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(2012)
Enlarge Site
of the Confederate hospital south of Leola, Arkansas that served Jenkins'
Ferry wounded. (You have a picture already
posted of the building that burned in 1967.) Local people called it the
Cannonball house because it was hit by a cannon shell before the soldiers got
into the river bottoms and caught by the Confederates. I would say it was
located about 3 to 5 miles south of where most of the fighting occurred |
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Union
Gen. Samuel Allen Rice, wounded in the right ankle taking part of his spur
into his foot. Gen. Steele reported in his letter to superiors that his
foot was amputated. He was among the wounded sent in the ambulances from
the old stagecoach road north of Jenkins' Ferry to the east with the
hospital train to Pine Bluff about 25 miles to the east. They passed in
front of my great grandmother Ann Anderson and her parents' home Isaac and
Julia Anderson west of Crossroads on the way to Pine Bluff
Gen. Rice made it home to Iowa in May but died of his wounds on July 6,
1864. I was able to contact his great grandson, a retired veterinarian in
Iowa. Gen. Rice had been the attorney general of Iowa, was not militarily
trained but the Governor of Iowa asked him to raise a regiment and he did.
He was 38 years old when wounded. Rice's men thought highly of him and paid for his 30 foot tall marker at the cemetery in Oskaloosa, Iowa.
The eagle at the top looks to the south where he spilled his blood |
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(2012)
Enlarge Dry bed of Cox Creek
near the battlefield |
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(2012)
Enlarge Road cut at the
Jenkins' Ferry crossing on the east side of the Saline River
During the battle in 1864 this side was Saline County, the opposite bank
was in Hot Spring County. The importance of this picture is that the
pontoon bridge, if using the stagecoach road as the guide, would have been
placed here. The 34 wagons that carried the India rubber pontoon bridge
were burned at the park and the bridge was punctured with bayonets and
moved downriver |
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(2013)
Enlarge Guesses Creek
As the Union Army arrived at Guesses Creek at 12:00 Noon on Friday, April
29, 1864, they set up cannon on the north ridge to protect their wagon
train as it moved toward the Saline River bottoms. When the Confederates
arrived, they shot cannon from the south ridge and hit a house near the
north ridge. This Cannonball House would have a hole in it, and serve as
one of many hospital buildings after the battle. The house lasted until
1967 when it burned. Today this location is just over the line into Dallas
County, about 2 miles south of Leola, which is in extreme southwestern
Grant County |
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(2013)
Enlarge Cox Creek near location
of Confederate cannon captured by the 2nd Kansas Colored Troops |
