Wilson's Creek, Pea Ridge, and Prairie Grove: A Battlefield Guide, with a Section on Wire Road

by Earl J. Hess, William L. Shea, Richard W. Hatcher III

Wilson’s Creek, Pea Ridge, and Prairie Grove were three of the most important battles fought west of the Mississippi River during the Civil War. They influenced the course of the first half of the war in that region by shaping Union military efforts while significantly contributing to Confederate defeat. Wilson’s Creek, Pea Ridge, and Prairie Grove , the first book to provide a detailed guide to these battlefields, takes the visitor step-by-step through the major sites of each engagement. With numerous maps and illustrations that enhance the authors’ descriptions of what happened at each stop, the book also includes analytical accounts explaining tactical problems associated with each battle as well as vignettes evoking for readers the personal experience of those who fought there.

 

An indispensable companion for the battlefield visitor, this guide offers not only touring information and driving tours of sites associated with the campaigns that led to the battles, but also a brief history of each battle and an overview of the larger strategy and tactics of the military action in which these battles figured.

Genres: Civil War, American Civil War, Transmississippi, History

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2006

About the author

Earl J. Hess is Stewart W. McClelland Chair in History at Lincoln Memorial University and the author of numerous books on the Civil War.

Reviews

[Don Heiman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Earl Hess with 3 author/collaborators published “Wilson’s Creek, Pea Ridge, and Prairie Grove Civil War Battlefield Guides” in 2006. The guides are exceptional. The book presents key stops on each battlefield, vignettes for troop encounters, site orientations, and historic field landmarks. The research is detailed and the guides are clearly written. The book also has a section for touring landmarks on an historic road that interconnects the three battlefields. (P)

[Bob R Bogle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really quite a remarkable little guide covering all the essential ground between Wilson's Creek at Springfield and down to Prairie Grove in Arkansas. It's quite impressive to me how its already noteworthy authors (see, for example, Shea and Hess' Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West) have been able to compress so much detail about so much ground into so little space. The maps are quite excellent as well.

I bought the ebook version and have some quibbles about the formatting, but their minor. I live a thousand miles away from Pea Ridge, but having this guide on my reader makes me want to return to the region ASAP and start tramping around some of the back roads they mention. Other reviewers here mention certain local sites that this book misses and I won't disagree with them, but nevertheless I would highly recommend this guide to anyone who will be visiting any of the parks which it covers.

I also own a few other volumes in the Civil War Battlefield Guide series of which this is a part. They're all generally very good, but I'm tending to think this is the best one I've come across in the series.

[Iain · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've only read select portions of this book, but it's a excellent guide to the battles and battlefields so important in the Western theater of the ACW. Should I travel in the area, I would definitely bring a copy.