describes the privations experienced by the Confederates marching along the Bentonville Detour. The actual route of the Bentonville Detour was more than a mile north of this location.
Its text reads as follows:
“A Long, Cold Hungry March”
“'I don't believe they ever made a harder march during the Revolution than we made last night.' - Jack Bower, private, 2nd Missouri Regiment”
“The 16,000-strong Confederate Army of the West spent most of the first week of March 1862 trudging on muddy roads throughout northwest Arkansas. They traveled some 60 miles from their winter camps deep in the Boston Mountains, beyond the low ridges you see in the distance, to get to Pea Ridge.”
“General Van Dorn pushed his troops hard to sweep completely around his opponent, using a back road called the Bentonville Detour. Van Dorn gambled that if he could capture the Telegraph Road – the only pipeline for Union supplies and communications – he could crush the Union army. The mountain on which you are standing hid the Confederates' approach to the vital highway.”