Pea Ridge National Military Park preserves the site of a battle fought on March 7–8, 1862, that decided the fate of Missouri. General Samuel Curtis's Union army of around 10,500 men defeated Earl Van Dorn's Confederate force of 16,000 in two days of fighting across the broken terrain of the Ozark foothills, keeping Missouri in the Union and opening the way for Grant's later campaigns to the south. The park covers 4,300 acres of largely undisturbed terrain, giving visitors an unusually clear sense of how the battle unfolded.
A seven-mile driving tour loops through the main sites, with numbered stops and clear interpretive signage. The visitor centre has a good museum with weapons, uniforms, and a detailed tactical map. An eleven-mile trail system lets you cover the same ground on foot, and the park includes a segment of the Trail of Tears — the route along which thousands of Cherokee were forcibly marched in 1838. Elkhorn Tavern, a reconstruction of the building that served as a focal point of the fighting on both days, stands on the eastern edge of the battlefield and is particularly evocative.