Reed's Bridge

One of the larger battles of the Little Rock campaign is the battle of Reed's Bridge.  I'm a bit familiar with it from some previous research and I was glad to see that there is quite a bit preserved and that it is also well marked. 

First we ran into a small park nearby that has a bunch of markers for local history.

Then farther along we ran into two nearly connected parks on either side of the Reed's Bridge fight.  This is the Confederate side.  About 1,300 Confederates held the ground along Bayou Meto against 6,000 Federals.  There is quite a bit here to see, plenty of markers as one wanders around the park with some short walking trails. 

There are some buildings which I'm sure are well used by living historians during the tourist season.  We could peek in some windows and saw a garden full of vegetables but that was about the extent of our access.

Then on the Union side of Bayou Meto there are more markers, and cannon.  There is not much land preserved here but it is nice to have a bit preserved on both sides of the bayou so that a fuller story can be told.

A bit hard to see but in the distance the road crosses the bayou.  The other preserved land we saw earlier is on the left side of the road as seen in this picture, obscured by the trees.

One interesting thing we came across was silhouette cannons.  I'm sure it was done to show a bit of an artillery line with much less expense.  And from the road it does help.  Walking around though it feels a bit odd.  But really all it did was make me want one of my own.