Arkansas Highway Commission Votes to Create the Camden Expedition Scenic Byway

By Peggy Lloyd/President, Camden Expedition Scenic Byway Steering Committee, 09/28/21 6:42 AM

On Wednesday, September 15, 2021, the Arkansas Highway Commission met in Little Rock, and, among other items on its agenda, voted to create the Camden Expedition Scenic Byway through Southwest Arkansas.  The Camden Expedition was a Civil War event that began at what is now the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History in Little Rock and was, at the time, part of the federal arsenal that the Union Army again occupied after re-taking Little Rock on September 11, 1863.

A spring offensive began in Little Rock on March 23, 1864, to send a Union force of 8,500 soldiers under General Frederick Steele to meet at Arkadelphia with 4,500 soldiers coming south from Fort Smith and to move toward Shreveport.  The Union force coming from Arkansas would unite with a larger Union force that was already moving northwest out of New Orleans under General N. P. Banks and attack Confederate General Kirby Smith at his headquarters in Shreveport.  Their purpose was three-fold:  to defeat General Kirby Smith, to secure the Red River for navigation and to invade cotton-rich Texas to benefit the textile mills in New England.

The Expedition was not a success.  The Union Army did not have adequate supplies to support the 13,000 soldiers in their force and the 12,000 horses and mules used as mounts by cavalry and as draft animals to pull the hundreds of wagons in Steele’s train.  After the battle of Prairie D’Ane near present-day Prescott, Steele’s army turned toward Camden, then an important river town and the second largest city in the state, in search of supplies.  They found little and were ultimately forced to return to Little Rock as Union forces in Louisiana were not successful and General Kirby Smith advanced toward the Steele’s force in Southwest Arkansas.  Steele began to refer to his foray as “the Camden Expedition” in his reports and the name stuck though his goal was actually Shreveport.  Steele’s force returned to its starting point in Little Rock on May 3, 1864.  Southwest Arkansas would remain in Confederate hands until the end of the war in 1865.

The Camden Expedition Scenic Byway passes through Pulaski, Saline, Hot Spring, Clark, Nevada, Ouachita, Calhoun, Dallas, Cleveland and Grant Counties with a spur to Historic Washington State Park in Hempstead County.  At the time of the latter part of the Civil War in Arkansas, Washington was the Confederate state capital and a supply center for southern forces.  The Byway follows the route of the Union Army as closely as possible but remains on paved roads.  A waiting period of one month from Sept. 15 remains before work resumes.  Plans are being made for the design of signage which will be manufactured by the Arkansas Department of Transportation and placed on the Byway as their work schedules permit.

The project has been led by the Camden Expedition Scenic Byway Steering Committee, a group of volunteers from the counties along the Byway, who have been working on this project since late 2015 with the end of Arkansas’ very active Civil War Sesquicentennial.  Their goals are to educate the public about Civil War sites in this region of Arkansas, to preserve these sites and to promote heritage tourism as a boost for the economy of the region and the state.