"Pea Ridge visit" Topic

I will be visiting the Pea Ridge battlefield in about three weeks. How much time should I allow? Anything special to look out for?

The usual tourist questions.

A couple of hours is more than suffice. You can drive around the battlefield and the museum tour runs about 30 minutes or so. Be sure and pay first. In my wonder lust of being there I walked right past the ticket counter and toured the museum and watched the video. While shopping I overheard some folks buying tickets for the museum proper. I then paid for my tour and explained what I had done.

On the battlefield itself there is a rocky hillside where the CSA forces were caught by Union artillery. It became a bloodbath. It's easy to try and imagine the shells exploding and the men screaming in those rocks. My wife had an ancestor who was a Union stretcher bearer in that battle. The cannons there are unique. Most have plastic barrels but still look the part as you approach.

Also if you have time drive another 30 minutes south to the Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park. It's well worth an hour or two of your time as well. They have a 1/72 scale diorama of the battle there.

link

This is a link to my blog with pictures from the Prairie Grove diorama I mentioned. link

And another from my blog of the battle reenactment from 2014. link

I got to tour the battlefield a few years back when my parents retired to centerton, AR a few years back. I liked it. Look forward to moving to The area in a few years when I retired.

Matthew

I would say several hour will do. It is Sponsor by Walmart and they have been doing some renovation. the Park is wonderfully untouched and Monument free.

Both Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove are worth visiting. I really liked Prairie Grove. A couple of hours for each will be enough time.

I had a great time win I visited. We stayed at a B&B in Eureka Springs. The funny thing about it is that few of the locals realized there was a national historic park just down the road from them. You would have thought the local schools would be conducting field trips there.

Everyone was more interested in some kind of religious event taking place but we could care less about that. It was great that there wasn't a bunch of monuments in the park. Very much as it was during the battle.