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The Battle of Prairie Grove occurred in Prairie Grove, Arkansas, on December 7th, 1862. It was the final battle in Northwest Arkansas, giving Federal forces control of the area for the remainder of the war. Although a tactical victory for the Confederacy, they would retreat into the surrounding Boston Mountains south to Fort Smith due to a lack of supplies. Giving the Federal forces a strategic victory. The battle would involve nearly 22,000 men and end with almost 2,700 casualties. Here is a great video setting the stage for the struggle and giving us a great visual representation of the events.

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History Gone Wilder | Have History Will Travel

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Battle of Prairie Grove | Animated Battle Map

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At the epicenter of the battle is the Borden house, which is situated atop a ridge looking over a wheat field. The fighting that took place here is said to be some of the heaviest west of the Mississippi. Union and Confederate troops fought around the house and the orchard nearby suffering hundreds of casualties. The Borden family sought shelter from the chaos with other families in a cellar one mile west. Following the battle the Borden Family returned to find that their home had been burned to the ground. The structure you are seeing now was built around 1870 in the same location and style as the first structure.

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The fighting near and around the the Borden Apple Orchard lasted for 2 chaotic hours before it eventually shifted to the west near now what is the old Prairie Grove High School. At dusk the battle would finally end marking the Confederate retreat. Sargent Samuel Pittman of the 34th Arkansas infantry would get permission to go to his home nearby. When Sargent Pittman arrived home he found his family safe, but his house turned into a makeshift hospital. After a brief visit home Pittman would make his way back to the apple orchard, later he would recall, " It was midnight and up from the orchard came cries and groans and men calling for water. I concluded to go out to the center of the orchard where I could hear a voice calling I thought for water. I decided to relieve the thirst of the wounded till the water gave out. Passing a number of dead I stopped near the middle of the orchard to reconnoiter. I stopped but for a moment when a form to my front and right shrieked MOTHER MOTHER! This was the voice I had heard there was no mistaking it. In his agony and delirium the wounded solider had remembered his mother and with his life blood fastly ebbing away his cry went out to her who perhaps at that very moment was praying for her darling boys safe return". Pittman would give comfort to the dying solider then would leave the battlefield. Pittman concluded this memory with the following statement, "Often during the years that have followed I have thought of that night and often that boys cry for his mother have rung in my ears as I heard it then. A century of time could not dim the memory of that night upon the battlefield of Prairie Grove".