Kansas 11th Cavalry (Union)

Prairie Grove

Nine months after their victory at Pea Ridge, the Union Army of the Frontier in the area was geographically divided. One division under Brig. Gen. James Blunt remained in the northwestern part of Arkansas, and the second under Brig. Gen. Francis Herron was stationed around the Missouri capital of Springfield. The Confederates, hoping to use Arkansas as a base for operations into the border state of Missouri, looked to defeat the Union armies in the area. Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman gathered a Confederate f…READ MORE

Byram's Ford

Maj. Gen. Sterling Price's Confederate Army of Missouri headed towards Kansas City, Missouri and Fort Leavenworth, hoping to capture Missouri for the South in the weeks prior to Abraham Lincoln's reelection in 1864. Union Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis's Army of the Border, in and around Westport, was blocking Price's movement, while Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton's provisional cavalry division was pressing Price's rearguard. On October 22nd, Maj. Gen. James G. Blunt's division held a defensive position on the we…READ MORE

Westport

The Battle of Westport, fought October 21-23, was the largest battle west of the Mississippi River and the decisive battle of Confederate Gen. Stirling Price's 1864 Missouri campaign. Directions guide the visitor to the first of twenty-five narrative markers on a 32-mile, self-guided automobile tour and a self-guided walking tour of Byram's Ford and the Big Blue Battlefield. Each marker provides directions to the next stop on the tour. A written brochure is available from the Battle of Westport Visitor Cen…READ MORE

Mine Creek

About six miles south of Trading Post, Kansas, where the Marais de Cygnes cavalry engagement had occurred earlier in the day, the Union brigades of Col. Frederick Benteen and Col. John Phillips, of Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton's Provisional Cavalry Division, overtook a retreating Confederate cavalry column from Maj. Gen Sterling Price's Army of Missouri crossing Mine Creek. The rebels, stalled by their 500-wagon supply train crossing the rain-swollen ford, formed a line of about 7,000 men on the north side…READ MORE