The Battlefield Under the Interstate: Finding, Characterizing, and Interpreting the 1864 Battle of Prairie D’Ane, Arkansas

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Camden Expedition National Historic Landmark includes nine properties scattered across southwest Arkansas that relate to the Spring, 1864, campaign by the U.S. Army. One of those, the battlefield at Prairie D’Ane, has been largely ignored, to the point that the actual battlefield location and the way in which the two forces traversed it are poorly understood. Since 2018, the Arkansas Archeological Survey has been working with volunteers and state agencies to locate the limits of the battlefield and reconstruct the movement of forces across it. This paper details those efforts and the findings resulting from them. This helps to fill in this part of the Camden Expedition, shows the importance of public-supported research projects, and touches on how this work is central to ongoing efforts to mark and preserve the property as an aid to economic development in the region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow