Pea Ridge Monuments

Situated near Elkhorn Tavern are two monuments; they are the only monuments at the Pea Ridge National Military Park. This is quite a contrast to the Gettysburg battlefield with its hundreds of granite monuments and vast arrays of metal tablets, markers, etc. Although I enjoyed examining the Gettysburg monuments, they almost make the battlefield seem like an odd sort of monument museum. By contrast, the National Park Service’s administered trans-Mississippi battlefields are nearly monument-less. I guess it is a matter of taste, but I like the less cluttered look of these battlefield parks in the trans-Mississippi.

Both of the Pea Ridge monuments are simply designed. In 1887, a marble obelisk was erected in memory of the Confederate dead.

Three sides are devoted to three prominent Confederates who were killed or mortally wounded at Pea Ridge: Brigadier General Benjamin McCulloch, Brigadier General James M. McIntosh, and Colonel William Y. Slack.

The following grim poem is carved on the fourth side:

“O give me the land with a grave in each spot,

And names in the graves that shall not be forgot.

Yes, give me the land of the wreck and the tomb;

There’s a grandeur in graves, there’s a glory in doom.”

Union and Confederate veterans dedicated the second monument in 1889.